Turkey e-Visa official website to avoid phishing

I just learnt my lesson the hard way after my credit card got charged USD 151 for a visa that charges way lesser. This was on a site called https://turkeyvisa.com.tr.

I do not see any text indicating they aren’t affiliated.

The site did not show the amount being charged and my credit card got directly charged. I never received any receipt in my mailbox. Only an application processingwith transaction ID. My visa got processed within 3 minutes and I received a mail to that effect.

After realising that I’d been overcharged, i searched for scams relating to eVisa and realized that a lot of people have ended up paying huge sums through such sites. I did check the visa status on the govt site (eVisa.govt.tr) and while my visa is indeed a valid document, except my email ID I see on the govt site is actually a nonexistent one and the receipt that I can download shows a total charge of USD 44.50. I haven’t been able to sleep the whole night after seeing all this mess. I don’t think the extra 105.50 USD I ended up paying will be returned. I did report such sites to Google and I see that 2 of those are non-functional now.

But turkeyvisa.com.tr is still functional despite my reporting it multiple times since yesterday. I have blocked my card and have raised a dispute for fraudulent transaction, but I doubt if I’ll get the money back. I wish there could be something like a one-time password for international transactions too so that people could verify the amount being charged on the card. This was truly horrible and I’m unable to get it off my head! 🙁

The first link (https://www.evisa.gov.tr/) is the correct one. The gov.tr domain is a good indication that this is an official website from the Turkish government.

The second link (https://turkeyvisa.com.tr/) is quite suspicious (not a government domain, and if you start the application process it heavily pushes you towards paying extra for quicker processing before you even input your personal details) and I would not use it.

The third link (https://konsolosluk.gov.tr/) is also an official Turkish government site (again, see the .gov.tr domain). This one seems to be for general consular information rather than visas specifically – if you go to the ‘visa’ section, you are directed to the first link.

The fourth (https://www.turkey-travelpermit.com/) explicitly states on the homepage (although in a fairly bland part of the page that most people will skip over without reading) that it’s neither part of nor affiliated with any government agency:

This Website is a professional travel agency that aims to help individuals and companies complete the necessary travel authorization requests for short-term stays. There is a service fee, which includes expert help and assistance, and the fees charged by the Government. www.turkey-travelpermit.com is not affiliated with the Government or its sponsors. An application can also be submitted for a lower cost through the Government’s website here, though this would be without our professional review and expert service.

The fifth (https://www.visasturkey.com/) similarly has in its footer:

Disclaimer: This company is not affiliated with the Turkish government. www.visasturkey.com is intended to help individuals and legal entities in their administrative travel paperwork to enter Turkey for a short term stay.

The sixth (https://www.onlinevisa.com/turkey-visa/) offers "expert review" and "Approved visa or money back" – these certainly aren’t common services on an official visa portal. It also offers a "simplified application form", which may prompt you to ask "simplified in relation to what?" (presumably the official form). It also offers visa applications for several countries. That’s not an immediate red flag (VFS Global provide official visa application services for many countries, and there may well be other similar companies too), but it’s not typical and is a sign that you might want to look for verification first.

Not all countries have a domain equivalent to .gov.tr, but many do.

If you’re struggling to work out which visa application sites are legitimate for a country, I’d suggest starting by searching for relevant government websites. The foreign ministry of a country is often a good start – visa information is usually easy to find, and (unlike visa application websites) there aren’t typically private websites trying to look like they’re some country’s foreign ministry. A local embassy or consulate may also be a good place to start, for similar reasons.

Why is there no place where you can officially authentically verify a website, if it is original or phishing.

That’s not a simple task. Who determines whether a website is authentic, and ensures that decision is kept up to date?

Note that the non-official websites aren’t necessarily phishing – many of them work perfectly well, they just take the information you put into their system and put it in the official application system, then charge you all the usual costs plus a "service fee" for themselves. They haven’t provided a meaningful service in return for that fee, but you still get the visa just the same. So it’s more like scalping than phishing. Of course, that’s still not a good omen about their intentions, and I certainly don’t recommend using them!