Scalpers corner visa interview dates

HYDERABAD: Thousands of students aspiring to study in the US have been left stranded by some visa consultants who have been cornering the visa interview dates by misusing an online facility provided by the US consulate.
The facility, a website www.ttsvisas.com, allows applicants to block a date and convenient time for the interview. The software also permits them to modify, cancel or change the name of the applicant, and the time of interview.Visa consultants are exploiting this facility to corner dates.
Here’s how they operate: using fictitious names and passport numbers, they block an interview slot on the website. When an applicant wanting to jump the queue comes to them, they sell the slot to him, extracting a decent premium in the range of Rs 1,000. Those in the queue are left high and dry.
When a consultant blocks a date, he gets a receipt number. When he gets a ‘client’ who wants an interview date in a hurry, he goes to the ‘modify or cancel’ section of the site, fills in details of his receipt number, e-mail address and passport number, and cancels his own appointment and quickly fixes an appointment for the ‘client’.
To see how consultants misuse the system, The Times of India got appointments using fictitious names, addresses and non-existent passport numbers on Thursday. Appointments were fixed in the names of Bharat Raj and Anand Sushma. The passport numbers used were A2378904 and A2234689.
Raj’s appointment was confirmed for 11 am, Sept. 16, and later changed to 8.30 am, Sept. 4. An appointment for Sushma was taken for 11 am on Sept. 16. Both were later cancelled.
With visa consultants scalping dates, just a handful of interview slots are available in the next five months at the US consulate in Chennai, none until Sept. 16. “Some Chennai-based organisations are selling dates for about Rs 1,000,� said the chairman of a city visa consultancy. Many of these agencies have links in Hyderabad.
With scalpers operating, students enrolled for the fall semester in US universities have been left desperate.