International immigration laws are generally quite complex, extensive, and constantly changing. Therefore, potential immigrants mostly look for legal assistance because of their lack of familiarity with immigration laws and proceedings. However, despite immigrants’ best efforts to complete the visa process properly, thousands of them fall victim to immigration fraud every year.
WWICS aims to equip potential immigrants with the knowledge they need to protect themselves from online immigration fraud. The good thing is that you can easily spot a company running an online immigration fraud operation by keeping certain things in mind.
Here are WWICS’ 5 Red Flags for Online Immigration Fraud:
- Asking you for money to access or download official application form
Application or other official forms are generally free and available to the public on the government’s official website. If a website tries to sell you access to application form, or offers to fill out application form on your behalf without giving you access to the form; it can be a scam.
- Claiming to be affiliated with the government but their domain extension does not contain .gov.
Only certified government websites have domain extension containing .gov. However, numerous scams use “.gov” or other titles of government agencies in their website URL but they end in .com, .org, .net, and many other generic domain extensions. This can be a major sign that they are running an online immigration fraud.
- No business address, contact info, or relevant authentication found on their website
All legitimate immigration consultant or service providers are accredited with government license issued by the government of the country they are operating in. Therefore, it is very important for you to make sure that the organization assisting you in your case should have an immigration lawyer or an accredited immigration specialist on staff. Moreover, always look for official business address and contact information mentioned on their website. If there is no sign of such information, you need to realise that you are at wrong place.
- Do not show you the details of your case and/or what they are submitting to the government
Transparency and clear, open communication is a key feature of any genuine and legitimate immigration service. However, WWICS is often contacted by individuals whose lawyers or immigration services company submitted applications with wrong information because the customer was never shown their own case documents before they were sent to the government. A reliable and legal online services provider has nothing to hide and he/she always like to share everything with you online before they ever submit documents to government.
- It just doesn’t feel reliable
No doubt getting immigration services from an expert are essential and life-changing, but it does not mean you need to feel pressured to buy if you don’t feel right about it. Conduct some research to make sure you really know what you are getting into by talking to an employee on the phone, check out the organisation or representative’s online reviews, and checking how long the company has been operating in immigration field.
WWICS – one of the leading global resettlement service providers, always recommend you to take all of the aforementioned factors and information into consideration while looking for any immigration service provider online. By keeping these facts in mind you can easily spot and protect you from being a victim of an online immigration scam.