Kenyans seeking visas to travel abroad will have to contend with five new measures that have been set up to tackle the rampant appointment fraud.
In a statement dated June 24, VFS Global, a technology services provider that handles the administrative aspects of visa, passport, and consular applications on behalf of various governments, revealed that scammers posing as its employees had infiltrated the appointment booking process.
These imposters reportedly promise an early appointment at an additional cost, thereby extorting unwitting visa applicants.
To curb this, the company announced that only applicants with a valid appointment would henceforth be permitted entry into the centre premises.
Secondly, a visa application form validation system has been developed to integrate the form reference number with the appointment booking reference.
A One-Time-Password (OTP) code will also be required to book the appointment to limit the intervention of such agents.
The service provider would also be launching anti-fraud messages across social media platforms, on the appointment letter, in call centre voice messages, advertisements, posters and many more.
Lastly, it urged applicants to report any such instances by emailing the details to a set email address for such reports.
"We strongly advise all applicants to be careful of touts and fraudulent parties who falsely promise early appointment bookings in exchange for payment," Stephen Kubasu, General Manager-Operations at VFS Global, stated.
"With the presence of location pins and information on popular social media and search platforms, many such fraudsters create a fake presence using company credentials like logos, official name etc. and include their contact details in the details provided on these pages that deceive genuine travellers who mistake these details as the official presence of the company."
Some of the destinations that will be affected by this move are the UK, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Iceland and Austria.
This is yet another curveball for applicants, just weeks after the United States directed its missions to stop scheduling new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants as the State Department prepares to expand social media vetting of foreign students.
