Phone Calls

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Trang and I barely talked over the phone. In fact most of our communication is through Yahoo chats. We also use the Yahoo Messenger Phone Call feature which is kinda like Skype. We use this alot as well. So basically we make phone calls to each other over the internet. I made screen shots on the webcam of both of us wearing our headseats as well as the call durations for our conversations on the headsets. Will the CO think this is strange or will they want copies of actual phone bills instead?

-Travis & Trang

The CO will not look at them, I even said in our time line that is what we did, Binh also had screen shots as well with us both in the picture. They should, but what you will have to do is MAKE them take them, they will not do it on their own. I suggest doing what you are doing, and keep taking screen shots, and just stress to your fiancée that she try to give them to the CO at the interview over and over and over again, and to stress to them that you use Yahoo and Skype, not the phone. If this does not work, and they give you a blue slip, when you get what they want turn in all of those as well. At this point they will have them no matter what, and I do not know if it is possible to do this or not, but ask for some sort of paper that shows you submitted "blank number of pages" this way if the CO lies as they did in our case you can say "Hey where did all those papers go? DID you file them in the trash receptacle??" but as I said I am not sure they will give you any type of receipt, but if you turn it in they have to accept it. Good luck Jerome and Binh

The issue at hand is not what we all feel that we want to do or what SHOULD be acceptable. The issue is that you have to convince a third party (the CO) who is highly skeptical at best. Think about it. Every day, they see fraudulent cases and people trying to rip them off with scams that are elaborate. How hard do you think it is to create a speadsheet that looks like the Skype Call Exporter? I used it, too, but only as one tiny piece of a mountain of evidence. The best proof is something that is irrefutable. You can fake chat call logs. You can fake the screenshots because you could change clothes 50 times on one session. With a green card at stake, these are small prices to pay.

Consider this. We all know that cell phones in VN are pay as you go. Don't have the VN person do the calling. US petitioner, you make the calls. Call from a land line that gets a monthly bill or a cell phone that gets a monthly bill. Don't use pre-paid cell phones, unlimited services or calling cards as your PRIMARY call evidence because you will not have documentation. As I mentioned before, call with some verifiable method once or twice a week for 20-30 minutes. Now, you have irrefutable evidence because the bill you get from Verizon or ATT has your calls from YOUR number to the VN number (just be sure that the number you are calling in VN is the same number that the applicant will use on the DS-156 and other submitted forms).

After you have established this PRIMARY evidence, build your SECONDARY evidence with chat logs, screenshots, etc, etc.

That isn't practical for a lot of people. An 18 minute call from my land line phone to Phuong's cell phone costs $135. Also, creating an authentic-looking call transcript from AT&T would be just as easy as faking a transcript from Skype or Yahoo Messenger. Both are just pieces of paper printed on a computer. In the end, the CO is either going to believe the evidence or they're not. If they're going to believe the AT&T transcript before they'd believe a transcript for a calling card or Skype or Yahoo, then they're also going to believe that the petitioner is a bonehead that doesn't know how to manage his/her money since they prefer to spend $5 a minute on a phone call rather than calling for free using VoIP, or heavily discounted using a calling card. If anything, I would think the latter would smell more like a sham relationship since it might look like the petitioner is making irrational financial decisions in order to manufacture evidence.

The bottom line is that ANY evidence you provide to them can be faked, whether it's photos or call logs, or chat sessions, or emails, or even letters and postcards. Before they would automatically assume that the beneficiary is submitting a pile of fake evidence, I think there would need to be some other alarm bells going off in the CO's mind.

[BurningFinger 5]

ok wait now i am more confused then i was before. there is no way i am using my landline to call her in VN. 20 minute call would cost me over $150 easily. she lives with her parents right now so can i just get a phone card and use it to call her landline in vietnam.

-Travis & Trang

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

ok wait now i am more confused then i was before. there is no way i am using my landline to call her in VN. 20 minute call would cost me over $150 easily. she lives with her parents right now so can i just get a phone card and use it to call her landline in vietnam.

