Hello,
Traveling to Europe, whether for tourism, for medical treatment or even to immigrate, is the dream of a lot of young people around the world. And the biggest wall standing in front of this dream is how hard it is to get a schengen visa. That’s why the first article on Yaslina is about the visa, and about the mistakes that got me refused two times by the French consulate
My first trip to Europe was in 2007, under very special circumstances that I’ll write about another day. But when I applied for a regular tourist visa for the first time in 2011, things didn’t go like I planned
As you know I’m Moroccan, but most of what I talk about here applies also to people from other countries who need a visa to enter the Schengen area. A lot of people think every country makes its own rules. In reality the visa rules are the same for all Schengen countries, they come from the European Union, and each consulate applies them in its own way. So what happened to me in Morocco can happen to you anywhere
Mistake 1: Trying to trick the consul
The first mistake people make is trying to convince the consul they deserve the visa using twisted ways. Some of them are not true, and sometimes the documents are even fake. They think the consulate won’t find out, and they get refused right away, because the consulate is not stupid to fall for fake documents
In my first application I had just started a car rental company with three partners. We created it in September 2010, and in March 2011 I applied for the visa. I didn’t wait long enough. For the consul, a company only six months old looked like a trick to get the visa, maybe even a fake company that exist only on paper. That was my first refusal
Another trick people use: the person is unemployed, but he gets work documents in a twisted way. He makes a deal with a business owner, a friend or someone else, to declare him as an employee with a high salary for 6 months or one year, like he really works in his shop or company. As soon as this period ends, he applies for the visa. The consul sees this as a very clear trick with only one goal, getting the visa. And most of the time, people who apply this way only want the tourist visa to immigrate illegally, which is exactly what consulates fight all the time
I saw this happen with many people I know. One of my friends made a deal with his brother, who registered him at the CNSS (Morocco’s social security fund) as a worker in his company with a salary of 800 euros a month, also for six months. Then he booked an appointment, submitted his application, and got the refusal that everybody expected
Mistake 2: Documents that are not valid
Another big mistake is giving documents that are not valid or expired, just to save some money. For example, some people make hotel and flight bookings, and even get free insurance certificates during the booking, but these lose their validity after a day or two if you don’t pay. The consulate checks every document, finds out that some are not valid, and the refusal comes directly
This didn’t happen to me personally. But I talk a lot with people in this field, and one person who works in a consulate told me that consulates have internal departments whose job is to check documents when they have doubts. For example they call the bank to check what’s in the bank statements, or they contact the tax office to check the tax information and certificates
In my case, they called the hotels I booked. Twice. When I traveled, the hotel staff told me they received a phone call from the consulate to confirm my booking. Thank god I always follow one simple rule: I sleep in the hotels I book. Never book expensive hotels just to show the consulate you can afford them. Book the hotels you will really go to
Mistake 3: Money that appears from nowhere
A very common mistake is putting a big amount of money in the bank account so it looks like there’s money in it. But this is clearly deceptive. It’s obvious the money was borrowed only to appear in the bank statement.
And still about the bank account, many applicants make a lot of bank operations, way too much, to show that the account is active. Come on, would this trick fool a small kid? So how it will fool the consul himself? An account that was frozen for a long time, maybe no movement for the whole month, and suddenly there’s a lot of operations, like shopping in stores, diesel for the car, phone top-ups
A friend of mine got refused because he used this method. Suddenly he was topping up phones every day, two or three times, for his friends, just to have more card payments. During the interview at TLScontact they asked him about these operations, and it was clear they were way too suspicious
These two last points are exactly what caused my second refusal, in September 2012. I put a big amount in the last month of my bank statements (the French consulate asks for the last three months), and I also did a crazy number of bank operations. The first two months were empty and almost frozen, and the last month took four full pages. Of course I got refused, even though my car rental company was already two years old by then
I lost a lot of time and money because I didn’t find anyone to advise me. Some people even wanted me to fail so I don’t get this visa. After that I decided to study things more carefully and analyze everything deeply, until I could fix all my mistakes.
What’s next
So these are the mistakes I made, and the ones I see visa applicants make all the time. In another article I’ll tell you how I fixed these problems and finally got my Schengen visa after two refusals
This is my own experience from 2011 and 2012. Rules and required documents can change, so always check the official website of the consulate before you apply
Your friend who loves traveling,
Brahim Rifi