the $149 fee

[takkathan 0]

does the immigration direct preparation fee of $149 necessary?

Thanks for the help

[daboyz 36]

does the immigration direct preparation fee of $149 necessary?

Thanks for the help

For what?

[Anh map 2,098]

Immigration Direct is a for profit private company. It is not part of the USCIS. You don't have to use them.

[NickD 203]

Gee, wish I heard of and used them, I like getting screwed. Here is what some other people say about this fine service:

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Immigrationdirect.com

tony of new york, NY August 20, 2010

I have just stupidly fallen into the same hole, wrongfully believing that this was an official government web site. It is not, but it is obviously set up and designed to look like one in my opinion. I blame myself also for stupidly trying to get this done in a hurry and not conducting the proper research. I am going to be charged 130+ for the completion of a I90 form that was freely available on the government web site, which they will not even e-file on my behalf (you have to print and file it yourself in any case)

This site seems to be deliberately set up to confuse people and i can't believe the INS hasn't got something to say about it. Even more concerning is that this company now has my INS #, my SSI #, my credit card details, all my INS details, and even my mother and fathers first names. I have sent them a mail to cancel the service which i believe was advertised deceptively (I have no intention of being on hold for 1 hour like a previous poster), and if the charge hits my account i will dispute it as much as I can with the credit card company. I will also lodge complaint with the BBB.

Many clients of the official immigration services will not speak and read English as their first language, and will be easily sucked in by immigration direct (their website comes at the top of the google list and looks very official) One more thing, they have posted on their web that they state clearly on their web-site that they are not a government website, but this is obviously not the case according to me or the other posters on this page. I will add to these comments to let you all know how it worked out, but right now i am considering opening a lifelock account...

Carlos of Lafayette, CO July 22, 2010

Two months ago, I had already visited the USCIS site and knew that the I-90 forms to renew the green card could be filed online for a total cost (including biometrics processing) of 370.00. On July 16, I decided to do it, because my green card in expiring next month. The most visible Google entry for "green card renewal" announces: "US Immigration Services" and below, in smaller type: "Prepare Green card forms online Complete all US Governmental Forms".

I made a terrible mistake of assuming that www/ImmigrationDirect.com was an office of the USCIS to "directly" deal online with applicants. Inside, the ambiguous style continues, you have to go to the bottom of the page, in quite small latters, to read that "ImmigrationDirect.com is not a law firm or affiliated with the United States government."

They ask you to pay 129.00 as a "Preparation Fee" and warn that "Additional Government Filing Fees Apply". I interpreted the text as meaning that the 370 payment to the USCIS was split in portions, and that this initial payment was to start the procedure of renewing my permanent resident card for the second time (I have been a legal resident for 23 years). Only whan the USCIS told me, afterwards, that they were withdrawing 370 from my VISA card, my suspicions grew. But that was too late.

What immigrationdirect.com does is to duplicate the task of filling a form, including s clear and straight one such as I-90. They get a form from the real governmental agency using your name (they do not claim to be attorneys or representatives, so getting and filing a form for me is a sort of impersonation) and fill the fields according to what I was answering to them. A completely useless and parasitic intermediation in handling forms that any person with a minimum literacy is able to complete by him/herself. They aduce that you may make errors which can delay the approbation of your application by the USCIS. Bolony! The I-90 is perfectly clear. Not only that, as I explained to an employee, when I tried to answer question 4 of part 3 ("Consulate where immigrant visa or USCIS office where adjustment of status was granted"), a drop-down menu appeared with closed answers. The applicant was prevented to type-in an alternative to the pre-established values. However, on the list for Florida I was unable to find Miami, in spite of the fact that the headquarters of both the old IMS and the current USCIS for the state of Florida are located in Biscayne blvd, North Miami.

The Biscayne place was the actual office I used for the adjustment of my status. As a result, these genial advisors forced me to enter the closest geographic point in the list: Fort Lauderdale (20 miles to the north). And I still wonder how come other applicants may enter their answers if their adjustments of status were granted by a consulate outside the US. But forget it, this was not my experience. In my case, I was prevented to change the "Fort Lauderdale" choice. At my complaints, Immigration Direct told me: "Don't worry, for this reason the USCIS is not going to delay the application process." It's wrong, boy, but no matter. Then these guys made me to "review" my answers (and they displayed the real USCIS form) and had to sign online (for which they used my data). The form was filed to the USCIS under my name.

On my Visa card, two charges popped up, one for 129 (the garbage of Immigration Direct), another for 370 paid to the USCIS. And Immigration Direct has not accepted any of my complaints: "Your application is in proper course, we did our job." I fell in their trap as a stupid. I write this in the hope more people may read and learn what these legal swindlers do, taking advantage of innocents or people too hurried to read the small letters and reaping lots of money in exchange of redundant tasks with zero added value.

