Posted 19 февраля 2022,, 14:28

Published 19 февраля 2022,, 14:28

Modified 24 декабря 2022,, 22:38

Updated 24 декабря 2022,, 22:38

Carte blanche for ripping off. Visa centers in Russia impose new fees

Carte blanche for ripping off. Visa centers in Russia impose new fees

19 февраля 2022, 14:28
Фото: ridus.ru
Many consulates in Russia continue to operate closed due to the pandemic. Authorities for the most massive and troublesome tourist destination have been outsourced to visa centers. Taking advantage of a temporarily acquired monopoly, commercial organizations are forcing tourists to fork out at every turn.

Anna Snezhina

Although the current tourist flow is not comparable to pre-Covid times, making an appointment at the visa centers is not an easy test. The numbers are sorted out weeks in advance, it turns out that you need to take care of obtaining a visa months before the planned trip.

But there is a hypothesis that the hype with coupons is created artificially.

In the branches of VFC Global and BLS , for example, an application for a tourist visa is caught for weeks. To do this, several times a day, you need to check the grid with the schedule to see if there are finally free places.

They answer the phone of the visa center - wait and catch it. But travelers are often pressed for time, and unclear time horizons for obtaining a visa are a real headache.

At the same time, on the website of the centers, in addition to the category of visiting " Tourism " (Tourism), there is a universal " Others " (Other). Many desperate people, hoping to sneak into an appointment in a tricky way, press this button and receive an invitation. But before coming to the center, they do not understand what a trap they have fallen into.

“At the entrance to the visa center, they build control, and they let you in only by slots for a certain day and at a certain time. If you need a tourist visa, and you come with an “Others” coupon, you are either turned around and advised to continue to catch the “Tourism” coupon, or they offer you to go to the VIP-lounge and register on a commercial basis for 7,000 rubles (per person), or for 11,000 rubles (per person). It's called premium service. 11 thousand - sat down, crossed his legs, rush around you and do everything for you. 7 thousand - they don’t rush around you, you do everything yourself, but they accept documents from you without questions and without any preliminary appointments , ”the client of the visa center told NI.

Before the New Year, they asked for $42 for VIP service, now it's almost $100. Plus a fee and a service fee of 5,000 rubles, delivery of a passport - 1,200 rubles. Appetites are growing. And when Russia opens entry to other countries without quarantines and without interference, there will be an emergency, in general, they will take $ 200?! clients comment.

The staff of the visa center is uncompromising - first visas, then plane tickets. No one cares that you do not have time for your plane. And if you really need it urgently, buy the additional service “Priority Delivery”.

Such a compulsion to pay extra-service could still be understood if the situation with queues was really tense. However, according to the testimonies of clients, there are no crowds in ordinary document filing rooms, but for some reason the VIP room is always packed to capacity.

Extortion begins with the approaches to the visa center. On the street porch, a representative of the insurance company spuds the stream, offering "special conditions" for insurance. In a pandemic, many countries set a mandatory condition for entry: the purchase of a medical policy with coverage for the treatment of COVID -19.

Further, at the entrance, already from inside the building, there is a cordon of employees in uniforms. They sell the "Escort" service. You ask - for what? Well, firstly, so as not to get lost in a huge building, and secondly, “to do everything as it should be” - so that a visa is not denied.

When, having passed the preliminary barriers, you finally get to the receiving windows, the second round begins.

The requirements for filing documents at visa application centers are often much more complicated than in the consulates themselves.

If earlier visa application forms could be filled out by hand in a free order, in different variations, now the form must be filled out electronically and in strict accordance with the set of rules.

Literally find fault with every comma, space, stick-dash. Ivan Ivanov instead of the prescribed IVAN IVANOV - no credit. The gap between the series and the passport number is failure and no options for the second year.

Particularly limitless possibilities for the exercise of power are given by fields with addresses. God forbid, in the address Lenina , 54-1 / 33, forget to insert the abbreviations APT ( apartment - apartment ) or BLD ( building - building) or write the index out of order. You will be asked why you came so unprepared at all and will be sent home to work on the mistakes.

Or ... they will kindly advise you to reprint everything. Internet cafe, oh luck!, just on the same floor. Printing one page - 47 rubles. Cashier nearby.

Got the wrong photo? No problem. The photo studio, by a lucky chance, is also on the floor. 452 rubles to the same box office, and real experts will take you the right photo.

