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Today, how a multinational private equity firm makes millions off people applying for visas.

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Today, how a multinational private equity firm makes millions off people applying for visas.

We can just go into Google and type in VFS Global, you'll find so many complaints from people.

Like, there's so many people out there suffering and like struggling with VFS.

And it just felt like, how has the media not paid more attention to this?

An investigation into VFS Global exposes questionable practices and massive profits.

I'm David Enders, and this is The Take.

I'm Mae Bulman.

I'm an investigations editor at Lighthouse Reports, where I coordinate investigations into,

in particular, borders and migration, but also big tech.

And I'm joining you from London.

So, Mae, we're here to talk about VFS,

Visa Facilitation Services, which you've just led an investigation into this company,

but a lot of our audience won't necessarily know what they do

or what a visa processing service is because maybe they've never had to use one.

So first of all, can you just take a step back

and explain to us what is VFS and why did the Lighthouse investigate them?

VFS is a visa outsourcing company.

It's the biggest in the world and it's actually the company

that kind of started the system of outsourcing visa administration back in 2001.

And these visa applicants are largely in which countries and they're largely applying for visas to where?

Yeah, I mean, it's obviously lots of people around the world apply for visas,

but it has to be said that there are countries that have where people have kind of weaker passports, if you might say.

Other countries require them to apply for visas.

Whereas if you look at kind of most Europeans

and you know me as a British citizen I don't have to apply for a visa for

that many countries in the world but if you're someone from maybe Nigeria

or India you will be required to apply for a visa for more countries

so like inherently the bulk of people who have to go

through this outsource system are people with the weaker passports

and that's why our kind of main focus was across parts of Africa Asia

and the Middle East because we found that that was where most people were affected by this.

So essentially to explain what visa outsourcing means, if someone wants to apply for a visa to come to,

say, the UK or to go to France or to the US or wherever, they previously would have to go to the embassy of that country in their country,

and then the embassy would kind of take their documents and do all the processing.

Now, the kind of majority of countries, particularly in the sort of global north, outsource their visa processing.

So companies like VFS, of which, as I said, VFS is the largest,

they now have visa centers around the world where people have to go to in order to apply for visas.

VFS Global looks forward to seeing you at one of our premium application centers, designed with you in mind.

Only these one-stop shop application centers offer the option of conveniently walking in without a pre-booked appointment

and receiving personalized next day visa service.

And it's important to say that VFS and other outsourcing companies don't make decisions on visas.

That's still up to the government, the government which the person is applying to go to, but they do all of the kind of administration around it.

You know, we've seen that the process for people applying for visas has got a lot more expensive.

And I think we'll talk more about this in this conversation, but they also VFS charges for additional services.

And we've found basically that they have been really pushing these added value services on people.

VFS has made a lot of money out of selling these kind of additional services to applicants, as well as making them pay this service fee.

And one thing that I found surprising, and I was aware of this to some extent,

but the rejection rates and how much people spend on applying for visas that they don't even then get.

One figure is Africans paid $68 million for European visa applications that ended up being rejected in 2024.

I mean, can you give us a sense of how much money is spent without anyone even getting a visa?

And then people are paying fees on top of this?

Yeah, I mean, I think you're referring to Lego Collective.

They did some brilliant research and onto this, like how much are people basically wasting how much people spending on on visa applications

that then they they are rejected for and um it's a huge issue

and i think in all this like again

that wasn't kind of specifically what we were looking at the rejection rates

but actually it's all part and parcel of the same thing it's

when people apply for for visas to go to work

or to study or to see family

and of course it's everyone's right to travel right um they're having to they're being confronted with these huge fees

and these you know these set fees for the visas and then these

fees on top of that for these additional services

and the service fee and then with all that

that they've got a pretty high chance often of being rejected

and often they're rejected for kind of spurious reasons like we spoke to a lot of lawyers

and applicants themselves who were saying that they got rejected on the basis

that like sometimes they and the government who rejected them claim

that they didn't have enough money to prove

that they weren't going to leave but like often actually they did provide bank statements

and even that that kind of whole rule in itself it's questionable

and also that the process is being made

so much harder by having these outsourcing companies um you know doing the processing

and the administration and making people pay all this extra money

when actually you you do kind of need some of these

people to come what did you find in your investigation to vfs

and and can you give us an idea paint us a bit of a picture

how much does this increase the cost of visas for people if they if they even get the visa in some cases?

