L1, L2 Visa

Hi All,

I see that a fee has to be paid at counsellor office before interview and many termed it Fraud Prevention fee.

Is this something to be paid twice?

I mean we pay following fee at the time of application which includes the Fraud Prevention fee.

1. $460 I129 filing fee;
2. $500 Fraud Prevention and Detection fee;

Thanks for inputs in advance.

For a consular interview, I understand I need to carry standard certificates, bank statement, DS 160, appointment confirmations, etc

Do I need to carry whole I 129? Its 1000 pages :)

Do I need to carry original 797 or a printed scanned copy will be ok? (My original is in the mail and may not arrive before the interview).

Thank you everyone here for posting the experiences. They were very helpful. Sharing my experience:

A day before the interview: After reading the experiences here, I took the tip and decided to write down the answers on a paper and it actually helped. I would recommend doing this activity atleast a week early, although I did it a day before.

IMPORTANT POINT: During interview, keep your points short and know when to stop. The VOs maintain straight face the entire time and my VO did not even nod. Hence, for one of the questions, I spoke more than what I should have (that's what my wife told me :D). So stick to the important points only and stop as soon as you have stated 2-3 points (if the VO has not interrupted). The more you explain, the more difficult it gets for you to stick to the points and you may end up saying things you have not prepared for and the VO can grill you on that.

Read all the L1B experiences on this forum to understand the process. Nothing different for biometric and the visa processing fee than the other experiences. Sorting the documents before going for appointment can save some time, but at that point, time is the least of your concern. You would be down with nervousness anyway and won't mind people going ahead of you!

I paid by cash since I did not want to take a chance of the card blocking the transaction(since it is in USD). I had already informed my bank of the upcoming transaction, but chose to pay by cash anyway. One less thing to worry about.

While in the queue for actual intervew, we observed some people getting rejected and others getting accepted. Don't think too much about it. You can't choose the counter you can go to, so just accept the fate and stay calm.

About me: I work for a product company. Salary is north of 140K. I have B1 visa already but have not travelled.

Me: Good morning, Officer!
VO: Good morning, can you handover the docs?

**handed over the docs**
VO: Where do you work?
Me: Told

VO: Where will you be working?
Me: **, ** (city and state)

VO: What is your salary in USD?
Me: "xyz dollars. <pause>This is the offered salary". (She did not mention current or offered. I had a confusion for a split second and hence I told "Offered salary" after a small pause)

VO: How long have you be working with you current company?
Me: 2 Years 3 Months

VO: What is your specializatoin?
Me: (At this point of time, i forgot everything I had prepared due to nervousness. And I started giving an impromptu answer). My answer included the term "Distributed systems"

VO: What is distributed systems?
Me: Told
(Note: Frankly, although I can explain what distributed systems is, my immediate worry was to keep it as simple as possible. I started explaining making sure I don't fumble. One trick is to slow down your pace of talking and take time to think and at the same time ensuring that there are no long pauses. Also, don't repeat your sentences. When you think you have spoken enough, stop! On this answer, I kept on going because I thought I had to explain the entire concept of Distributed Systems :D They just want to know you are not bull **** , so stay concise and again, STOP WHEN YOU THINK YOU HAVE EXPLAINED ENOUGH.

VO: What do you do with distributed systems?
Me: (I was slightly confused at this point. I thought I did a good job on the last answer) This time, I picked an example to explain. As I said about 1-2 lines, she interrupted.

VO: What do YOU do with distributed systems? (This time she emphaized on "YOU")
ME:(That's when it stuck me) Explained my role with distributed systems. This answer was also impromptu since I had prepared for "what is your role?" but not for "What is your role with distributed systems?"

After this, there was a long long pause. She was typing something. And then she goes ahead and stamps the forms. and she says "Your visa is approved...."

She did not ask my wife a single question!

