India News | Cancelling About 2,000 Visa Appointments Made by Bots, Zero Tolerance for Fraud: US Embassy in India
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The US Embassy in India has said its consular team is "cancelling" about 2,000 visa appointments made by "bots", while asserting it has "zero tolerance" for agents and fixers who violate its scheduling policies.
New Delhi, Mar 27 (PTI) The US Embassy in India has said its consular team is "cancelling" about 2,000 visa appointments made by "bots", while asserting it has "zero tolerance" for agents and fixers who violate its scheduling policies.
The embassy informed this in a notice shared in a post on X on Wednesday.
A senior US official also confirmed the development.
"Consular Team India is cancelling about 2000 visa appointments made by bots. We have zero tolerance for agents and fixers that violate our scheduling policies," the embassy wrote on the social media platform.
The notice shared in the post underlined that the team has "identified bad actors" who made about 2,000 visa appointments that "violated our scheduling policies".
"Effective immediately, we are cancelling these appointments and suspending the associated accounts' scheduling privileges," it said.
"We will continue our anti-fraud efforts. We have zero tolerance for fraud," the notice says.
There is a very high demand for the US visas, both among students and tourists, besides travellers in other categories.
In 2023, the US Mission in India had processed a record 1.4 million visas overall.
The American universities attract a large number of Indian students, and the US consular team in India had in 2023 issued over 1,40,000 student visas -- more than in any other country.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)