Pratica di Shadowing: Inside the billion-dollar business of getting a visa | The Take - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

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

⏸ In Pausa

Velocità:

232 frasi

Se le frasi sono troppo corte o troppo lunghe, clicca su Edit per modificarle.

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,

100

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

101

So people are nervous about not getting their visa.

102

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

103

and i think sometimes people still believe

104

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

105

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

106

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

107

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

108

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

109

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

110

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

111

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

112

and after of this company being acquired by a capital firm

113

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

114

so VFS started in 2001

115

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

116

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

117

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

118

And since then, VFS has seen extraordinary growth.

119

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

120

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

121

bought a majority stake in the company.

122

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

123

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

124

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

125

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

126

And that's to say

127

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

128

because actually those numbers are staying fairly steady

129

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

130

that makes sense each visa application and

131

that speaks to this increased push for selling value added services

132

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

133

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

134

or they might want a courier delivery service

135

but what we've heard from a lot of them

136

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

137

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

138

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

139

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

140

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

141

And the company has denied that.

142

The company has denied upselling or overcharging.

143

What else?

144

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

145

Yeah, VFS provided a statement.

146

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

147

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.

148

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

149

And he also said that it maintains a zero tolerance policy

150

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

151

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

152

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

153

So yeah, it was a fairly lengthy statement.

154

And what's your opinion of that statement?

155

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

156

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

157

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,

158

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

159

So actually I met with their operations manager

160

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

161

and their like flagship new visa application center in Dubai.

162

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.

163

And, you know, we really appreciated their transparency.

164

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

165

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

166

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

167

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

168

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

169

But in the end, I think they knew

170

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

171

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

172

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.

173

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

174

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

175

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

176

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,

177

into visa outsourcing in Europe.

178

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

179

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

180

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

181

How many publications were involved in this?

182

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

183

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

184

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

185

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

186

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

187

and media outlets in the countries where people are applying

188

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

189

but i think the students were quite badly affected

190

and students were telling us

191

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

192

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

193

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

194

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

195

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

196

and so people who were speaking to us

197

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

198

in time for my you know to start my studies

199

and in some cases that would mean

200

that they were losing their they would lose their place on

201

on their um on this um you know this course

202

that they got onto

203

so yeah there was there were just lots of cases there

204

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

205

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

206

and it was to the funeral of a close friend and

207

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

208

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

209

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

210

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.

211

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

212

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

213

How did the idea for this reporting come about?

214

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

215

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

216

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

217

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

218

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

219

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

220

and look you know see how this is now affecting people

221

and we'd also seen that Blackstone had taken over

222

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

223

and then on top of that I mean honestly

224

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

225

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

226

so many people out there suffering and like struggling with VFS

227

and it just felt like how has no one done a

228

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

229

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

230

that had to be done hey thank you

231

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

232

you

TRENDING

Popolari

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

☕ Offrici un caffè

ShadowingEnglish rimane gratuito al 100% grazie al tuo supporto. I costi del server e IA sono elevati — il tuo caffè ci aiuta ad andare avanti! 🙏

Dona via PayPal

ShadowingEnglish.com – Pratica di Shadowing in Inglese

Parla inglese fluentemente usando la tecnica dello Shadowing. Ascolta video di YouTube con madrelingua, ripeti frase per frase e costruisci una pronuncia e fluidità reale — usata da studenti IELTS in tutto il mondo.

Pratica di Shadowing: Inside the billion-dollar business of getting a visa | The Take - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

Popolari

Contesto e Sfondo

Top 5 Frasi per la Comunicazione Quotidiana

Guida Passo dopo Passo al Shadowing

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Pratica di Shadowing: Inside the billion-dollar business of getting a visa | The Take - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

Scarica l'app

Contesto e Sfondo

Top 5 Frasi per la Comunicazione Quotidiana

Guida Passo dopo Passo al Shadowing

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?