Is the "assistant" of a travel agency causing trouble?, Delaying time and requesting additional fees... Visa processing continues to be a hot business | Madam | Travel Agency
At 10: 00 a.m. on June 26, ms sheng, the citizen, finally received a prompt from the "Fliggy": the merchant has sent the sign. At this time, it has been 58 days since she placed an order to handle the visa business, but according to the package taken by Ms. Sheng in this "Shanghai CYTS Travel Service franchise store", the promised processing time is only "about 9 working days".
In recent days, with the peak of summer outbound travel approaching, the demand for visa processing among citizens of Shanghai has surged. The visa agency services launched by various travel agencies have also ushered in a peak of ordering. In addition to saving time and effort, tourist visas from countries such as Japan and South Korea must be processed through travel agencies. However, under the hype, voices of questioning also began to emerge: among various help seeking platforms, travel agencies collecting money to assist actually added chaos to the travel plans of many citizens.
Repeated delays in issuing visas
As it was already decided to travel to Japan with my mother, finding a travel agency to handle visas became the first step in the journey. On the Feizhu platform, the "Shanghai China Youth Travel Agency Exclusive Store" attracted Ms. Sheng's attention: in terms of its Japanese visa agency products, it has high monthly sales, a variety of package types, a visa issuance rate of 99.5%, and a related rating of 4.9 points. After some comparison, Ms. Sheng placed an online order on May 4th and chose to apply for the higher priced "Three Year Multiple Travel Visa VIP Simplified Urgent" package in the store.
According to the relevant introduction page, this package is processed one-on-one by experts, and the required material items are reduced by 6 compared to "regular processing", and it only takes about 9 working days to sign out. Therefore, in addition to visa fees, the package fee also includes merchant service fees, simplified processing fees, and VIP expedited fees. In order to ensure timely and reliable visa issuance, Ms. Sheng was willing to pay for it, but after placing the order, her experience went against the promotional content.
"On June 6th, I prepared all the materials according to the instructions and mailed them to the address specified by the merchant. After the materials were signed for on June 7th, the customer service began to tug at me back and forth." Ms. Sheng recalled, "At first, she just told me that I couldn't handle it according to my situation, but after repeated inquiries, she asked me to supplement the materials." According to the customer service representative, she also needed to submit proof such as a flight itinerary and a business license stamped with a fresh seal. ". Although these materials were not included in the package list, Ms. Sheng still sorted them out and mailed them to the travel agency on June 14th. However, at this time, with the booming business and rising product prices, customer service once again made new requirements: if we want to continue processing, we need to pay an additional 450 yuan per person for the price difference.
Ms. Sheng's application progress shows that the merchant only submitted the signature on June 26th.
"Isn't this a starting price for sitting on the ground?" Ms. Sheng strongly disagrees with this, but if the price is not increased, the travel agency will not review or send a visa. By the end of June, Ms. Sheng, who had no choice but to seek help from "12345", finally made progress in her visa application through coordination with the Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission.
Although Ms. Sheng's predicament has been overcome, many citizens are not so lucky. In fact, in the past month, the visa application business of this "Shanghai China Youth Travel Agency" has been frequently controversial. For example, Ms. Nian, a netizen, told reporters that she mailed materials to apply for a Japanese visa on May 28th. It wasn't until the agreed 10 working days had passed that she learned from customer service that the travel agency had not started reviewing the materials. "The original plan was to travel on June 18th, but there was no time to change the flight ticket to a hotel." During the process of applying for an electronic landing visa in Thailand, Ms. Fei was asked three times to submit materials that were not specified in the list, and ultimately failed to issue the visa in a "layer by layer" process
The team is rudimentary, the fees are unclear, and the service is empty talk
On the afternoon of June 30th, the reporter found the location of this travel agency based on the mailing address obtained by Ms. Sheng from the merchant. It was not yet time to finish work, but there was no one on duty at the front desk. Walking straight inside, the reporter found the "Visa Department" responsible for visa business. On the office desk, the customer's ID card copies and other materials are piled up in a pile, and there are two large boxes on the ground, filled with unpacked express delivery material bags. However, there are only two staff members working in the entire visa department.
△ The offline office of Shanghai CYTS Travel Agency has no one on duty at the front desk.
"We are not open to the public here," said one of the staff members. If you want to place an order for a visa package, inquire about visa services, or report any issues, you need to search for customer service personnel through online channels such as Taobao and Feizhu. In fact, Ms. Sheng also mentioned during her sharing of her experience that she tried to directly call the landline of the Shanghai office mentioned above after the agency encountered obstacles, but there was no answer. "The only online customer service representative who could reflect the problem seemed to not understand the situation of every customer and would only tell me to 'patiently wait' and 'help you urge'. Whether it was to provide feedback on the problem or inquire about the progress, it was difficult to get a substantive response." At this offline service location, the reporter also did not find the customer service representative who was working.
