The refund cheques for Nova Scotia's failed immigration program have started to roll out.

Malcolm Bradley was one of hundreds of immigrants who wrote a cheque for $130,000 to Nova Scotia's immigration nominee program to come to the province and land a six-month mentorship with a local company.

The program didn't quite work out that way for Bradley, who had packed up and moved his family from London, England, to Halifax in July 2006.

But he's one of the lucky ones who took part in the province's controversial nominee program. Just before Christmas, he received a $100,000 refund from the provincial Immigration Department.

To date, eight people have received the refund cheques. It's expected the province will repay up to $60 million in fees.

About 600 applicants who have not started the program are eligible for the refund. But the province says the 200 people who graduated from the program won't get their money back, even though some say they were given ill-suited mentorships and never got their money's worth.

Under the program, foreign nationals paid $130,000 each for a six-month internship that would allow them to immigrate to Nova Scotia. They got paid a minimum salary of $20,000, with companies getting up to $80,000 to cover costs associated with being a mentor. About $30,000 went to cover program fees.

Bradley has set up his own internet-based business in the basement of his home in Hubley, just outside Halifax. It's just two computers and a couple of printers, sandwiched between the family's pool table and ping pong table.

But he said it's better than the new start in life offered by the provincial nominee program.

"We were actually promised a list of investment opportunities that we could choose from which turned out to be, you know, a very small list of jobs that were just totally unsuitable for me," Bradley said Friday.

Of the program, Bradley said: "It was a state of chaos."

He said he was ready to take the province to court to get his money back, if he hadn't been eligible for the refund.

"As far as I was concerned, it was just total breach of contract all the way through," Bradley said.

Bradley has already used his refund to buy property on the Eastern Shore where he plans to open a guest house.

The business mentor program is being phased out. It was administered by Cornwallis Financial until last year, when the province did not renew its contract. The private firm has since filed a lawsuit over the termination.