floridapete
07-13-2006, 11:10 AM
Immigration is BIG business ! So many people with so many dreams - it's just like taking sweets off a child, taking big bucks of people who so dearly want to emigrate from everywhere to anywhere.
BUT BEWARE - THERE ARE SOME SHARKS IN THEM WATERS !
I have seen so many adverts over the years offering Green Card opportunities through jobs which are 'urgently required' in the USA. They always involve heavy upfront fees and stage payments while you wait for your application to be 'processed'. Meanwhile, these firms are just fishing for suckers and keep gently tugging on that line while the money is flowing. At the end, when the money dries up, the candidate realises that there was only a sharp hook at the end - not a Green Card at all !
Many years ago I was involved in pursuing a London firm all the way to Florida to catch up with their "guaranteed Green Card" which was based on the 'urgent need of HGV drivers in America'. They took adverts in all the UK and European truckers mags and got hundreds of these drivers signed up into their 'training scheme'. For an upfront fee of thousands of pounds they would go on monthly courses, flying into Sanford, and the course would be taken at a HGV driving school on the outskirts of Orlando. The school may stiil be there ! Of course, just anyone could take the HGV course (at that time prior to 9/11 things were VERY sloppy) - even people who just came into the USA on tourists visa waivers !
After the week long HGV course, they each 'passed' and were given a diploma of some sort. Then they were all sent back to the UK/Europe to 'await their job application being processed'. This would involve further amounts of thousands of pounds being handed over at regular intervals. How can these people have been so naive ? They were hearing everything that they WANTED to hear - that's why !
Of course, there was never going to be any jobs driving those big flashy trucks in the USA - because they have no shortage of their own HGV drivers. And such a job would never qualify to get a Green Card anyway !
Eventually, the UK and US authorities caught up with the wise-guys involved in this scam, with a little help from us. They caught one of the directors of the firm as he escorted yet another party of 'trainees' in through Sanford. He was jailed pending trial and the poor unwitting victims were turned right around and sent back home on the next flight. No training - no Green Cards - no nothing !
Eventually the guy was tried in a Fla. court, found guilty of immigration crime, jailed in a Fla. prison and then later deported to the UK to face further charges back here. His co-director of the UK company was also found guilty of fraud and 'banged up'.
Many hundreds of people lost thousands of pounds on that scam. They also lost their dreams.
A very good friend was one of them. I had tried to tell her that the firm she was expecting a Green Card job from was bent. But she didn't want to hear because she had already paid them £3,500 - and was still waiting two years later for that job and GC to come true. In the end she was one of the victims, by which time she had paid them over £6,000.
Fortunately, for her, a family sponsorship came good through her sister married to an American in Seattle and a US Ciitzen in her own right. She had filed that years before the 'relocation agency' fiasco, and it came up, by sheer luck, soon after she had fallen victim to the scam artists. In all it had taken eight years for her Green Card to come through from that family sponsorship.
Last I heard she was still struggling to make ends meet in the Winter Springs area north of Orlando. But she is 'living the dream' that she yearned for even though her daughter is still back in the UK and has absolutely no interest in joining Mum in America at all.
So do be careful who you are dealing with in the 'jobs for green cards' market !
BUT BEWARE - THERE ARE SOME SHARKS IN THEM WATERS !
I have seen so many adverts over the years offering Green Card opportunities through jobs which are 'urgently required' in the USA. They always involve heavy upfront fees and stage payments while you wait for your application to be 'processed'. Meanwhile, these firms are just fishing for suckers and keep gently tugging on that line while the money is flowing. At the end, when the money dries up, the candidate realises that there was only a sharp hook at the end - not a Green Card at all !
Many years ago I was involved in pursuing a London firm all the way to Florida to catch up with their "guaranteed Green Card" which was based on the 'urgent need of HGV drivers in America'. They took adverts in all the UK and European truckers mags and got hundreds of these drivers signed up into their 'training scheme'. For an upfront fee of thousands of pounds they would go on monthly courses, flying into Sanford, and the course would be taken at a HGV driving school on the outskirts of Orlando. The school may stiil be there ! Of course, just anyone could take the HGV course (at that time prior to 9/11 things were VERY sloppy) - even people who just came into the USA on tourists visa waivers !
After the week long HGV course, they each 'passed' and were given a diploma of some sort. Then they were all sent back to the UK/Europe to 'await their job application being processed'. This would involve further amounts of thousands of pounds being handed over at regular intervals. How can these people have been so naive ? They were hearing everything that they WANTED to hear - that's why !
Of course, there was never going to be any jobs driving those big flashy trucks in the USA - because they have no shortage of their own HGV drivers. And such a job would never qualify to get a Green Card anyway !
Eventually, the UK and US authorities caught up with the wise-guys involved in this scam, with a little help from us. They caught one of the directors of the firm as he escorted yet another party of 'trainees' in through Sanford. He was jailed pending trial and the poor unwitting victims were turned right around and sent back home on the next flight. No training - no Green Cards - no nothing !
Eventually the guy was tried in a Fla. court, found guilty of immigration crime, jailed in a Fla. prison and then later deported to the UK to face further charges back here. His co-director of the UK company was also found guilty of fraud and 'banged up'.
Many hundreds of people lost thousands of pounds on that scam. They also lost their dreams.
A very good friend was one of them. I had tried to tell her that the firm she was expecting a Green Card job from was bent. But she didn't want to hear because she had already paid them £3,500 - and was still waiting two years later for that job and GC to come true. In the end she was one of the victims, by which time she had paid them over £6,000.
Fortunately, for her, a family sponsorship came good through her sister married to an American in Seattle and a US Ciitzen in her own right. She had filed that years before the 'relocation agency' fiasco, and it came up, by sheer luck, soon after she had fallen victim to the scam artists. In all it had taken eight years for her Green Card to come through from that family sponsorship.
Last I heard she was still struggling to make ends meet in the Winter Springs area north of Orlando. But she is 'living the dream' that she yearned for even though her daughter is still back in the UK and has absolutely no interest in joining Mum in America at all.
So do be careful who you are dealing with in the 'jobs for green cards' market !