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Local NYC Russian Travel Agency - Is It Scam or Is It Corrupt Russian Politics...

Unisel Network Limited 25 west 45th Street suite1202 NYC,NY currently is being investigated by the Russian Consulates' Office in Washington,DC for aledgedly selling "bogus" Russian Travel Documents and providing costly and "misleading" information  travel advice to Russia.The N.Y.Better Business Bureau and several local television,radio and consumer advocate groups are anxiously awaiting replies from Unisel after an american family made claim to the allegations that as a result of hiring Unisel to provide them with travel documents and advice to visit their relatives in Southern Russia they ended up with the most costly,fearful and harrowing vacation they ever took.

According to the family,Unisel told them their friend accompanying them on a flight to Moscow would need a double-entry russian visa to continue on with his journey to Kyrgyzstan,Republic from Moscow.As it turned out,he was allowed to stay in the transit area at Shermetvo Airport in Moscow and the $230.00 fee was completely unnecessary.
As for the family traveling on to southern Russia from Moscow,their story gets more frightening and costly as each day went on.

Unisel apparently provided the couple and their infant child with this so-called "voucher" to travel into russia with along with their russian tourist visas and they were told by Unisel that with this "special" voucher that it eliminated for the travelers the need to have their russian visas registered upon arriving into russia.
As it turned out,no official authority inside russia honored this so-called voucher mind alone claiming to ever see one before and considered these vouchers to be fraudlent.They were handwriiten for Moscow instead of the southern destination of Rostov,Russia that the  family was arriving to and when it was time for the family to return to the USA they were subjected to denials to leave the country for not registering their visas upon arrival,heavy fines,delays fees from their airlines for changing dates on their flightplans and ultimately,they had to stay in a hotel in russia for 2 days,one that was registered to validate foreign visas in order to be able to leave the country.

Some of the real hardships in the story included the facts that only the wife spoke fluent russian and english so she had to be present everywhere in order to do all the translating. The couple had to tote along their 14 month old infant who was being breastfed at the time everywhere.One guest additionally along with the family was supposed to leave 1 week earlier so the whole ordeal was gone through twice.The child ended up sick as a result of being toted daily the 2 hour ride "each way" from the homestay to the city where the family was trying to get the documents straightened out.

After finally arriving back to USA and contacting Unisel,Unisel flatly refused to return the fee they had charged the family and maintained they had done nothing wrong and stated that it was the vast "corruption" "inside" russia that was rsponsible for all the difficulties.
The family then asked Unisel that if they knew about such difficulties and corruptions  inside russia,why didn't they make them aware of it and why does Unisel continue to do bussiness with such corruption???
Travelers Beware...Is it Unisel or Russia that is corrupt???

... in response to Very Interesting Russia Travel Story..., posted by RickM on Jun 8, 2003

BOTH!!!