McAfee SiteAdvisor Blog

Each year millions of people enter the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery (a.k.a. the “Green Card Lottery"), hoping to win one of only 50,000 permanent resident visas (“green cards") that the U.S. awards by random selection among qualified entrants. Implemented by the Immigration Act of 1990 to increase the number of U.S. immigrants from countries exhibiting “disproportionately low" rates of immigration, the program has become increasingly popular as a potential means of obtaining permanent residency status. But the chance of winning is unusually slim: In 2005, only 0.8% of the 6.3 million qualified entrants were awarded the coveted card.

With so much at stake, it’s perhaps no surprise that bad actors seek to take advantage of the Green Card Lottery to line their own pockets. We were tipped off by some SiteAdvisor user comments pointing out the misleading nature of seemingly-“official" green card lottery sites. So we decided to take a closer look.

Participation in the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery program is free. There is absolutely no charge to download, complete, or submit the electronic entry form through the U.S. Department of State Web site at dvlottery.state.gov. Only the chosen winners are ever subject to processing fees.

But numerous Web sites charge applicants to “process" their entries to this free lottery. Prices range from $39 for a one year registration to $299 for a ten year registration. (This is strikingly similar to our recent discussion of a company charging $37.95 for free software such as Firefox.)

Now, why would anyone pay if they can enter the lottery for free? Most likely, not everyone knows that the lottery is free. And many people probably do not know where to go online to fill out the official entry form.

Search Engines Lead Users Astray

Search engines seem like a logical starting place for residency seekers wanting information about the lottery. But try searching Google for ‘green card lottery.’ The results are worrisome. Here’s what we found on February 8, 2006 on Google:

Performing a Google search for 'Green Card Lottery' resulted in many misleading sites.

1) The first page of results contains only four government sites but 13 non-governmental sites that charge fees to process lottery submissions.
2) Three sponsored sites occupy the prominent space at the top of the page – all three above the first government site.
3) The first government site gives a bare URL, without title or description of any kind, which makes it nearly useless. Few users would realize this is actually the best and most important site in Google’s results – the only site that directly provides free registration in the lottery. In contrast, the non-governmental sites, have inviting descriptions such as “The official US government program" or “Your lifetime chance to win US Visa."
4) Many of the non-governmental sites boast official sounding domain names that contain the words “official", “green card", and “immigration."
5) The second government site can’t actually help a user get a green card. Instead, and more than a bit ironically, this site merely warns users about Green Card lottery scams.
6) In order to find an official government site with an appropriate title and description, a user would have to scroll past 3 ads and 6 organic listings.

Typical users are likely to stumble onto one of these fee-based sites and assume that it offers the standard procedure for entering the visa lottery. Research indicates that users have trouble distinguishing between ads and organic results even under optimal conditions. With these fee-based sites doing everything they can to look official (even putting the word “official" in their domain names), users are at special risk of getting confused here.

Assessing Official-Green-Card.org

The home pages of some of these sites also look remarkably similar to the home page of the U.S. Department of State Web site. Compare the U.S. Department of State Web site to that of Official-Green-Card.org (SiteAdvisor Analysis: official-green-card.org):

U.S. Department of State Web site          Official-Green-Card Web site

The official-green-card.org site looks like it could actually be an official government site. Notice U.S. icons such as an eagle, an American flag, and a picture of the Capital building. The site even copies the standard style of a circulate seal in the upper-left corner. Plus, the word “official" appears in the site’s domain name and six times on its home page alone. Only at the very bottom of the page, in reduced size font, can savvy users find the disclosure “Official-Green-Card is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Government."

Despite the visual similarities between Official-Green-Card’s Web site and that of the State Department, Official-Green-Card admits differences between using the two sites in an attempt to highlight Official-Green-Card’s “advantages" over the State Department site. Are these “advantages" really worth paying for?