Yeah, it's a good question because visas themselves are expensive anyway.

And then on top of that, the value added services are very expensive as well.

So, I mean, one example is I spoke to an Indian grandmother who made a long journey to the visa application center in Pune,

where she lives.

She was applying for a visa to see her son and her new granddaughter in Belgium, and it was raining.

There'd been like terrible flooding.

She really struggled to find a taxi she was waiting in

the rain for a long time she eventually made it there

and actually she was 15 minutes late

so she was only she didn't you know she thought she was going to be later than

that she was like okay thank goodness I'm only 15 minutes late for my appointment

but she then got there

and she was told sorry you're too late you need to either go home

and book another appointment which she it had she'd already waited months to get

that appointment or you can pay for the premium lounge

and you can come in now and go into our premium lounge

and that costed her 35 euros

which you know might not sound like a huge amount in um parts of Europe but for her that was like

the monthly cost of her groceries.

So that was a huge amount.

And she told me that, you know, she didn't feel like she was in a position to argue.

And I think a lot of visa applicants are in quite a vulnerable situation when they're applying for a visa, because as you kind of pointed to,

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the rejection rates are pretty high for a lot of countries.

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So people are nervous about not getting their visa.

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And so at that point, when they're going to the visa centre with all their documents, they don't want to do anything that would jeopardise their chances of getting visa

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and i think sometimes people still believe

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that vfs even though vfs is not the embassy there's a there's a kind of sense

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that actually they're still part of the embassy and that

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if i don't buy this service that they're telling me i should buy then

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or if i argue with them then it might jeopardize my chance of getting my visa

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but yeah i mean it's it's increased the cost of visas

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even even further for people that's for sure can you give us a little more background on vfs because

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it was acquired in recent years by a major multinational equity firm Blackstone

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which some people will definitely be familiar with were you able to track any kind of change in the before

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and after of this company being acquired by a capital firm

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yeah I mean to give a little bit of background going further back

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so VFS started in 2001

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when it's now CEO Zubin Karkaria kind of convinced the US

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government to let him do a pilot of this idea of outsourcing visa administration in the US Embassy in Mumbai.

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And then from there, VFS got this contract with the British government and then other European countries followed.

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And since then, VFS has seen extraordinary growth.

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And then, as you say, in 2022, so just after the pandemic,

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Blackstone, this huge private equity firm that I should say is majority owned by a big Donald Trump funder,

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bought a majority stake in the company.

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And what we've seen since then is that basically VFS growth has continued.

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It's made a lot of additional revenue in that time.

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And we've also seen, which I think is interesting, is that the revenues per visa application have massively increased.

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I think they've increased by 41% since Blackstone's entry.

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And that's to say

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that the increase in revenues are not the result of more applications more people traveling

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because actually those numbers are staying fairly steady

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but they're making more money off each visa applicant if

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that makes sense each visa application and

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that speaks to this increased push for selling value added services

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so each applicant is spending more because they're being made to think you know

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so admittedly some applicants might want to go to the premium lounge

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or they might want a courier delivery service

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but what we've heard from a lot of them

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and from VFS staff is that these services are pushed onto people

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and I should say as well two former staff two former VFS staff told us

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that they had seen this increase in the push from management to sell value-added services since Blackstone's entrance

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but VFS vehemently denied that and so yeah we can't say for sure

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that that that happened but that's what a couple of members of staff did tell us.

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And the company has denied that.

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The company has denied upselling or overcharging.

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What else?

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What has been its full response to the investigation the White House did?

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Yeah, VFS provided a statement.

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It was actually a statement from their lawyers on their behalf.

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And they, I mean, they didn't address every single point that we put to them, but their main points were they're kind of saying it's on the applicant, we're trying to help the applicant.

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And they said that, you know, applicants are very clearly informed that these services are optional.

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And he also said that it maintains a zero tolerance policy

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if there is any coercion or or misrepresentation of these services by its staff.

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They kind of put it on their contracting governments a bit as well.

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They also said that they're kind of subject to rigorous audits and so on.

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So yeah, it was a fairly lengthy statement.

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And what's your opinion of that statement?

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I mean, I think, so it's interesting.

