I just had to go through renewing my residency in Spain. You need an appointment for every step. If you aren't able to check 50 times per day, you'll never succeed in finding an appointment. The process is completely broken. The only way to get an appointment is by paying a service to get one for you, which is between 50-100 euros. It is astounding that not only the process is so collapsed, but that the administration or foreigner police do nothing (they should just assign you an appointment after each step) to improve this. On top of that, they currently just legalized 500k-1million people who were not here legally, and I have no idea how they expect the majority (who are declared vulnerable) to be able to complete the immigration process.
Portugal is the same, they are so inefficient it almost seems intentional (or maybe it is). We wanted to serve these kind of clients, but could not do it properly because we could not even book appointments ourselves and had to rely on shady companies reselling slots, which I dont think they get in a fair way (or maybe not even legal), as there are many reports of insiders selling access... So we decided to turn to tech for help.
The system is already bursting because the process is badly designed, VFS and consular websites are fully broken and we do not resell slots, we do just what a normal legal firm would with interns but with computer use.
If the only way the current system works is by making everyone waste hours refreshing broken portals, that is not fairness. That is just bad infrastructure with human labor hiding the problem.
The system is bursting because AIMA is severely understaffed and there's a shit ton of people waiting in line. An agent is not going to solve this, it will just make you earn some money while helping people who are able to pay to jump the line.
You are framing the problem in whatever way it helps you sleep at night. "Fairness", lol.
I just had to go through renewing my residency in Spain. You need an appointment for every step. If you aren't able to check 50 times per day, you'll never succeed in finding an appointment. The process is completely broken. The only way to get an appointment is by paying a service to get one for you, which is between 50-100 euros. It is astounding that not only the process is so collapsed, but that the administration or foreigner police do nothing (they should just assign you an appointment after each step) to improve this. On top of that, they currently just legalized 500k-1million people who were not here legally, and I have no idea how they expect the majority (who are declared vulnerable) to be able to complete the immigration process.
Portugal is the same, they are so inefficient it almost seems intentional (or maybe it is). We wanted to serve these kind of clients, but could not do it properly because we could not even book appointments ourselves and had to rely on shady companies reselling slots, which I dont think they get in a fair way (or maybe not even legal), as there are many reports of insiders selling access... So we decided to turn to tech for help.
You are framing the problem backwards.
The system is already bursting because the process is badly designed, VFS and consular websites are fully broken and we do not resell slots, we do just what a normal legal firm would with interns but with computer use.
If the only way the current system works is by making everyone waste hours refreshing broken portals, that is not fairness. That is just bad infrastructure with human labor hiding the problem.
The system is bursting because AIMA is severely understaffed and there's a shit ton of people waiting in line. An agent is not going to solve this, it will just make you earn some money while helping people who are able to pay to jump the line.
You are framing the problem in whatever way it helps you sleep at night. "Fairness", lol.
You are confusing things, this is not for AIMA, this is for VFS. Nobody is jumping the line.
And how does providing a solution makes things worse?
I also fail to understand how, it is a problem people want and need solved.