You can’t insert a flash drive into local computers, so even if you are such an organized pedant, fill out the form from scratch. But you can make your life easier and use the "Filling out the questionnaire" service, where an experienced consultant will do everything for you with a 100% guarantee and for only 480 rubles.

Do you want to sleep peacefully in the coming days and not guess whether they will refuse or not refuse a visa? Then order the service of preliminary verification of documents "Do it right". Only15.

There are dozens of dishes on the menu of visa centers for any budget.

“In the consulate itself, they don’t dig into the documents like they do in the visa center. They just make a cash register, bonuses for themselves, and also scattered barter partners on the floor. At least don’t write a collective letter to the embassy that the agencies **** [have become impudent],” the tourists are indignant.

And then the employee in the window accepted your package of documents, and now you paid the fee, and you can, it would seem, relax.

But at the exit, a new test of strength awaits you. A pleasant girl from all sides - a representative of a partner bank under a special program - offers to return the paid fee - 5,000 rubles. During two months. Cashback to a registered bank card issued right here in five minutes. The card is not simple, but golden. It can be used to pay abroad, the service is free, no additional services, hidden clauses of the contract and small print under the footnotes. And take a gift from the bank - a pillow for an airplane, a power bank, a mug or a leather passport case. And I, your personal manager Masha, is always in touch, any questions - day and night, here is a business card with a cell phone in your hand.

The next day, you discover that you left the visa application center with a issued loan (credit card). And some clauses of the agreement with the bank hint that the very promised cashback of 5,000 rubles is turning into a very confusing and vague event.

And last but not least, the mega bonus.

From the check from the duty, two extra lines shamelessly peek out. In addition to the visa fee itself, the center charged a service fee (for the fact that you were so well served when receiving documents) and a FEE FOR THE DELIVERY OF A READY PASSPORT.

More than 50% of the check in this way is a service charge. And if the service fee can still be somehow understood - it’s like they provided you with a wardrobe, a toilet, an armchair, etc., then the fee for the delivery of a passport with a visa is already something beyond. SMS or e - mail about the readiness of the visa to you, by the way, no one will send. Do you want to be notified? Pay 235 rubles for notification.

Harmless 600 rubles - say, the usual price for the delivery of small-sized goods in Moscow. But why, for this money, is your passport delivered not to your home, but to some incomprehensible warehouse that has nothing to do with either the consulate or the visa center? What is happening in reality? You, according to the check, pay your hard-earned 600 rubles to the courier for the delivery of your passport with a ready-made visa, but you still go on your own and look for a passport in the warehouses of some third-party organization.

Without presenting a receipt for payment of courier delivery, your passport with a visa will not be returned to you. You will no longer have to butt with a foreign mission, but with a courier service! An identity document is thus simply taken hostage.

It is difficult to imagine such a situation with a national passport. Imagine you give your Russian passport to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to provide you with some kind of public service, for example, stamping a residence permit. Soon you will find out that the finished document is in some courier catacombs, and they will not give it to you without a ransom. It's just the theft of the main identity card and extortion. Probably, you will ask the Ministry of Internal Affairs, by what right did he give your passport to bad people.

Why is it impossible to pick up a passport with a stamped visa from the same visa center that you applied to, at worst, from the consulate that stamps this visa? Answer: in a harsh time, a tourist is such a rare kind of person who managed to keep some money in stock. Insolent! In retaliation for such impudence, he must certainly share this money - with the consulate, with the visa center and with all the commercial partners who have stuck to them. Because there is nothing!

“If you are flying with a family, visa fees are close to a hundred, that is, the cost of the trip itself. Sometimes it seems that it is cheaper to fly to the regions and apply for visas there than to overpay for imposed services in Moscow, St. Petersburg, ”tourists share their experience.

We do not want to say that the visa centers are a fiend of hell and they should be destroyed. Many travelers really like these spacious and clean rooms, a high concentration of helpful assistants per 1 square meter, and a generally customer-oriented service (as opposed to a government consular one). For inexperienced tourists, the “all inclusive for your money” support can also be very useful.

It is clear that during the pandemic, the tourism industry has fallen into an unprecedented decline and everyone is starving to death.

But we ask only one thing: do not try to create artificial excitement where it does not exist, to rip off and financially rape tourists even before they leave their native country.

One thing is certain: before the coronavirus, there was no such “looting” in the visa centers...

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