Throughout its site, Official-Green-Card touts the advantage that "*Winners will get FREE Airline ticket to the USA."
Certainly, a free airline ticket would more than offset the site’s entry form processing fee. But the asterisk hides the crucial fine print: not only do you need to first win the Visa lottery, but then you must win a second drawing for the free airline ticket. Although the home page alone mentions this travel reward five times, the second sweepstakes is only disclosed at the bottom of the Terms of Service Agreement:

From Official-Green-Card's Terms of Service Agreement

Hopefully your luck is sustainable.

Official-Green-Card also claims year round registration for their services as another boon to their customers, as the U.S. government only accepts lottery applications during a set two month period each year. (The 2007 application period was October 5, 2005 to December 4, 2005.) But Official-Green-Card must abide by the same timetables that the U.S. government sets for all applicants, so your entry form will not be processed any earlier if you register with them outside of the open application period. Maybe it’s worth something to get to register immediately upon learning about the lottery, rather than having to remember to come back later. But we doubt that’s worth $49 to many people.

Official-Green-Card shares Web site content and a payment engine with usafis.org, which has a surprisingly high Alexa rank of 2,255. Both sites also advertise on Google, Yahoo! and MSN paid search results, taking two of the top three sponsored results on each engine, and paying up to 50 cents per click for qualified leads that may turn into paid customers. In fact, five of the sites on the first page of Google’s search results ultimately drive customers to USAfis.org. These sites are all registered to the same physical address in New York, suggesting that a single organization is likely dominating this market.

Assessing USGreenCard-Immigration.org and Fuzzy Math

Another site, USGreenCard-Immigration.org (SiteAdvisor Analysis: usgreencard-immigration.org), takes a different selling tactic. They claim that 30% of lottery applicants are disqualified due to errors in application formatting and content. The site claims they will “look over your application to make sure information is filled out correctly" which they say “gives [applicants] a 30% better chance of winning." That’s not only illogical math, but it’s incredibly misleading too.
```
Many of these sites also justify their processing charges by claims of providing expert support. But there are many free informational government contacts and Web sites directed at assisting lottery participants. The US Department of State Web site provides contact information to Visa Services and links to embassy and consulate sites in other countries. Lottery instructions are available in seven languages and the unitedstatesvisa.gov website is available in six languages. So there’s help available for applicants who need it. Applicants need not pay USGreenCard-Immigration to get assistance.

We think the photo scanning service (offered by some of these sites) is the only service worth paying for. All entry forms must be submitted to the U.S. government electronically, yet some applicants may not have access to a scanner or digital camera. But other than that, you’re generally just paying the Web site to serve as an intermediary between you and the State Department. We suspect most applicants would be better off applying on their own.

SiteAdvisor’s Evaluation of These Sites

We’re not saying that these sites are not technically providing a service. Individuals pay intermediaries all the time to do things that could be done directly for free, like having an accountant prepare and submit tax returns to the government. But we rate these sites red due to a combination of their aggressive advertising, their potential to mislead typical users, and their risk of providing minimal value to customers.

Some people may not realize that the lottery program is free. Others may think these Web sites are affiliated with the U.S. government – especially when their color schemes, layouts, and even domain names falsely indicate that they’re “official." Still other users may not have read all of the fine print; they may mistakenly believe claims that are subject to more than a few caveats. If we can help some of these people figure out what’s really going on here, we’ll consider that a success.

We’re not the only ones concerned about this issue. The FTC and USCIS both issued alerts warning of “imposter" and “bogus" web sites, and the New York Daily News wrote about this issue too. But beyond blaming the sites for these bogus ads, we like to put the issue in context. Looking back at the Google search results, we see how users can be led astray here – and we see room for the Internet community, and SiteAdvisor, to help make things better.

We want to make sure that visitors to these sites are aware of the alternative, free option, so that they are armed to make informed decisions. As always, if you disagree with our conclusions, let us know by submitting a comment on this entry or by leaving a comment on one of the site report pages mentioned here:
SiteAdvisor Analysis: official-green-card.org
SiteAdvisor Analysis: usgreencard-immigration.org
SiteAdvisor Analysis: usafis.org