Yup, that happens apparently. Or so we can believe. You see, the story I saw at the BBC hours ago seemingly pried loose a few issues. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65556437) gives us ‘UK men offered £10K to pose as dads in visa scam, BBC investigation finds’ Here we re given “Scammers are using Facebook to tout for business and claim to have helped thousands of women in this way. Facebook says such content is banned by its rules.” Which got me two feathers rustled. Lets be clear this could be happening and it likely is. So where does the BBC get the word ‘thousands’? The article gives us “Thai, who didn’t advertise on Facebook, said he would concoct a convincing backstory in order to successfully dupe the authorities.” We are also given “Another agent, calling herself Thi Kim, claimed she had helped thousands of pregnant migrant women. She said she could provide a British man and it would cost “ten thousand for the dad”, with her fee being £300.” You see, this is an income track with a short lifespan, and she taking £300 whilst paying the man £10,000 rings untrue. £2,300 and £8,000 would sound more believable. The entire setting is one that comes across particularly nasty. So when we get to “However, last year 4,860 family visas were granted to “other dependents” – a category which includes those applying to stay in the UK as parents of British children. Deliberately giving false details on a birth certificate is a criminal offence.” It is at this point I wonder what the game of Patrick Clahane, Divya Talwar & Khue B Luu is about. Is it about what we shallowly read, or is one of their friends anti-immigration? You tell me, because this story could go either way. How were the thousands ‘found’ and the fact that scammers are using Facebook is nothing new, but in this case how many are on Facebook? Then we combine the ‘thousands’ again but now we look at where these women come from. Thousands and there is no top-line listing? The names are Thai and asian sounding, but how many are from South America or Russia? And the last quote was “The BBC could not estimate the scale of the fraud, as the Home Office was unable to provide data on the number of cases it had investigated.” Well, the numbers we do get gives us over 41% (thousands divided by 4860) and that is merely the top, there is too much inaccuracies. So are the BBC again biting at the steak of emotional baggage? I wonder what is actually true here and it is not the first time that the BBC is reporting in a questionable way.
So what will be the next stage, vacations to dubious locations are offered free of charge so that you can impregnate (read: have sex) with a dozen women, all for free? If the article has any truth in it then it would be the part where we see “how desperate these women are”, mainly because for a lot of non-europeans the UK still represents a slice of golden future. That was never in question. The question becomes the BBC and what they consider making news. As I see it “has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment” is a mere approach to give validity to something that is not and I have a few questions on the article that lacks a whole range of validity. So how about Tim Davie? Will you improve the story quality and the numbers on this or are you destined to be the next Uber driver? They are taking resume’s at present.
Enjoy your non impregnating (or non impregnated) day today.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 