When Nathan Chen decided he wanted to see what he calls the "real America," he didn't realize how long it could take. 

The international student from China is living and studying in Halifax. It's the first time he's ever visited North America, and he's eager to explore.  

As is required for many non-Canadian citizens, he applied for a visa to enter the United States. This requires an in-person interview at one of seven U.S. embassy or consulate locations in Canada. 

That's when his problems began. 

Chen is one of thousands of people living in Canada who face U.S. visa wait times that could run as long as two years.

These wait times have generated an industry of online schemes that claim to help people jump the queue — but in some cases have taken over people's accounts or scammed them out of their money entirely. 

WATCH | Researcher explains why people turn to online visa 'scalpers': 

Online 'scalpers' claim to offer faster access to U.S. visas

Rustamdjan Hakimov, associate professor of economics at the University of Lausanne, discusses his research into online entry-visa scalping around the world.

As Chen tried to set-up an in-person interview, he discovered the interview booking website never had any slots available. 

"I checked it every day," he said in an interview in May. 

"Two a.m., 3 a.m., 6 a.m.," he said. "I checked it many times. And at last I found the [first] available date in 2025."

As of late June, the official wait times estimates for U.S. consulates in Canada ranged from roughly 700 to 900 days, depending on location.

Huge demand for visas leads to illegitimate industry

Many Canadian international students, temporary foreign workers or permanent residents need a visa to enter the U.S. for reasons like tourism, business deals, attending a convention or conference or medical treatment.

Chen said he wants to visit the U.S. for tourism, but having a visa would also let him fly more cheaply and easily between North America and his home near Beijing.

As he was waiting for his appointment, Chen learned about an advertisement on a Chinese-language buy-and-sell website. It claimed to be able to find earlier appointment slots within days. 

CBC easily found similar advertisements in English on sites like Instagram and Facebook. 

Chen contacted the Chinese advertiser and learned the cost would be $300 Cdn, but he also saw reviews from other international students at his school who claimed they'd successfully used the service. 

"I think it's an unfair thing," he told CBC about the ads that claimed to skirt the official system, which he believes is "fair to everyone." 

But, Chen felt a "need to find out" what would happen if he paid the service, and invited CBC to observe while he did. 

After Chen transferred the money to a person who claimed to be based in Shanghai, he received a link to an online form where he entered his United States visa account information, effectively allowing someone else to act for him. 

The advertiser told Chen it was difficult to get appointments immediately, but said it should be possible within a few months. 

In the last year, the U.S. embassy and consulates in Canada have started to hear stories like Chen's, and are warning people not to hand over their account information. 

"What's happening is the applicant turns over access to their account and then the scammer does nothing," said Elizabeth Power of the U.S. State Department and the minister counselor for consular affairs, based in Ottawa. 

Power says her office has received reports from visa applicants who lost their money and lost control of their accounts.

"That's when we typically hear about it, when the applicant realizes that they no longer have access to their account, that the scammer has changed the password, and so then they're stuck." 

Power says as far as her agency can tell, the scammers aren't making any attempt to rebook the applicants for earlier appointments. However she said it is difficult to tell the difference between an account with a legitimate owner, and an account where control has been given to a third party. 

Meanwhile, the department has been working on a project to offer more appointments to those who have been waiting the longest, Power said, calling it a "top priority" for her position.

Black market visa appointment industry

This is all part of a thriving worldwide industry studied by economists at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre. 

The research team was contacted in 2014 by the German Foreign Office, which learned that scalpers were charging a fee for faster access to appointments in Beirut, where many Syrian refugees were seeking visas after being displaced by the civil war. 

"Whenever you have a big over-demand for these public services, scalpers find a way to kind of generate profits," said Rustamdjan Hakimov, an associate professor of economics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland who was part of the research team. 

Hakimov said Nathan Chen's experience sounds similar to one type of "scalper" he studied, who is willing to rebook people for a fee.  

"They just monitor any cancellations that will come up, or additional slots which will come out kind of early on, and then they're going to be the first ones to get it," he said. 

Hakimov interviewed some scalpers in Berlin who said they used this technique. 

"They said, 'Look, we're helping people because you know, why would you sit and monitor every second here?' They had a very good image of themselves," he said.

Extreme methods

Hakimov says there's another type of scalping that's even more extreme: a "bot" or computer program uses fake names to snap up every available appointment, some of which the scalpers then cancel and rebook with real people. 

He says the telling sign of this type of scalper is a lot of appointment no-shows. 

"It means that scalpers went all the way," he said. "They booked everything available and they don't care whether they sell or not sell." 

Hakimov's team suggested that government agencies could accept bookings in daily "batches" where slots are randomly assigned among those who enter their name that day, rather than being first-come-first-served.  

"There is no advantage of being fast, which means that technologically humans can compete with the bot," Hakimov said. 

The team also suggested any cancelled appointments be added to the next day's randomly assigned slots, to prevent scalpers from being able to slip their clients into a newly-opened spot.

'These problems only grow'

The U.S. State Department says it doesn't believe its visa booking system is being infiltrated by this type of bot, and it continues to put security measures in place, according to Power. 

"We're working to do what we can on the back end to prevent people from being scammed in this way, but we also need the applicants to protect themselves as well," she said.

But Hakimov says he feels the issue is rooted in financial inequality and will continue to spread. 

"These problems only grow the more we digitalize things," he said. 

With the help of a translator, CBC contacted the Chinese advertiser through their online messaging platform. The advertiser explained they have been in business since 2007 and have booked "a few thousand" appointments in Canada this year, but refused to answer any other questions about how the business is run. 

As for Chen, he doesn't know much about the people he paid to try to get an earlier slot except that their "service" didn't work for him. 

He eventually received help from a friend who spotted an open slot at the U.S.'s Toronto consulate in July and quickly helped him rebook. 

Chen will have to travel to Toronto for his appointment but got his money back from the service he used. 

He's pleased the U.S. State Department is aware of the issue and trying to protect people against it.

"If they pay attention or take action, they can stop the third party interference," he said. 

Chen also advised other visa applicants not to turn to third parties. He's secured his account password so no one else can get in.