News

J'cans victims of..... Green card scam

JAMAICANS WHO ARE interested in living in the United States of America - beware! Con artists have been preying on people's desire to live in the US legally, by promising the impossible.

Several Jamaicans living here and abroad have been scammed trying to get that illusive 'green card'.

One such person is Sharon Maitland, a 32-year-old receptionist who found a website which promised to help her get one of the promised spots in the US Visa Lottery.

The Visa Lottery programme is one in which the US government offers permanent resident visas to persons from countries where the citizens do not normally visit the United States. As a result, Jamaicans like Maitland and other caribbean nationals are ineligible - but she did not know that.

"I think I must have spent close to $100,000 just trying to get in this lottery only to eventually find out that Jamaicans could not take part in the programme," Maitland told THE WEEKEND STAR.

Maitland said she found the website which offered her a chance of getting into the lottery while she surfed the internet at work one day. After reading what the website was offering she thought it was worth a shot.

"My sister was living in the States and she was filing for me, but she had been doing that for like the past eight years, so I said let me try another route."

Not a certainty

According to Maitland she first sent an email to the operators who telephoned her two days later. They explained to her that it was not a certainty that she would get the green card but she would be a part of the lottery and after that it was simply up to luck.

Maitland said that after paying over US$1600 to the website, her sister discovered that she was ineligible and worst of all there was no fee. "In an attempt to get my money back my sister contacted the New York State Attorney General's Department but soon after the website and its operators vanished into thin air with my money."

The Attorney General's Department was unable to give THE WEEKEND STAR information on the operators as they said the investigation was ongoing. However, they did say that Maitland's story was nothing new and estimated that there were hundreds of green card scams operating in New York State alone.

"There are so many of them. They are all targeting persons who are desirous of getting into this country by whatever means necessary," said the Attorney General spokesperson.

In New York state there is another green card scam case which is currently before the courts where Ereline Simmons and Christopher Pendarvis, scammed Caribbean immigrants by promising to get them green cards through a special exemption available to religious workers. Of course there is no such exemption.

When contacted the US Embassy in Kingston's Public Affairs officer Orna Blum told THE WEEKEND STAR that Jamaicans should be careful. "Please be aware that there are a lot of people who are just in the business to make money."