Avoiding scams

Typical patterns in Cameroon: fake job offers, study-place and visa agents, appointment sellers, blocked-account fraud.

Typical patterns

• Appointment sellers: people or pages charging for slots. The embassy strongly recommends not using service providers; it accepts no liability if an appointment is lost through one, and a passport number is blocked for three months after a cancelled or missed booking.
• Fake study-place agents: "admission guaranteed" for a fee. Applications go through uni-assist or directly to the university; uni-assist states that it works with no commercial agencies and that payment requests come only from uni-assist through its portal (uni-assist, Cameroon).
• Blocked-account fraud: offers to "show" the money for you, to lend it for a fee, or to send it to a private account. Choose the provider yourself; the embassy says the choice is yours (Study).
• Fake job offers: a "German employer" asks you to pay for a work permit, "visa processing", a medical or "training" first. A real employer does not charge you for the job or the visa. Compare with Make it in Germany and the Federal Employment Agency.
• Private recruiters for care jobs: Cameroon is in the annex to § 38 BeschV, so only the Federal Employment Agency may recruit and place health workers from Cameroon (Nursing and health). A private offer is a warning sign.
• Forged documents: certificates or civil-status papers from a "helper". The embassy states that forged or falsified documents lead to refusal and can lead to an entry in the visa warning database (Documents).
• Fake embassy pages and e-mails: use only the diplo.de addresses linked here. Unsolicited documents sent to the embassy are deleted.

We name no companies. The patterns are widely reported; the mission statements are linked.

If it happened to you

• Stop paying and keep messages and receipts. For questions about a suspicious offer use the embassy contact page.
• Police and consumer reporting channels in Cameroon and Germany, and a corruption-prevention contact at the embassy, were not checked.