Police investigate alleged scam on foreign students in Barcelona language school

Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra police are investigating a possible scam by the NL College language school in Barcelona involving foreign students. The education center shut down in July and operated from the Catalan capital and Madrid.

The school, according to Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and later confirmed by the Catalan News Agency (ACN), shut down in July with hundreds of students left hanging and without any information.

The center offered Spanish language courses to foreigners with the goal of obtaining an official study visa or regulating their paperwork. Due to the abrupt closing of the education site, many students are now in an undocumented area, as they were not able to obtain their Foreign Identity Card (TIE in Spanish).

Spain's consumer organization Facua had already warned in August that the center had first sent an email stating that the site was going on holiday, but did not explain when it was planning to reopen. A few days later, students received an email explaining that the site had already been closed.

These students did not receive any information or reimbursement for the cost of the language courses that they had already paid for. These courses had an average price of €3,500 per year.

The consumer organization said that people who have been affected "have the right to partially or fully recover the cost of the already paid courses."