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I have a friend in Moscow who has paid for her trip to Australia.She has claimed that 2700 USD is required by the authorities (30 USD / day for a 90 day tourist visa) to support herself.

Now she wants to borrow this money from me. Is the proof of funds a legitimate requirement for Russian citizens? She claims to have gone through an agency.

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    What is your role in this situation? Does your friend want money from you? Or are you asking on her behalf?
    – Kuba
    Aug 14, 2017 at 13:45
  • yes ....she has requested the money from me...thankyou for the response Aug 14, 2017 at 13:52
  • It also sounds like your friend is headed for a visa refusal for funds parking. Aug 14, 2017 at 14:26
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    Ins't this an age old dating scam ??
    – DumbCoder
    Aug 14, 2017 at 15:17
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    Define friend - how did you meet this person from Moscow? What is your relationship?
    – corsiKa
    Aug 14, 2017 at 20:35

2 Answers 2

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It clearly looks like the start of a scam. My guess is that she would ask to borrow the money to give a proof of sufficient funds. Such proof is sometimes asked but it is proportional to the intended stay, not the maximum visa duration, plus it normally is not required to be all available cash, income, credit, all that can be used as proof. This is asked for as part of the a visa application process, it usually comes up long before the trip.

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  • Itai,....she claimed to have told the authorities it would only be for three weeks but insists the 2.7 is required...I grow more dubious. Aug 14, 2017 at 13:58
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    @geoffmiles - Obviously I would too. Also, there are specific authorities, immigration, customs, etc and you should always know which one and be able to look up the rules. In our day and age, if you can't Google It, it isn't true ;)
    – Itai
    Aug 14, 2017 at 14:05
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    Its also notable that if the OP did hand over the $2700 and this was a legitimate traveller, they would probably run into the funds parking road block (or the US equivalent) where it looks like they have received the funds specifically to get around the requirement, and thus their personal situation actually doesnt support the application...
    – user29788
    Aug 15, 2017 at 0:10
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This answer is intended to address the question and also include some general information to show the perspective that most people (including, I believe, Itai) have when answering these questions.

First of all, most questions about proof of funds are scams, especially if it's somebody you don't know that well asking to borrow money from you. Nonetheless, I've seen plenty of questions with a legitimate funds concern, commonly involving entering the UK from Africa or South Asia. It's important to remember that these proof of funds are (usually) fundamentally a question about income, not current bank balances.

Why is that the fundamental question? Because people who can afford a round-trip plane ticket can probably afford to live in a place for X days, for any reasonable value of X. Also, even if they can't and have to try and leave early or rely on some sort of local charity, the cost to the host country is capped by the duration of the stay. If the host country still cares about this risk, then (like Itai says,) it's going to be proportional to the intended stay.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who can afford a round-trip plane ticket and would like to enter a country to break the law by staying illegally to either work there or live with relatives. These people are a bigger problem, since there is no cap on the potential cost to the host country (they die of old age eventually, but I wouldn't call that a cap.)

So why does your particular case say "scam" rather than "legitimate"? Well, even if your friend really had to provide proof of funds, a sudden gift of X dollars wouldn't be likely to help, since it doesn't resolve the fundamental concern, which is that they may try and illegally stay. This is why your request is probably a scam: if your friend actually had a proof of funds problem and they are using an agency, then the agency would know that a single large loan wouldn't help, so they wouldn't ask for it.

Some more-or-less legitimate questions about proof of funds

And some examples of probable scams

I hope this helps.

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    I'm not sure this really does address the question. Note that the claim is being made by somebody who hasn't yet left Russia. It's not a question along the lines of "Somebody got to Australia and were sent back home because they couldn't convince the immigration people that they could afford their trip" but, rather, somebody allegedly not being allowed to leave Russia for not having enough money. Aug 14, 2017 at 21:13
  • @DavidRicherby I don't see what part of my answer is specifically about people being rejected at the airport/immigration. If anything, I think that's a situation my answer doesn't properly cover, which is why I'm glad we agree that OP is not talking about such a situation.
    – Jeutnarg
    Aug 14, 2017 at 21:21
  • Your first three related questions are all about proving to the country you want to go to that you have enough money. The talk about distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate visitors is all stuff the destination country cares about, not the country of residence. So, really, it's pretty much all about being denied entry to the country you're trying to visit, rather than being denied permission to leave by your home country. Aug 14, 2017 at 21:26
  • @DavidRicherby OP does not give sufficient details on who 'the authorities' are to determine which country is denying access.
    – Jeutnarg
    Aug 14, 2017 at 21:29
  • Fair point. But other mentions of this mysterious US$2700 amount make it clear that the "requirement" is to leave Russia, not to enter some other place. As I commented in the question, why would a Russian need US dollars to enter Australia? Sure, it could be an amount in Australian dollars converted to US dollars for the benefit of the asker, but it's a suspiciously round number to have been through conversion (it amounts to AU$38.21 per day at today's exchange rate). Aug 14, 2017 at 21:57

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