-Travis & Trang

The reason you're getting such varied opinions is because nobody really knows for sure. People here (including me) will often say "Think like a CO", but this can be really hard sometimes. We have no idea how a CO really thinks. We can only guess from reading about the experiences of others. Some people have been denied, and one reason cited by the CO is that they didn't talk to each other very much - something like "Phone records indicate petitioner and beneficiary only speak to each other for a few minutes, 2 or 3 times a month." Honestly, if you had a phone bill that only showed a few calls, each for a few minutes, you'd be better off leaving that evidence at home - it will hurt more than it will help. On the other hand, if you've got chat logs that show you chat for a couple of hours every day, that's strong evidence - include it!

Like so many other reasons given with a 221(g) notice, I suspect the phone records are an excuse for denying the visa, and not the real reason. The real reason they deny visas is because they strongly suspect a sham relationship. What they cite on the 221(g) notice is whatever concrete evidence they've got that they can use to deny, but that evidence may not have anything to do with why they really believe the relationship is a sham.

You're going to get a lot of different opinions, so listen to each and make your own decision and do what you feel is right for your own situation. Some people will recommend you save everything, and hit them with everything you've got for evidence. Personally, I believe it's better to only use your best ammunition. Including any weak evidence might only succeed in giving them what they need to deny the visa. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Leave the weak links at home.

Phuong and I will be including our chat and call logs from Yahoo, selected chat transcripts, webcam snapshots, emails from before my first trip to Vietnam, and all of the photos and other evidence from my visits to her. At this point, I'm only planning on including one phone bill - the one showing the horrendously expensive calls I made to her mobile phone during Typhoon Ketsana, when we had no other way to communicate. All of this evidence will be explained in the updated timeline. I have no idea whether this will be enough to succeed in getting a pink slip, but I believe that for ME this is the right approach. You have to make the same decision for YOU.

Good luck!

[toddandhien 2]

Trang and I barely talked over the phone. In fact most of our communication is through Yahoo chats. We also use the Yahoo Messenger Phone Call feature which is kinda like Skype. We use this alot as well. So basically we make phone calls to each other over the internet. I made screen shots on the webcam of both of us wearing our headseats as well as the call durations for our conversations on the headsets. Will the CO think this is strange or will they want copies of actual phone bills instead?

-Travis & Trang

The CO will not look at them, I even said in our time line that is what we did, Binh also had screen shots as well with us both in the picture. They should, but what you will have to do is MAKE them take them, they will not do it on their own. I suggest doing what you are doing, and keep taking screen shots, and just stress to your fiancée that she try to give them to the CO at the interview over and over and over again, and to stress to them that you use Yahoo and Skype, not the phone. If this does not work, and they give you a blue slip, when you get what they want turn in all of those as well. At this point they will have them no matter what, and I do not know if it is possible to do this or not, but ask for some sort of paper that shows you submitted "blank number of pages" this way if the CO lies as they did in our case you can say "Hey where did all those papers go? DID you file them in the trash receptacle??" but as I said I am not sure they will give you any type of receipt, but if you turn it in they have to accept it. Good luck Jerome and Binh

The issue at hand is not what we all feel that we want to do or what SHOULD be acceptable. The issue is that you have to convince a third party (the CO) who is highly skeptical at best. Think about it. Every day, they see fraudulent cases and people trying to rip them off with scams that are elaborate. How hard do you think it is to create a speadsheet that looks like the Skype Call Exporter? I used it, too, but only as one tiny piece of a mountain of evidence. The best proof is something that is irrefutable. You can fake chat call logs. You can fake the screenshots because you could change clothes 50 times on one session. With a green card at stake, these are small prices to pay.

Consider this. We all know that cell phones in VN are pay as you go. Don't have the VN person do the calling. US petitioner, you make the calls. Call from a land line that gets a monthly bill or a cell phone that gets a monthly bill. Don't use pre-paid cell phones, unlimited services or calling cards as your PRIMARY call evidence because you will not have documentation. As I mentioned before, call with some verifiable method once or twice a week for 20-30 minutes. Now, you have irrefutable evidence because the bill you get from Verizon or ATT has your calls from YOUR number to the VN number (just be sure that the number you are calling in VN is the same number that the applicant will use on the DS-156 and other submitted forms).

