The OFW Tourist Visa Scam

There’s a scam that I have been meaning to warn people about for quite a while but I just haven’t had the time.

I’ve had a couple guys email me asking if they are about to be conned/scammed out of money. My answer was “yes, this looks like a scam.” I don’t know how common this type of scam is, but I’m willing to write this quick post if it saves one person from being conned.

Here’s how this scam works:

A Filipina will begin an online relationship with a man from America (other nationalities may be involved–Chinese women may be doing this as well, but these specific scams involve Filipinas).

She will claim to be an OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) who is working in China.

She will chat with her potential male victim for a few days, then quickly tell him that she wants to come see him. She will then recommend an agency that can make it happen. She will also claim this agency was able to get her friend into the United States.

He contacts the agency and gets an email like this:

Thank you for your correspondence with (name of agency).

According to your request,we can provide tourist / Visit visa (Valid for One to twelve months) for travel and ticket purchased from us.

Please find below basic requirement for visa applications:

(1) Tourist/Visitors Visa (Valid for One to twelve months)

(2) Complete name and address of (Applicant’s friend, relative or family member, including the telephone number)

(3) A valid travel passport good for more than 1 yr for the person traveling

(4) 4 photograph passport sizes.

(5)$150 for the visa fees, Medical Insurance $80 and Medical Examination fees $320 and $150 for Service charge this make the total $700 USD.

(6) A valid Chinese work visa

(7) A confirmed round trip ticket purchased from Shenzhen Dynasty Travel Tours All other document required will be provided by our office

Note: A waiting period of 10(Ten) to 14(Fourteen) working days is needed to process applications.

The Current minimal travel fare for a round trip ticket from Guangzhou, China (CAN) to St. Paul, MN, United States of America (STP) is (Nine Hundred And Eighty United States Dollars) $980 USD flight carrier China Southern Airlines

Additional $700 Us Dollars for visa fees, medical fees, and service charge will be added to the ticket price, that will give you the total cost for this trip as 1,680 US Dollars

In order to proceed with this application, our office will require the submission of all listed documents and fees.

Should there be any assistance needed, please contact our office.

The total bill is nearly 1700 dollars. But that’s a small price to pay for meeting the woman of your dreams, right?

Look up the agency name and you’ll find an attractive website with beautiful pictures and glowing testimonies.

I don’t have time to do thorough research on this, so let’s just say there are a lot of “red flags” that come to mind:

Here’s the main issue: as I have mentioned before, I never recommend trying to use a tourist visa as a way to meet a Filipina. The US Embassy almost automatically rejects tourist visa applications by young Filipinas by default.  The Embassy can “smell” these kinds of visa applications from a mile away. Tourist visas are simply very difficult to acquire for Filipinos/Filipinas unless they can prove they have substantial assets in the Philippines (a reason to return).

I don’t see how a Chinese agency would have the ability to bypass this difficulty and acquire a tourist visa from the United States Embassy.

Speaking of tourist visas, the actual application cost around a hundred bucks at the US Embassy. I have no idea where this “agency” gets these fees from.

Hopefully you can see why none of this makes sense to me. It has all the marks of a scam. A few dollars for a website an a few hours of chatting can be very profitable for con artists.

My advice: let her know you are not going to apply for this “tourist visa.” Suggest other alternatives, like coming to visit her. You’ll probably see that she loses interest pretty quickly.

I recommend finding a legitimate website for meeting Filipinas if you are really looking for love in the Philippines.