Elsie of Minneapolis, MN May 27, 2010

I want you to cancel the payment of 129.00 which was paid from my credit card. I was applying for my green card directly and not applying for a form that can be given to me by immigration free. I was made to understand immigration that this was not the proper link, they reject the receipt. No danage so far, I have also asked my bank to stop the payment, because this was not the service I wanted.

Mahsa of Irvine, CA May 11, 2010

Like others I had the same problem. I landed on their site beleiving that it was governmnet's website. And the first they do get your credit card number without saying what it was for. I am on the phone with my bank to dispute it.

Gene of orlando, FL May 10, 2010

I went to renew my green card and landed on the immigration direct website which leads you to believe that they are a goverment agency. The website looks very official and so i thought i had landed in the right place. I filed my application electronicaly and then was asked for a 129 fee. There was no pop up screen advising that this fee was not a goverment fee. A few hours later I tried to contact them after googling thier company name. They have no contact phone numbers on thier website! They told me my application was filed already and that they could not help me with a refund. I feel like they are wolves in sheeps clothing ,eluding to a service that you can get for free at the US Goverment website. They should at the very least state clearly at the top of thier website in bold bright letters that the website is not affiliated with the US Gov. Hope that something is done about them and that some changes are made.

Sabine of Mchenry, IL April 30, 2010

I was applying for renewal of my green card and their website leads you to believe you are dealing with a government entity related to renewal. they charge 129 for a process that is free on the correct site and when asking about it they advise its cheaper than hiring a lawyer that really isnt needed.

Saul of Long Beach, CA March 30, 2010

I also fell into the scheme thinking I was on a government web site electronicaly filing for a "green card" renewal, when in fact by deception throughout the entire website found out I was only purchasing the forms which are available online free of charge....I have contacted them for a full refund and was told by one of their representatives, and the supervisor that only a portion of the 129 can be refunded....I will be disputing this with my bank and credit card company.

Joseph of East Brunswick, NJ March 16, 2010

ImmigrationDirect.com deceives and cheats applicants for U.S. Citizenship, specifically U.S. Permanent Residents (those holding "green cards") into paying an exorbitant 149 fee by substantially representing the 149 to be a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (US C.I.S., a unit of the Department of Homeland Security) application fee associated with the submission to the U.S. gov't of form N-400 "Application for Naturalization" (see uscis.gov for the legitimate form & related information).

For example, images such as an American Flag (stars & stripes) are depicted next to the ImmigrationDirect.com URL; the application fee is not clearly marked as being a fee to a commercial company for the service of generating an application form (rather than the U.S. gov't fee for processing the form); applicants are misdirected to the ImmigrationDirect.com website after seeking the legitimate dot-gov URL.

At the end of the lengthy Q&A process a long (26 pp. in our case) series of pages is presented to be printed. Buried in this is an N-400 application form completed with the private information that had been provided to the website -- for the highway-robbery sum of 149; the applicant only realizes (to his or her chagrin and indeed mortification) at the completion of the process that the "application fee" is fraudulent and will not cover any of the legitimate expenses involved in having the N-400 processed (see below for a fuller explanation).

Now, this N-400 form can easily be completed by the same applicant without any cost whatsoever. The N-400 is available electronically, with detailed instructions, at the U.S. C.I.S. website where it is provided as a most-frequently-searched-form in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, and can be electronically filled out at one's PC. Pivotal to this fraud (as discussed further below), the actual application fee for the U.S. CIS to process the N-400 form is 675 (i.e. 526 over than the fraudulent 149 suggested by the ImmigrationDirect.com website).

completion of the lengthy ImmigrationDirect.com dialog (i.e., Q&A), it immediately becomes apparent that the 149 earlier remitted by credit card is being charged not to submit, but merely to print, the N-400 form. The consumer at this point becomes dissatisfied. He or she wants his or her money back.

In our case, we were deceived by the ImmigrationDirect website at about 11:25 EDT on a Sunday evening Upon completion of the above-described process, we immediately attempted to rectify the situation. I e-mailed ImmigrationDirect. An e-mail reply was sent at 5:26 AM EDT (ostensibly, ImmigraitonDirect is staffed overseas; a subsequent e-mail was also sent at a similar nocturnal hour). The e-mail instructed me to call 1-415-, ImmigrationDirect's "Customer Care Number" during 9 AM - 5 PM PDT (it was signed affably by a "Jack L.").

