Press Releases 2007

US Embassy Warns Against Fraudulent Visa Appointments

The U.S. Embassy in Kingston is investigating the attempted manipulation of its online non-immigrant visa appointment system and warns the Jamaican public to avoid dealing with persons offering to procure early visa appointments. 

All applicants for U.S. visitor visas are required to give their full name, passport number and “Paymaster” receipt number to reserve a visa appointment. A growing number of appointments made on the Embassy’s online system contain fictitious information and have been made simply to hold a place in our interview schedule. These fictitious appointments cause problems for everyone, especially by adding to the waiting time for legitimate travelers from Jamaica to secure a timely appointment. 

Persons found to be tampering with the appointment data base and/or filing fraudulent appointments will be reported to the Jamaican authorities for possible criminal prosecution. Persons entering the U.S. Embassy with falsified appointment letters will be denied visas and may be subject to permanent visa ineligibility.
All applicants or honest, reliable persons acting on their behalf should schedule visa appointments online at: https://evisaforms.state.gov/default.asp?postcode=KNG&appcode=3
This is an electronic calendar that will show available dates and times.  Applicants should avoid people or businesses that claim to be able to schedule expedited appointments. There is no charge for scheduling visa interview appointments (including emergency appointments) on the Embassy’s electronic calendar.  If you believe that a travel agent or individual is providing questionable services, please inform the Embassy at kingstonvisas@state.gov  so that we can act to prevent other applicants from being charged high fees for fraudulent services.
The Embassy also urges applicants who change their appointments to remember to delete their previous dates to allow the other slots to be made available for other applicants.  We do monitor duplicate appointments, and any individual who reserves more than one date at the same time invites having one or both of the appointments deleted.  Make sure that the information on your visa application and appointment is as accurate as possible.   Do not secure an appointment with partial or incomplete information because appointments without proper passport numbers or incomplete names are also routinely deleted from our system.

Please plan ahead when making travel plans, and do not make reservations that cannot be changed or cancelled without securing the US visa first.  As always, the embassy does accommodate applicants with special needs or emergent travel needs.  Do not pay a travel agency extra for an emergency appointment because only the US Embassy can give you an emergency appointment.  We will contact the applicants directly in such situations. Any applicant needing an emergency appointment should follow the procedures listed on our website at:
http://kingston.usembassy.gov/visa_services.html