Thousands of Moroccans and residents in Morocco were subjected to a “scam” related to the applications for obtaining a “Schengen” visa from the French embassy in Rabat in 2020, and this leads to a question, was the embassy involved in this "scam”?
The details of this 'scandal' that the Assahifa Arabic managed to reach, start from March 2020, when the French embassy announced the closure of its doors and the suspension of granting visas due to the Covid-19 epidemic, therefore, the suspension of receiving visa applicant files that are initially processed by TLScontact Center.
However, this suspension was preceded by a decision surrounded by a lot of ambiguity and confusion, as TLScontact Center contacted those who had appointments to submit visa applications in late March and April of the year 2020, to ask them to submit their files, and thus the center received thousands of Moroccans and residents in the Kingdom.
Each person who submitted a file to obtain a visa paid a sum of money of up to 1095 dirhams, divided between 840 dirhams for the French embassy, and 255 dirhams for the TLScontact Center as expenses for processing the file, knowing that the embassy had already the information from the French authorities regarding the date of suspension of receiving files.
The number of submitted files reached nearly 50 thousand files during the month of March 2020, through which the French Embassy obtained financial revenues of 42 million dirhams, while the TLSContact Center obtained more than 12 million dirhams. The amounts entered into the treasury of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its embassy in Rabat, and the TLScontact Center before all those who submitted their files were notified that there was a suspension of visa processing due to the pandemic of Coronavirus.
Approximately three months after this suspension, TLScontact contacted all applicants, asking them to come to collect their passports, accompanied by a notice paper from the French Consulate (Picture below), which states: “The processing of visa files has been suspended due to the pandemic, and will be processed after the health situation stabilizes.”
And the French consulate adds in its notification, which Assahifa Arabic was able to obtain a copy of it, "that all those who received this notification will not pay additional expenses when submitting new files for the visa application."
The beginning of the "scam"
After the health situation stabilized, and the French embassy and TLScontact Center recently returned to receive visa application files, the people whose files were previously suspended were surprised by the center asking them to pay new financial fees in order to submit their files again, despite having the French consulate notice paper which refers to the exemption from paying new financial fees.
TLScontact Center justified that it had received a letter from the French Consulate in Morocco informing them of the cancellation of the validity of that notice, although the notice does not have an “expiration date”, which means that everyone who has that notice, can benefit from the fees that he had previously paid to process the visa application file at the French consulates in Morocco, to submit his new application.
TLScontact Center has a different say than reality
To track all the details of this "scam", Assahifa Arabic contacted TLScontact, who said via an audio recording that all those whose passports were returned without their files being processed in 2020, and who received the written notice, can submit new visa applications without paying new fees.
However, the reality contradicts this statement, as all those who want to submit new applications are required to pay a fee of 1159 dirhams, divided between 840 dirhams for the French Embassy, and 319 dirhams instead of 255 dirhams (previously) for the TLScontact Center.
Assahifa Arabic wrote to the French embassy on the matter, but it has not received any response so far, and many citizens are threatening to resort to legal methods, after feeling a kind of "scam" that amounts to a major fraud worth more than 50 million dirhams.
This "scam" also prompts many legal questions about the fees collected by the French embassy in Rabat from Moroccans and residents in the Kingdom without having their files processed, and how the French consular authorities in the Kingdom can be pursued judicially about the collection of huge money sums without legal basis.