Later that day, I telephoned, at 3:21 PM PDT. Immediately being placed on hold, and unable to reach a live operator at the ImmigrationDirect telephone number, I was told by a recording that I was the 7th caller in line. I was patient -- by any standard. Sixty (60) minutes later, I was the 2nd caller in line. By that time, at 4:21 PDT, it was apparent that ImmigrationDirect was not planning to answer the line. Having devoted a full hour, I felt I had no choice but to terminate the telephone connection after a full hour.

I contacted my credit card company which indicates that ImmigrationDirect has placed the charge on a "pending" status, but has not yet "posted" the charge. The bank agrees that ImmigrationDirect is a scam. Once the charge is "posted," they will assist me in disputing the charge.

It is abundantly clear that the ImmigrationDirect.com business model is based on deception. Applicants for adjustment of status from United States Permanent Resident to United States Citizen are "trolled" on the internet. Apparently, and this is true for us, it is possible for an internet user to be misdirected after correctly entering "uscis.gov" into the URL space in his or her browser to ImmigrationDirect.com. If one is not extremely careful, as I regret to say I was not on this particular occasion, it is not apparent that one has been redirected to a dot-com from a dot-gov website. How this occurred I cannot say, because we definitely went to uscis.gov to start with.

The sly, underhanded, and deceptive web design employed by ImmigrationDirect.com is obviously meant to convey an impression that it is a U.S. government (dot-gov) website, not a commercial (dot-com) website. The request for a 149 so-called "application fee" is intentionally deceptive in two ways.

Firstly, the legitimate fee for a US C.I.S. application is also termed, per se, an "application fee." So the putative applicant has no terminology to distinguish a bona fide application fee from this fraudulent application fee. Apparently ImmigrationDirect.com intends, as it were, the meaning of "application fee" as "a fee paid to fill out and provide a consumer with the form required to file an application."

Whereas the commonly used meaning of the term "application fee" in matters such as immigration (and other matters) is "a fee paid to the processor of an application, such as the U.S. Government, to cover the expenses associated with carrying out the legitimate tasks required to accept, review, authenticate, cross-check, verify, record, and issue the resulting documents associated with an application."

Secondly, the amount demanded, 149, for this fraudulent "application fee" is large enough to seem to be in the proper range of what the U.S. gov't might charge for processing the N-400 form. At the same time, the applicant might have heard elsewhere that the application fee is actually much larger than 149 (as stated above, it is currently 675) but not have studied the material he or she might have seen to this effect; therefore, the applicant is induced subliminally to feel relieved that the fee is more affordable than originally suspected to be and be more willing to complete the payment forthwith. Were the fraudulent fee to be in the range of, say, less than 50, the applicant would realize that this could not possibly be the actual fee charged by the US C.I.S. for processing the N-400 form. Alas, the legitimate cost is much higher than 149.

I would strongly advise any potential customer of ImmigrationDirect or FormsDirect (another name under which they apparently do business) to "abandon any hope, ye who enter here." I.e., do not remit funds or share personal identity-revealing data with the company. We are waiting for the ImmigrationDirect.com 149 charge to post to my credit card account. We are concerned regarding private identity data that was revealed to ImmigrationDirect.com but no damages so far.

ImmigrationDirect of San Francisco, CA February 3, 2010

We always regret to hear when customers are not fully satisfied with our service. We stand behind our service, and in many cases we give a full refund to our customers who aren't satisfied. We are sorry that there was confusion about being on a government site, as we clearly state on every page of our website that we are not affiliated with the U.S. government and that our fees are in addition to any fees charged by the USCIS. We have built a user-friendly system that helps guide people through various USCIS application processes, step-by-step and mistake free. Most attorneys charge anywhere between 750 and 3,000 to assist individuals with their various immigration applications. We charge significantly less for our on-line application services, and in addition we allow users to take advantage of our customer service via email support 24/7 and phone support M-F 9a-5pm PST. Call or email us if you have any issues with our service, we are here to help. Regards, Customer Support Team cs@immigrationdirect.com (415) 375-3145

Annabelle of woodbury, MN January 28, 2010

I google USCIS immigration, this website appeared Immigration direct. You can easily fall into it because their format is similar to real USCIS. I payed 199.00 knowing its the application fee for sponsoring relatives.I went ahead and type in all my personal data for FORM I-130,after you complete the form it will prompt you to print it, it made me suspicious after I printed it because there were too many personal info that I type in but it didn't showed on the form itself.

I then clarified to customer service, that's when I found out that this website is SCAM. Im sure im not the only victim. Im on the process of negotiating to get my money back.I reported my case to BBB and I plan to write the Attorney general or even talk to my neighbor who happen to work with TV news program.I'm not looking for trouble but I am doing this, not only for myself but for those people who barely speak english.Im sure they took advantage of them. I read this website reviews and blogs( Immigrationdirect scam) and several people complained about this website.

Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/legal/immigrationdirect.html#ixzz0xaFp3r19"