Tips:
1) Prepare the bullet points for your current role, specialization and future role and make sure you are not faking anything. Had I not been working on Distributed Systems and had I just faked it, I would have been **** bricks when she grilled me on that topic.

2) When you don't understand the question, say sorry and ask again. Don't assume the question and end up giving wrong answer.

3) Look for follow up questions when you write down the bullet points during your preparation and prepare for those questions as well.

4) Your DS-160(and support letter) is like a resume and they can ask you anything on that. So you need to be well aware of the things you have mentioned, even if you have not prepared for them before hand. In my case, although I had not formally prepared for question on Distributed Systems, i could answer everything since i actually work on it. So put only those things you are specialized in

5) Don't fumble and don't complicate things. Speak slow when you are giving an impromptu answer. This buys you some time to think about what you are saying.

Again, a lot of it depends on luck. All you can do is prepare well. There are good chances that you might forget or you might not be abe to state things correctly. As long as you have stated the truth on your documents, you should be able to give convincing answers.

All the best!

I have learnt from the experiences shared here and would like to share mine hoping that somebody will benefit from this.

Prep:

Do not overdo while preparing.
Treat it as a job interview and keep your answers ready.
You get a few minutes to present your case, make sure to practice well before appearing for the interview.
Keep it simple.

Visa Day:

Do not reach too early as you will not be allowed to enter before the scheduled time.
> I reached about 45 minutes before my scheduled time. It was quite hot and I had to listen to some unnecessary conversations around rejections.

Make sure to carry a DD with correct details.
> The guy next to me in the queue had missed an important detail in his DD and he was allowed to submit the same after hundreds of requests. Another guy was sent back as his CC did not work. Opt for DD instead of CC as it is safer/easier.

Try not to listen to others’ interviews.
> I overheard a lot of rejections which made me nervous while waiting for my turn. It’s better to concentrate on your pitch while waiting for your turn.

QnA:

VO: How long have you been working with xyz?
Me: I have been working with xyz for X yrs Y months. (It’s a top product company)

VO: What do you do and what will you be doing?
Me. Started with my pitch however the VO intervened after 3-4 sentences.

VO: Salary in US?
Me: $abc and pq % Variable

VO: Designation and Location in US?
Me: Told the designation and location.

VO: Will you be working at a client location?
Me: Said that I’ll be working at a company branch in qwe state.

VO: Your Visa is clearly approved! You will get the passport back in 3-5 days.
Me: That’s a great news. Thank you.

Hi Everyone,
Thanks a lot to everyone who shared their experience in this forum. It is very helpful. Even I got benefited from this forum. And want to share my experience too so that it can be helpful to others.

I went with my wife and 1 kid at 10:00 AM on 24th Oct. 2019. I will directly jump on the questions which was asked.

Question:
VO: How long have you been working with your petitioner?
ME: XX years and YY months

VO: What your petitioner does?
ME: Explained briefly about my company in 2 to 3 lines.

VO: Officer saw my wife and asked, are you working?
My Wife: No, I am not working.

VO: Where is your petitioner based out of in US?
ME: ABC City in XYZ state

VO: What would be your expected salary?
ME: YYYY thousand dollar per annum plus YY bonus

VO: What's your designation in US?
ME: Told my designation

VO: What are you going to do there?
ME: I had prepared 6 to 7 lines which I updated in my DS 160 form but after completing 3 lines, VO said OK and moved on to another question.

VO: How many direct employees in US?
ME: XX direct in US (I did not mention anything about indirect, then VO asked about Indirect)

VO: How many Indirect?
ME: XX indirect spread across globally.

VO: What are their designations?
ME: Explained the different designations as per my org chart team.

VO: Do you have hire and fire authority?
ME: Yes

After this, VO officer started stamping on my 3 sets of I-129S forms and then told that my visa is approved.

Hi Everyone,

Thanks a lot everyone for providing your experience . it was really helpful for me. even not sure why it got rejected.