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From the beginning, we didn't really mention this in our reporting, actually, in the end, but they were,

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so I actually reached out we were reaching out to some former staff on LinkedIn and they got in touch with me, the comms office at BFS and said,

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you know, do you want to ask us some questions?

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So actually I met with their operations manager

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and in the end they invited me to go to Dubai to see their kind of headquarters

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and their like flagship new visa application center in Dubai.

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So they were kind of open with us from the start, but, and they were quite surprised actually about our findings and it's not that we were dishonest with them or anything.

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And, you know, we really appreciated their transparency.

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But in the end, what we found was just so, like the evidence is really so strong that this is happening.

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Like basically the figures show that value added services are a huge part of their, you know, why they're so profitable.

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And from speaking to dozens of former and current staff there, you know, that's telling you something.

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And then plus a swathes of applicants who we spoke to as well.

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So basically, I think their statement was, you know, them trying to kind of defend themselves.

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But in the end, I think they knew

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that what we'd found was on the whole kind of they couldn't really argue it, I would say.

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And yeah, I think it's been interesting since we published last Thursday, seeing the reaction.

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There's been huge online reaction from particularly applicants, you know, on various social media forums, saying, I'm so glad someone has done this.

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And like, this has been an issue for so long.

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And like, they're just so pleased that it's been there's been some kind of proper investigation into it.

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And we're yet to see kind of what the response from governments that client governments will be.

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We did contact the EU Commission, and they told us that they're going to launch a kind of comprehensive study, I think they called it,

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into visa outsourcing in Europe.

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So that's kind of, it's not clear whether

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that was off the back of our reporting or that they were already planning to do that.

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But that means that there's clearly some concern about this in the EU.

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How many publications were involved in this?

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I mean, it's a global, you've published it globally in a number of publications.

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And as I was going through the different articles that were published, there were a few different stories that stood out to me.

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Of course, there were so many and as you say it was

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so brilliant actually to be working with we work with 14 media outlets kind of spread across the world

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and we and we were very deliberate in starting the reporting process um with with journalists

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and media outlets in the countries where people are applying

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and having the most difficulty and it's so hard to pick like one case

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but i think the students were quite badly affected

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and students were telling us

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that they just you know they've got this position they've got this place at a university in like france

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or the uk or germany and vf the vfs process has just meant

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that they're one they're spending so much more money than they'd planned to spend

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but also that there's delays that are created by having this outsource process

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because there's now this like other hurdle that you have to get through

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and so people who were speaking to us

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and saying oh my god i'm not going to get there

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in time for my you know to start my studies

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and in some cases that would mean

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that they were losing their they would lose their place on

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on their um on this um you know this course

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that they got onto

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so yeah there was there were just lots of cases there

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was one woman who actually met in london who was she wasn't british can't remember where she was from

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but she was applying from london to go to an eu country

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and it was to the funeral of a close friend and

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because she couldn't get an appointment because the appointment system was so messed up

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she was having to either pay like a couple of hundred quid or not make it to the funeral of her friend.

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So there's lots of, you know, situations like that where people are just, yeah, pretty devastated by this.

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But yeah, we're really kind of, we're really grateful to our partners across the world who, you know, helped us out with this.

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I think that was such an important part of this project.

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And I meant to ask you, what was the genesis of this project?

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How did the idea for this reporting come about?

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Yeah, actually back in 2019, before I worked for Lighthouse myself and so I was working for the Independent,

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a social affairs correspondent, and my colleague now who's an investigative reporter at Lighthouse, Margot Gibbs, she was working at Finance Uncovered.

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We did a piece back in 2019 on looking at the UK contract

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and how there was huge amounts of money being made by both both VFS and the UK Home Office. And now

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that we're at Lighthouse where we can do do kind of

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big global investigations we thought actually this could be a chance to go beyond just the UK

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and look you know see how this is now affecting people

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and we'd also seen that Blackstone had taken over

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so it just felt like a space that was like requiring more more investigation

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and then on top of that I mean honestly

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if you go on any social media really we can just go into Google

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and type in VFS global you'll find so many complaints from people like there's

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so many people out there suffering and like struggling with VFS

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and it just felt like how has no one done a

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proper like how is the media not pay more attention to this um

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so that you know it was a we just felt like it was something

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that had to be done hey thank you

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so much for joining us uh we'll leave it there great thank you so much for having me

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you

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