A Good Consultant Won’t Fearmonger.
The Internet can be super resourceful, and it can be super predatory at the same time. Something I am seeing more and more and more of in the (farily small) circle of Spanish Immigration Consultancies is the amount of fearmongering - coupled with gatekeeping information to sell services.
I spent a good chunk of my career in the upper management of large automotive dealership groups. When I went independent with my own Business Development company, so much of my focus for years became training the “used car salesman” out of the car salesmen. No one truly likes those traditionally dodgy-acting, untrustworthy, slimy characters. It’s no big secret that people buy repeatedly from who they know, like, and trust - and they refer their friends and family! But when the “like” and the “trust” are off, the equation crumbles. Used Car Salesmen seldom give you the warm fuzzies, nor does anyone trust them.
One of the big things those salespeople tend to do is fearmonger. This is also becoming a big tactic in social media selling, because it can be effective. But it’s dirty, and it drives me insane. Someone I respected for years in the immigration space recently even resorted to it, and she has always been against it - because it’s tempting, I think, to scare people into engaging with your content. It WORKS! But in my core, it’s lying. And I hate lying more than anything in the world. So I’m going to be very clear:
If you see an “expert” on the Internet trying to scare you into their grasp, please breathe and think. Immigration might be a big pain in the ass, but it’s easy to break down into digestable language and easily understood chunks of information. Lots of us are happy to explain and teach before ever trying to “sell” you anything. There is rarely anything that can’t be fixed or sorted, though sometimes it will take creativity. But we all have creativity, so work with a professional who calms you - from the beginning. There are so many out here causing panic, with claims that they are the only ones who can get you to where you want to be. They never want you to navigate any of it on your own, even when you express a desire to (a red flag , because your independence should be celebrated and assisted!) I watched an attorney try to charge a woman €500 just to make her an appointment for a TIE card, and when she said she thought she could make it herself he warned her sternly that “one mistake could cause huge complications” for her residency. THAT is fearmongering. Do you know what happens if you make a mistake on your TIE paperwork? You correct it. If the station you’re in is a pain in the ass, then you might get sent home to get a new form and make another appointment. So WORST CASE, you have to go back once more. Best case, you are given a new form there or you correct the one you brought. And a newsflash… locals do their own paperwork, and they make mistakes too, since they’re human. Everyone in Spain, Spanish or foreign, has to do lots of paperwork in their lives, and they’re not hiring someone for every little thing - I promise. Do you want to know what I did when I saw that dirty attorney try to scare that woman into paying him 500 euros to make her appointment? I made it for her for free, prepped her documents and sent her on her way. That is how much I despise deceptive sales practices.
When it comes to your actual visa or residency application, unless it’s an EU Citizen type (where you’re already allowed to live here, you’re just formalizing it), it’s more important to get it right and it’s a more serious undertaking. Some are pretty easily doable on your own (NLV) and others are super detailed and nuanced (DNV). And here is your second red flag to look for… GATEKEEPING.
We have some INCREDIBLE attorneys and consultants here in Spain who know every single detail at all times about the DNV, because they are constantly in touch with UGE (the governing body who you submit the application to). UGE changes the rules and the interpretations of the rules quite often, so we are on our toes daily. Between the conferences UGE holds with attorneys fairly often these days, and the large pile of extra document requests that super active DNV specialists have piled up weekly - we’re able to get a really solid idea of how things are changing in very real time. And the BEST ONES? They disseminate that information, often! We all want the public to be aware of every change, as soon as we are sure it’s real. Good, experienced attorneys and consultants also won’t blab on about any changes until we see them in practice or are told to our faces by UGE that it’s happening, because if we do that - it’s fearmongering. One hot day does not make a summer, so we stay calm until there is a reason to make announcements. But then WE MAKE THOSE ANNOUNCEMENTS in full. Myself, my partner attorneys, OTHER attorneys who we don’t even work together with but who we know because this sandbox is so small… every one of us shares information gathered from experience and from UGE directly. A statement you should be wary of looks like:
“This has now become super complicated, UGE changed the rules and now it’s almost impossible to do, but WE/I can make it happen - contact me!”
No information, no explaining the new rule or the change to you or anyone else… just fear and then gatekeeping the rule change, acting as if they have secret information. Meanwhile, the top DNV attorneys in Spain who have the highest number of cases, the highest numbers in approvals, and who attend every in-person UGE meeting (and used to be on the webinars, in the beginning) are on social media giving you FULL bullet-pointed lists of everything that was updated.
Trust in experts who answer your questions directly without a sales pitch. Steer clear of used car salesmen.