1. How long you are working with current Organization
2. which client you are working?
3. How many direct reportees?
4. is there any indirect reportees?
5. what is your Role?
6. what is US salary? ( 120K)
7. What is your Indian salary?
8. How long you are working in this Organization?
9. This is some thing new questions for me like I can not consider your visa for L1A and considering for L1B. can you please mention your any Specialized Skills knowledge like Tools and technology.
10. I told her about my Product experience
11. have you worked on the same product for 4 years 8 months? I said Yes.

She was typing something and gave me 221 g blue slip and said not clearly approvable.

Note:
Salary ( 120 K), 7 direct reportees

Hi everyone, same work for last couple of months on getting all the required documents at one place
Directly on to the experience

Experience is similar in questions what have been posted about experience, role, location and salary

However one very important advise which might be new for all of us
And the same is never called out in the last 2 years experiences here.
 For all the folks who are using credit cards to make payments inside consulate
Please call up your bank in advance and make international payment activated
This is the primary reason where the cards are getting rejected and not because
Of issues in consulate

I took luckily 3 cards to make a payment, 3rd card worked otherwise
I was expected to go out and get cash
When I got back to hotel and saw the cell and there is bank mailer on
My previous 2 cards stating we found suspicious transaction and the
Card is blocked

So only one suggestion is to call your bank's in advance and ensure the
International or Dollar payments are activated to make it smooth

Also what you have filled out in DS 160 like work experience, education
About the company everything would be looked into very closely and the evaluation
Would be done as that's the reason we have been asked to submit information
In prior

Interview is just to cross verify if you really posses everything

Regards
Best wisher, All the best every one

Hi,

I have scraped the experiences data dating back 2013 using python and downloaded in excel sheets for easy filtering.
Ping me or search me on Linkedin with Ravi Shankar,Amazon to get the data.

Also since it is immihelp's proprietary information, please let me know who should if I can share it or if I should create a dashboard and host it for benefit of everyone.

Hello,

Thanks everyone for posting their experience. This forum has helped me to prepare for the interview.

I went for L1B blanket petition in Chennai on Oct 24th and got 221(g) blue slip with "administrative processing" checked. I work in a semiconductor company as a design and verification engineer.

Here is my experience:

Me: Good Morning!

VO: So you are applying for L1 blanket?
Me: Yes.

VO: How long have you been with this company?
Me: For 4 and half years

VO: So you will be moving to California?
Me: Yes (told the city as well)

VO: What you gonna do there?
Me: Explained my job duties in layman terms but still she couldn't understand and kept on interrupting me. Tried to rephrase and told.

VO: What will be your salary?
Me: Told ($$$K)

VO: Did you apply for any other visa before?
Me: Yes, I went in F1

VO: So you did your masters in ZZZ?
Me: Yes.

She told me that my visa will be under administrative processing and took my passport/I129/I797 and gave me a blue slip (221g) with "administrative processing" checked. Did any of you guys have a similar experience? If approved will I get back the stamped I129 as well?

My interview timing is 8.30AM and i reached consulate around 8.15 AM along with my kids. Directly went to Visa official checking passport in the line and he asked us to proceed directly since we have kids. After security and document checks, went to next building.
Paid fraud detection fee of 36K INR and have been asked to directl join the queue number "24". In front of me, H1B interview is going on for 3-4 mins and got approved.

Questions:
i) Visa Type
ii) Company (One of the top product company)
iii) City traveling to
iv) Salary (upwards of 180k)
v) Indian Salary (specifically asked Base salary alone excluding stocks)
vi) Specialization

As soon as i start to tell the specialization she typed in computer for 20 secs and started to stamping the docs and said Visa is approved. She told to give the one copy to HR dept and another one while traveling to US.

Interview lasted for a minute only and pretty straightforward. Came out of Consulate around 8.40 AM.

If you have kids, please take them with you. You can skip all the lines and within 10-15mins of entering consulate, you will be standing infront of the VO.
My profile is Test Engineer.

All the best!!