Nearly one million apostilles are processed each year in the United States alone. As the world becomes increasingly global, citizens are doing business, retiring, moving, and adopting children in foreign countries. And doing so usually requires the relevant documents to be apostilled.
Unfortunately, where money is involved, thieves and swindlers will show up on the occasion. And this has happened with the many apostille services that are mostly advertised online.
Typically, a fake apostille service will fool you in one of two ways:
- They will just take your money and important documents (which you mail them) and never keep their promise.
- Your documents will be returned to you with forged apostille stamps and you won’t know until you try to pass those documents on to a foreign government or agency.
The real problem here is that many of the bogus trades are located outside of the US, sometimes in Great Britain or other parts of Europe. Therefore, the victim’s recourse is very limited.
Protect yourself by making sure the business operates within the United States. There is no point in sending your important (sometimes expensive and hard to obtain) documents abroad only to have that company send them to an apostille office in the US anyway.
Yes, there may be legitimate companies operating abroad, but if you choose a bogus one, you won’t have much recourse if they are outside of the US.
How long has the apostille service been in business? Look at how long your website has been active, under whose name it is registered, and if there are (unbiased) online references from people who have used it. US expat chat groups are helpful for this as most of their members have gone through the same process to get apostilles.
Is the site a copy of another legitimate site? Look at the spelling of the URL. Are you close in writing to another popular site? At some point, crooks will try to look like a legitimate site but direct payments to a different address. (If the apostille service is doing business in the US, contact your local Better Business Bureau and see if there are any complaints.)
Lastly, if the apostille service will only accept wire transfers, that’s definitely a strong clue that it could be fraudulent.
Be aware and vigilant and you should have no problem choosing a legitimate apostille service. And if you want to be 100 percent sure, consider handling your documents yourself. That way, you are absolutely certain that they will arrive at the correct government office and receive legitimate apostilles.
If you’re not sure how to go about it, I’ve written a step-by-step guide to getting your apostilles yourself, quickly, securely, and for hundreds of dollars less than any legitimate service offers. You can consult it here: apostilleguide.com
After all, sometimes doing it yourself is the best (and safest) way!