The customer service representative stated that communication can only be conducted through online consultation.
According to relevant websites, the reporter learned that the full name of this China Youth Travel Agency is "China Youth Travel Technology Development Co., Ltd.", with multiple branches in China. Its visa processing business covers almost all popular destinations around the world, and it offers a wide variety of packages for different countries. On the product page, the corresponding packages are labeled as "high-quality", "simplified", "urgent" and other exciting tags, but upon closer inspection, it can be found that these services have many "tricks" in terms of fees.
Taking the Japanese visa agency business as an example, fees vary depending on the visa application area, visa validity period, number of entries and application materials, processing time, etc. However, the difference between different packages for the same type of visa is not significant. For example, Ms. Sheng's three-year "VIP Simplified and Urgent" package requires almost the same materials as the "on-the-job simplified" and "tax simplified" packages. According to customer service, the VIP Simplified and Urgent package "only shortened the processing time by one working day", but the price difference would reach 200 to 300 yuan. Furthermore, from the actual experience of consumers, it is evident that the application materials are being supplemented and the visa issuance time is repeatedly delayed, which is gradually deviating from the promised additional services.
The customer service representative stated that the 899 package is only expedited in terms of time compared to other packages.
The reporter also found on multiple product pages that although the "package instructions" provided by the merchant contain explanations for the fees, they do not seem to correspond to the final charges. For example, the "first application" package for a Dutch tourist visa charges 588 yuan, but the cost description shows "1000 yuan for a trip within 10 days"; The "landing permit" package for a single entry visa to Vietnam charges 129 yuan, and the cost description shows "1000 yuan for the 3rd work permit". When asking customer service, they can only get a list of application materials for the corresponding package, which makes many consumers exclaim "I can't understand" on social media platforms.
In addition, the reporter noticed that in addition to a wide variety of packages offered by individual travel agencies, the pricing between different travel agencies is also varied. For example, when the reporter searched for "Korean tourist visas" on the Feizhu platform, the most expensive ones were charged more than 1500 yuan, while the cheapest ones were only 139 yuan. Moreover, the pricing of packages often fluctuates up and down, and there is no fixed amount.
Currently, upon re entering the Japanese visa product page of this travel agency, it was found that the package purchased by Ms. Sheng has been taken down, and the pricing for the new package is different.
The visa agency market still needs to be regulated
So, how should the service content and fee standards be determined for visa agency services?
"The travel agency has always had the final say." Ms. Wang, who has been working as a visa agent for a long time in a travel agency, told reporters, "through the agency business, travel agencies charge different amounts of service fees in addition to the visa fees required by the consulate. among them, urgent handling and simplified procedures are the two most common publicity points. for some visas with more complicated handling procedures, they will also provide services such as travel itinerary, interview training and accompanying face-to-face signing. As for which services and pricing standards should be included in an agency package, there is no uniform specification. In addition, the service itself is difficult to quantify, and the final charge to consumers can only be a package price."
"In fact, so many travel agencies on the market can undertake visa agency business, which in itself is unreasonable." Ms. Wang added, "Strictly speaking, only travel agencies with entry and exit qualifications can enter the consulate to send signatures to the agency, but in fact, many travel agencies are forced into this market by means of affiliation and want to get a share." She believes that the threshold of the visa agency business itself is not high. Most of the work is carried out around the desk, and it does not require too many personnel and too much space. After the pricing is arbitrary, the profit space that can be brought will be greatly improved.
According to the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai, a travel agency with visa agency qualifications.
However, when the reporter inquired about the relevant laws and regulations, it was found that what Ms. Wang said "there has been no standard" was not entirely correct. As early as 2007, the National Development and Reform Commission Announcement No. 90 stipulated that legally qualified intermediary agencies are entrusted by foreign embassies and consulates in China to charge agency service fees for private visa business for Chinese citizens, and the upper limit of the charging standard is 260 yuan/person. However, as of January 2018, the government pricing of private visa service prices for Chinese citizens was canceled, and only the relevant service agencies were proposed to operate legally, clearly marked prices, and provide services of qualified quality and reasonable prices ".
Ms. Wang hopes that the visa agency market can be more strictly regulated, such as strengthening qualification review, limiting the business to clearly qualified travel agencies, or refining project pricing, so that consumers can have clearer access to product information, and requiring travel agencies to provide detailed explanations on relevant business refund measures during the transaction process. In addition, it is necessary to remind consumers to pay attention to checking relevant qualifications, clarifying package service items and corresponding pricing when choosing visa agency travel agencies, to ensure smooth future travel.
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