A group of scammers are making life difficult for officials at the Foreigner's Office in Palma and elsewhere and this is leading to delays in appointments for documents such as the TIE residence card needed by British citizens to live in Spain after Brexit.
Informed sources told the Bulletin online that a group of scammers have been taking up all the available appointments and selling them to the highest bidder. This practice is totally illegal and police are investigating. Arrests have been made over the last few months.
To get your paperwork processed to apply for a TIE residence card for British citizens or a work permit for other nationalities you need an appointment to see an official at their offices in Palma. These appointments are made online but it appears that scammers have been at work, taking up all the available appointments. It appears that they use a high technology method to block off all the available dates.
For sometime there have been no available appointments for people wishing to get their TIE cards in Palma. For some expat Britons the problem is becoming even more urgent because soon Spain will be introducing the new Entry/Exit system at ports and airport which is biometric and therefore the new cards are needed.
The British Embassy has called on British residents to abandon their old Green Certificate residence permits and get one of the new cards as soon as possible.
14 comments
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This story makes no sense me to - I run a secretarial service booking dates for clients as www.tie24.es - and you need to specify the NIE number as part of that process. you cannot change the NIE after you have an appointment - therefore you cannot block book dates and subsequently sell them to the highest bidder. You cannot hold a cita previa in this way. If you turn up to a cita with a different NIE number they will not process you. Therefore in the current government system it is not possible to do what this story says people are doing. There is a shortage of appointments as there is a shortage of appointments - much like the ITV situation which is in the process of being rectified.
We updated our temporary TIE to permanent TIE (i.e. post 5 years residency) and we had to go to the Police Station in Ibiza last month as there had been no appointments in Palma since April. Now we know the reason.
Richard PearsonThe Daily Mail. It tells you all you need to know Richard x
Ulla JacksonI keep confusing it with DEI
Richard PearsonHow come you haven't got a clue what a NIE number is? I'm astonished!
Richard PearsonNothing for you to worry about. Just keep your head down and live a happy life under the radar. Once big brother gets your details life will never be the same again. Its why the UK has been so smart in not having ID cards, preferring instead to live in the 19th century where when a gentleman tells a policeman his name he is believed. The rest of the world is moving into the great electronic web of lies and deceipt. True Brits stay loyal and support our great achievements, our car industry, motorcycles, railways. We have it all, why change ?
This scam has been going on for many years now. Nothing new and nothing had been done about it. Just blah blah. As always.
Richard PearsonReally!
An NIE is a Numero de Identificación Extranjero (a bit like a National Insurance Number in the UK, needed for financial purposes) and a TIE is a Tarjeta de Identificación Extranjero (equivalent of the Spanish DNI - documento national de identitad - but for foreighners) which is also proof of identity and residence in Spain.
Been waiting 10 months now to change over my old green card to a new TIE card, Spanish bureaucracy is a fact of life we all get used to when we live here.