The United States Embassy in the Philippines recently kick-started a campaign to stop criminals and other corrupt individuals from victimizing people in the Philippines who want to apply for an American visa. The US Embassy campaign is called “No Secret” in English and it has four important goals.
The first goal of the visa application campaign is to facilitate the “honest application” of United States visas. The second goal is to warn people of the dangers of illegal visa fixers, people who charge for visa services. The third goal is to raise the public’s awareness of visa fraud, and the fourth goal is to encourage the public to be more vigilant and to report any issues of visa scams and problems.
The US Embassy said that most of the visa scam targets are people wanting to travel to America on vacation, as a student, or as a temporary worker. Many of these people are prone to falling for supposedly “quick fix” solutions.
The Embassy states that every visa applicant must understand that there is a secure and official visa application process that is freely available on the website of the US Embassy in the Philippines. Anyone who offers to fix up visas for a fee is taking advantage of a lack of knowledge about the system. In the worst cases, these fixers disappear with the person’s money without giving anything in return. In the “best” cases, the person pays for a service that they could have easily had for free or at least much less money. Fixers who claim to be able to get visas in cases where they were previously refused are certainly not to be trusted, the Embassy warns. While Filipinos may be desperate and eager to get themselves a valid visa, going through illegal channels is not the way to secure one.
