- Please read carefully!
By Enza Petruzziello Journalist
Moving abroad is often a difficult and troubled decision. Will I be able to fit in, to learn a new language? And how will I be able to manage all the paperwork that is waiting for me?
This and other moving-related questions are common to all the expats, who are about to leave. To be able to count on someone is very important for them. To get an angle on that particular country rather than another, is considered a relief to better manage their change of life, they have always wanted and give them the hint of courage they miss to be able to freely change their life.
On our magazine we published several articles about the benefits of moving to Paraguay: from the very good quality of life to the low-cost of food and rents, from the great safety to the convenient taxation. And more: a sound and growing economy, welcoming and hospitable people, very beautiful landscapes and a relaxed and peaceful way of life. Many people have been curious about this little State of South America, far from the classical routes of the Italian expats. Paraguay is still little known and many people do not know where to start to move here. Sadly, it happens that you rely on the wrong people, with the risk of losing time and money. That is why we now want to write about the reliability or unreliability of the companies that help and support people to move to Paraguay. And to do that, we asked for the help of Living In Paraguay, the only company of legal advice, that is certified at European level. Living In Paraguay provides legal, administrative and financial services for all those who want to build “a safe Plan B” for them and their family, obtaining a permanent residence in Paraguay and, in this way, enjoying the many benefits that this little but surprising State makes available to them.
Chief Operating Officier is the Italian-Spanish Vittorio Lorente, who has a 20-year long experience in permanent residences in Paraguay and Latin America, while the Managing Director is Andrea Carlo Bernasconi, who is credited with C-level Executive experiences in many multinational companies in Middle East, Europe and Latin America. Various factors make Living In Paraguay a reliable and serious company and these factors will help you to understand which companies you should mistrust.
More and more people tell us they have been scammed – explains Andrea Bernasconi – by phantom agencies, very good at selling themselves on the web, but later they prove to be incompetent and unreliable. Please, note that we are glad that there are competitors, because it only means that Paraguay is a successful country, but you need to be careful of whom you can rely on.
How can you recognize a scammy? Thanks to some skills and features, that help us to understand whether we can trust him or not.
First of all, members of the company must identify themselves. If they do not provide their name and surname, if there are no pictures or other information, then you have reasons to suspect something. To trust one company rather than another, you need to know who are the senior executives of the company, where is its management, that is the physical location where the company is located and works, the VAT Registration Number, the Company Registration Number where the company is constituted and the telephone number. If you have all this information, you can check on internet if your company really exists. As a matter of fact, you need only to write in a search engine the name of the company together with the name of the country where its legal and administrative address is located and you will see when the company was founded, who are responsible, its VAT Registration Number and its Company Registration number. In short: all you need to understand that your company is serious and really exists.
The 90% of competitors or of whom who have tried to play the role of immigration consultants do not have all these information – goes on the Managing Director of Living In Paraguay – they are only anonymous sites and you have reason to be suspicious about them. They are portals that do not have a contact email, do not write name and surname of the responsible person and do not have a blog where their users are informed. On our site, instead, you can find all information: who we are, what we did and what we are doing.
Another important factor you have to consider, even if may seem trivial to most people, is the telephone number. If there is someone, who during office hours is answering the phone, it means that a company is reliable and serious, because it proves that a company really exists, that all employees are identifiable and that there is an answering machine where you can leave your message and be contacted.
If you want to understand if a company is making fun of you, also pay attention to the price. Be careful about companies that charge half price or even very slashing prices. It is because they want to attract customers with low prices, but then during the process they ask extra cash. It is a common practice of crooks and improvised operators and more or less it works like that: while they are expecting to receive your residence papers, they demand an usually very high amount of money and they make you believe that thus it is possible to speed up the process. That means only two things: either they bribe authorities or they don’t do it right. <<At the end a customer spends three times more than the amount initially requested and he/she has to pay 3- 4000 dollars more than our service, that we do not ask them, of course>>, specifies Mr. Lorente.
Furthermore, they never make an estimate, they only make known the total price. They never detail, they never send you a contract, with no respect for laws on mail order contracts. <<We not only enter into a contract with you, but in some cases you can ask for a repayment>>. As a matter of fact, the contract proposed by Living In Paraguay is a very balanced one and it is drawn up not by their lawyers, but by an Association of some law firms, that are specialised in arbitration. These law firms know full well how to balance consultancy contracts between companies and customers, so that neither of them is disadvantaged.
Our contracts fully protect the consumer according to the rules of European Consumer Code and European Privacy – continues Andrea Bernasconi – Furthermore, our contract is continually being updated and it is the reason why our prices are a little higher than the ones of the competition.
The strength of Living In Paraguay is exactly its attention and its professionalism with which its documents are drawn up. The documents have to contain all the necessary information to ensure that the Immigration Office considers your residence application to be valid. But especially, Living In Paraguay does not guarantee a positive outcome, contrary to less reliable companies.
We cannot ensure a positive outcome on something that is out of our hands. It means that either you produce fake documents or you bribe someone to provide them for you or even you are not a serious person. We do guarantee the correct drafting of your documents, but we do not guarantee them to be successful. The 99% of the applications we receive is approved, but the granting of residence by a State is always discretional. In the very remote possibility that it should be rejected, we guarantee the appeal. We do not run away with money, contrary to the so-called experts who only want to take the money quickly, charge you three times more and go away.
Therefore, Living In Paraguay does not sell anything, because it can sell nothing. We are talking about acts that must be drawn up by Immigration competent authorities. Living In Paraguay provides legal advice to get a 99% positive outcome on what is being presented. Just think that no application for permanent residence has been rejected until now, except on two occasions:
Only twice applications were rejected, because customers said that they did not have criminal record, but Interpol discovered they did. In this case we cannot do anything, not even reimburse our customer.
In short, please beware of people who propose you slashing prices and who dress up as so-called gurus of immigration in Paraguay. Actually, they have no experience, they cannot be identified, they do not have a company behind them, that you can easily identify and especially they ask for a lot less money, but they pretend to be paid in advance. On the contrary, Living In Paraguay divide your payment before and after you obtain your residence.
We do believe to workvery well and so we do not need they pay us the full amount in advance and then disappear, as unfortunately most people do, concludes the Managing Director.
For more information regarding Living In Paraguay, people working in the company, contacts and services provided, you can visit the website of Living In Paraguay:
