How do I get my money back from an immigration scammer? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our offices in San Diego, St. Louis and Washington, DC. You may have heard me talk about the phrase notario or form filler or paralegal. We hear lots of different words for the same thing. These are people who get paid money to fill out immigration forms for you illegally. A lot of times people get taken advantage of by notarios.
Now the interesting thing about working with a notario is that you might not necessarily know when they screwed up your case. In other words, many times the mistakes that the notarios make don't come to light, don't come to fruition, or are not revealed until several months later, maybe even years later. And by that time, oftentimes the notario is in the wind. They can't be found. They are fly by night operators who take your money, screw up your immigration life, and then move on to the next victim. They're like buzzards or parasites who are taking advantage of immigrants who need quality legal representation, who need good advice, and instead they get sold a bill of goods. They get told that through a miracle of their doing, they can fill out some forms and get you a work card. And they can get you that work card in two or three months. You've just got to sign these couple of forms and you're good to go.
These things often lead to people getting placed into deportation, getting deported, or screwing up their immigration case so that they can basically never get a benefit. So the question is, how do we get these people? How do we get the money back from these people? And I'm here to tell you that that money is gone. You're not ever going to get that money back from an immigration scammer. They are too crafty, too judgment proof, and too easily disappearing for you to be able to get your money back from them. So don't hold your breath. If you've made the mistake of hiring a notario of doing work with someone who is not licensed, who's not a licensed attorney, who doesn't know what they're doing, and doesn't know all the ways that they are screwing up your case and you've given them money, that money is gone. It's almost as if you gave it to a thief or told someone, "Hey, here's a loan. Take it. I never need to see you again."Every time I've come across a situation with a notario or a form filler where mistakes were made, or even where mistakes weren't made, they're almost impossible to track down. You can usually tell because they don't sign the forms. They might be charging severely less than actual lawyers. So you really need to be careful about these things. I made this video mostly as a preemptive warning for you to know that you shouldn't deal with these people, because most likely your case is going to be really jacked up and you really might be putting yourself in danger when you don't really need to be.
Hope this makes sense. If you have questions or if you've been taken advantage of, give us a call at (3140 961-8200, email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group. It's called immigrant home. If you like this video, we ask that you please share it out on social, that you subscribe to our YouTube channel, and that you join us on Tuesdays or Thursdays, usually at noon Central, where I'll try to answer as many of your immigration law related questions as possible in just under 60 minutes. Thanks a lot and have a great day.
