VisaDIY versus a travel agent

What differs

	A typical agent	VisaDIY
Price	One number, nothing itemised	Flat service fee, everything else at face value
Government fees	Often marked up, no receipt	Passed through, receipted
Your passport	Held, sometimes for weeks	Stays with you until appointment day
Payment	Frequently cash or a personal account	Company account, invoiced against your file number
Communication	Improves before payment	Named case officer throughout
Weak documents	Some will offer to fix them	We refuse the file

The document question

This is the real dividing line. A meaningful part of the agent market in Pakistan operates by improving files: arranged bank statements, employment letters from companies that will confirm anything, property papers borrowed from a relative.

It works often enough that people recommend it. When it fails, it fails badly. A fraud finding is recorded against the passport, shared between missions, and asked about on every future application including study and work routes.

We will not do it, and we say so before you pay rather than after.

What agents do better

Volume relationships and physical presence. An agent who has walked into the same centre every week for ten years knows things that are not written down anywhere, and for complex or unusual cases that experience is worth something.

We are not claiming otherwise. We are claiming that for a standard visit visa file, transparent pricing and a documented process beat that relationship.

The test to apply to anyone

Ask three questions before paying anybody, including us.

1. What is your fee, separately from the government fees? 2. Will you give me a receipt with my name on it, from a company account? 3. Will you keep my passport?

The answers tell you most of what you need to know.