"Faked" ESTA web sites - how to get your money back
Visitors from countries under the Visa Waiver Program still require an electronic "visa" to travel to the US. This is called the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) . ESTA is a DHS web site , and some passport and identity information are required to be submitted via a series of web pages. Anyone can apply on behalf of anyone as long as you supply the required information. You get immediate approval if the data you give meet the criteria. Pay $14 and you are done. The approval information is in the computers and the immigration counter staff will look that up when you arrive at the port of entry. It is trivial to set up a web site to ask the exact same questions as the DHS web site, collect $50, and then go the DHS web site to submit an application using the information given by the visitor to your web site. You get to keep the difference. There are MANY web sites that do just this. They have official sounding names such as usavisaonline.com, esta-america.or...