Russia: the first to obtain a visa to the EU and the USA… bots

Fraudsters deftly intercept all visa appointment dates in EU and the United States with the help of bots, significantly complicating the life of potential Russian travelers.

Dodgers have created bots that are able to automatically occupy all free slots for entry to visa centers. Then these slots are sold for 4–7.5 thousand rubles, tells “Kommersant”.

Fraudsters put a real filter on the tourist flow – bots repeat the search task every minute and instantly occupy all the free places. Yulia Otvagina, deputy head of the visa and migration department at Continent Express, notes the increased demand of Russians for visas and the limited number of slots, so the situation is truly difficult. Especially the process of applying for visas became more complicated in the Moscow visa centers of Spain, Italy and France.

But it is not difficult to buy a slot stolen by bots – on ad sites or travel forums. In the regions, the price is about 4,000 rubles, and at the Vinsky Forum, for example, a slot in the French visa centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg costs from 7.5 thousand rubles. There are also offers on Avito. A representative of the platform confirmed that the site offers services for consultation and assistance in obtaining visas, including through automatic algorithms that help find a free slot and officially sign up for it.

Vladislav Bauer, head of Android development at red_mad_robot Central Asia, explains that even a student can create a bot – there is nothing complicated about it. And they are also developed to order and sold on DarkNet, adds Nikita Kulikov, founder of ANO PravoRobotov. In this case, you can use either one account for all slots, or a separate one for each.

The most interesting thing is that there is no violation of the law here – recording in visa centers using bots does not contradict Russian law. But only if the created bot is not a virus carrier. There are no signs of a violation of consumer rights, because “visa recipients do not purchase the service during electronic registration in the queue”, and this is not about registering with the Russian state authority.

Therefore, law enforcement officers cannot solve the problem that has arisen. Only the creators of the site can influence the situation, if desired. To do this, you need to install Captcha or introduce significant restrictions for robots. As an option, block bots by IP addresses, Bauer suggests. However, bots overcome the Captcha barrier with the help of a person, and more effective restrictions can create problems for real users.

Visa application centers and consulates are aware of the problem and are constantly introducing additional levels of user identification, but the bots … are being reconfigured.

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