Avoiding scams

What the German Embassy and APS say about agencies, and how to check an offer before you pay.

Typical patterns

• Paid visa appointments. Appointments for national visas are booked online with the mission, free of charge. Anyone selling a "slot" is selling something you can get for nothing.
• APS "interview training". APS says preparation courses for its interview make no sense: the interview checks whether your documents are plausible, not a memorised script. Nobody can buy you a pass.
• "Guaranteed" admission or visa, admission letters sold by an agent, and private universities that recruit through agencies and charge high fees. Berlin's public universities charge no tuition.
• Fake training and job offers – in particular "Ausbildung" or "nursing" packages that cost tens of thousands of RMB. A real training place or job comes with a contract from a named German employer.
• Blocked-account tricks: someone offers to "lend" you the blocked-account sum or to split the currency purchase across relatives' quotas. Fake funding documents can make you inadmissible; splitting purchases breaks the Chinese rules, see Chinese rules.

How to check before you pay anything

• A real offer is a signed contract with a named German employer or training company. Look it up in the German commercial register, call its published number and check its website.
• Book visa appointments only through the links on china.diplo.de or digital.diplo.de; APS only through aps.org.cn.
• Job placement by the ZAV of the German Federal Employment Agency is free.
• Recognition questions: the official portal anerkennung-in-deutschland.de is free. See Recognition.

Already in Berlin and being exploited? See Already in Berlin? for free counselling that is independent of your residence status.