Press Releases
Barbados, June 24, 2009 - Warning about U.S. Diversity Immigrant Visa Fraud
Over the next few months, the winners of the U.S. Diversity Visa (DV) lottery will be receiving notification that they have been selected to apply for the program. Unfortunately, there are many fraudulent websites posing as official U.S. Government sites, and "scam" e-mails posing as Diversity Visa lottery notification and soliciting funds.
Applicants selected in the Diversity Visa random drawing are notified by the Department of State, Kentucky Consular Center by letter, NOT e-mail, and are provided instructions on how to proceed to the next step in the process. No other organization or private company is authorized by the Department of State to notify Diversity Visa lottery applicants of their winning entry, or the next steps in the processing of applying for their visa. Legitimate U.S. government notification of Diversity Visa lottery selection will never solicit payment. Diversity Visa applicants will not be required to pay any fees until the day of their personal interview at the U.S. Embassy.
Only the website of the U.S. Embassy in Barbados and domestic U.S. government websites (which always end with ".gov” as the last three letters of the e-mail address) should be trusted as authoritative sources of U.S. travel and immigration information.