Colombia Visa Renewal: Inexpensive, rapid, reliable, efficient
6 years ago
My wife and I just renewed our Colombia TP-7 Visas, a major relief given the Benefit Letter drama playing itself out the past few months as witnessed via this blog.
First we contacted an attorney’s office in Medellin to get their fee for handling the complete renewal process. I had used this office earlier this year to renew my US passport and the fee for that was reasonable, the service efficient and reliable. Their fee for our two Visa renewals: $3,922,280. Astronomical. Forget it.
Next best option was to travel to Bogota and do it ourselves. Did that last year. Cost $2,826,500 for travel, hotel, MRE, meals. I made an appointment at US Embassy to translate and certify our SSN Benefit Letters, based on advice from Cafetero. Agenda was to go to US Embassy in early afternoon, get Benefit Letters translated and certified, go to printer next to MRE—Shalom Traducciones--to have them do MRE on-line Visa renewal application, go to MRE next morning, get renewed Visas, fly home early afternoon. Beats paying Medellin attorney fee.
Next day Cafetero suggested we might consider using a Visa renewal agent in nearby Pereira. Said he referred two other expats to this service and they seemed happy with it. But was this service aware of the nightmare going on with MRE accepting translated Benefit Letters? I was skeptical. Called the service and asked if they were on top of this problem. “What problem’, they asked. They hadn’t experienced any problems with MRE accepting their documents. Next morning we were in their office to make sure this would work. Agent was Luz Dary Toro. Again she claimed they had experienced no problems with MRE. Luz only spoke espanol; fortunately we had our interpreter with us. To calm our doubts, Luz called an ingles speaking translator who verified they had an excellent rapport with MRE; no problems what-so-ever. Wife and I were impressed with Luz’s professionalism and attitude so we decided to take the risk and let Luz handle it. "Okay, so how much will this cost us?" we asked. Luz broke out her calculator, ran numbers. Total for both our Visas $2,068,556. Say what? $600 USD less than the Medellin attorney and $300 USD less than we could do it ourselves. Will only take 9 days, said Luz. Her fee for the service: $400,000 total for both our Visas; rest was MRE fees, translator and courier fees. She itemized out each fee. Count us in.
But wait, we had to pay half today and rest when MRE approved and returned the translated Benefits Letter, which would be in just a couple days, and before they would do on-line application and send our Passports to MRE via courier. A dilemma: Every time, without exception, that I have totally prepaid for services in advance in Colombia I have gotten burned. Including this year with my tax accountant. Only because Luz was so professional, confident and courteous, we agreed to risk paying the money up front. Oh, we had to pay to have a Power of Attorney form notarized just down the block--$10,000.
That was it. Left everything to Luz, went home to Filandia and hoped this was for real. Only had to wait for 8 days; Luz called. We could pick up our Passports with newly stamped Visas at her office.
A few days later in a follow up conversation with Luz to a question I needed to clarify before writing this blog entry, she let slip that one her translators charged her an additional $35,000. She ate the extra charge because she had quoted us a total fee up front and she considered it unprofessional to ask for more later. She said translators generally use a standard per page fee, but can charge additional.
I asked Luz if we could refer expats around Colombia to her for Visa renewal service. She said we could, but she will refer them to other agents with her company—Emigrando. They have agents in every Department in Colombia and they all charge the same fee for this service.
Contact info for Luz: [email protected] (Note: Luz only speaks espanol but we communicated easily with aid of on-line translators. She wrote to me in espanol; I wrote to her in ingles.) Luz cellular numero: 320-700-0821.
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Note of clarification: Colombian translators certified by MRE only translate documents. (Cafetero has posted multiple times here how to obtain list of translators in your area.) Translators stamp each page with their MRE certification number and sign it. Translators DO NOT legalize Colombian documents. ONLY the MRE Legal Department can Legalize a document; thereupon it issues a very formal looking Colombian government Legalization document cover sheet which is needed to apply on-line for Visa renewal.
Visa Renewal Process sequence: 1. Obtain Benefits Letter from Social Security. 2. Have Benefits Letter translated to espanol by MRE certified translator who signs and stamps each translated page. 3. Send SSN Benefits Letter and Certified/stamped translation to MRE (or have translator do it for a fee). 4. MRE reviews translation and approves it. 5. MRE returns above documents via courier to you or your agent along with MRE’s formal Legalization Cover document. 6. Complete on-line Visa application form. (Good luck with that). 7. Go to MRE within 24 hours for Visa approval or have authorized agent do it for you. 8. From date of new Visa stamp you have 15 days to apply at Migracion Colombia office near you for Colombian ID card (Cedula)(big fine if you are late). At Migracion Colombia you now must pre-register on-line, a real nightmare. I had to find a printer who knew how to override parts of the on-line registration form to get it accepted.
This message refers to TP-7 Visa renewals for expats in Colombia. Emigrando handles all type of Visas.
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