After you have established this PRIMARY evidence, build your SECONDARY evidence with chat logs, screenshots, etc, etc.

That isn't practical for a lot of people. An 18 minute call from my land line phone to Phuong's cell phone costs $135. Also, creating an authentic-looking call transcript from AT&T would be just as easy as faking a transcript from Skype or Yahoo Messenger. Both are just pieces of paper printed on a computer. In the end, the CO is either going to believe the evidence or they're not. If they're going to believe the AT&T transcript before they'd believe a transcript for a calling card or Skype or Yahoo, then they're also going to believe that the petitioner is a bonehead that doesn't know how to manage his/her money since they prefer to spend $5 a minute on a phone call rather than calling for free using VoIP, or heavily discounted using a calling card. If anything, I would think the latter would smell more like a sham relationship since it might look like the petitioner is making irrational financial decisions in order to manufacture evidence.

The bottom line is that ANY evidence you provide to them can be faked, whether it's photos or call logs, or chat sessions, or emails, or even letters and postcards. Before they would automatically assume that the beneficiary is submitting a pile of fake evidence, I think there would need to be some other alarm bells going off in the CO's mind.

OK, I guess I was not that clear when I went back and read my post. You had to read both of my posts and put them together to understand what I meant. Here is the overview:

Get a calling card that tracks every call you make and shows the number you called from and to and the duration. use this as your trackable evidence. Then, using a cell phone or land line that you get billed with (to show your name and number), make your calls to VN through the calling card at 3-10 cents per minute. This will give you a bill that shows you calling the calling card access number and also a call log that shows that your number was used to call the VN number, along with the date and the duration. Now you have two sets of matchable documents that show your voice communication and you will not spend a lot of money. This is what I did and then I explained that in my timeline and referenced where in my evidence package this material could be found. i also had my Skype Call Export logs along with 20 or so screenshots of our webcam sessions to go with it.

However, as Jim pointed out, this is only one element of your evidence. And the need for this evidence will likely be driven by other aspects of your case. You have to look at your entire case and put together a package that would convince the average person that you have a bona fide relationship.

[BinhJerome 14]

You can fake the screenshots because you could change clothes 50 times on one session. With a green card at stake, these are small prices to pay.

I beg to differ, if you have done a screen shot with yahoo and have the web cam opened up, there is no real way to fake that even with changing clothing. When you look at the web cam you are viewing, it has the Date, and time. It even counts down the time to seconds, this is all in black and white or in color if you print with a color printer. The CO's may or may not like to look at them or some people might say they can be faked, point is if they do not accept them at interview it is your right to submit them later, and if this is your proof as it is in most cases with most people, then you need to put forth effort and go back to submit the chat logs, and screen shots. Jerome

[Leon/Binh 0]

Trang and I barely talked over the phone. In fact most of our communication is through Yahoo chats. We also use the Yahoo Messenger Phone Call feature which is kinda like Skype. We use this alot as well. So basically we make phone calls to each other over the internet. I made screen shots on the webcam of both of us wearing our headseats as well as the call durations for our conversations on the headsets. Will the CO think this is strange or will they want copies of actual phone bills instead?

-Travis & Trang

Think about it for a moment. The CO wanted to see if you really spend time talking on the phone like how long? how many minutes? how many day? It the relationship continuous. Therefore, actual copy phone bills are really going to helped.

[Anh map 2,098]

Everyone please remember that it is the totality of the evidence presented that is judged. Arguing about the best way to document phone/online conversation is not productive.

Each couple wants to demonstrate all facets of their relationship. And it is wise to use methods that are easier to document. That being said, don't worry about what you may have done, or not done, up to now. Going forward use the input from all those going through HCMC to present the best version of your love story.