Buyer beware
EUROPASSPORT led us to expect an easy route to European citizenship up-front, with slick marketing and a free, friendly 'Discovery' session, where no potential issues were raised by their staff whatsoever. In fact, our situation was deemed to be particularly good in terms of the documentation we had in-hand.
However, before proceeding, we identified and flagged critical facts concerning dual-citizenship that they advertised on their website, which were in stark contradiction to the laws of the country that we were applying to (based on OUR research, NOT theirs).
We flagged these in very direct and specific terms to the CEO, who provided personal assurances that he had "triple checked with his lawyers" and that there was a "loophole". We trusted his judgment as the CEO of a firm specializing in 'Citizenship by Descent', and proceeded on a 'leap of faith' (our words we used to the CEO).
This proved to be very bad judgement on our part, because as soon as EUROPASSPORT received our money, things became nightmarish.
First, they mishandled our private, personal information by e-mailing it back to us unencrypted over the Internet (completely unnecessarily), thereby exposing us to potential identity theft.
Then, critical facts concerning dual-citizenship that we flagged up-front were cited by EUROPASSPORT's *own lawyer* as making us ineligible for citizenship, despite the CEO's previous claims of having "triple checked with his lawyers" BEFORE we paid their non-refundable fee.
No additional information was requested by the company, or specified as required or missing.
And after all of this, they refused to provide a refund, which the CEO said they would do "if there is any mistake or wrongdoing from [their] side".
We confirmed independently afterwards with the relevant Embassy that EUROPASSPORT's lawyer's opinion was indeed incorrect, and that there was nothing whatsoever about our situation -- based on information we provided both before and after paying EUROPASSPORT's fee -- which made us ineligible for citizenship.
We are very typical members of one of EUROPASSPORT's key target demographics: those seeking "Citizenship by Descent", and our situation is not at all unique. In fact, it is the norm, for children of refugees who came to Canada after World War II.
We are now pursuing citizenship through official channels via our local Consulate and Embassy, as we should have done from the start.
BUYER BEWARE. Don't make the same mistake we did by trusting EUROPASSPORT's marketing and business practices, and assuming their leadership conducts business with basic honesty, transparency, and ethics. This was not true in our case, in multiple instances.
Also, be aware that EUROPASSPORT is a holding company of Limmi AI Inc., which, in their words, is an "AI-powered immigration services provider, transforming the industry by automating and streamlining complex immigration processes", and they have the same CEO.
Speaking as a cyber-security professional with AI training, AI can be a very powerful tool, but it is up to firms who use it, like EUROPASSPORT, to fully explain to customers exactly how it is being used, and in what context, because AI can often make incorrect inferences, especially in fields like immigration law that involve subtleties.
In our case we do not know exactly if or how AI was used, and this needs to be clearly communicated up-front. In hindsight, it might explain much about their baffling and unfortunate opinion, which the CEO defended to the last, despite it contradicting his own up-front assurances and the opinion of the Embassy (which ironically he recommended we consult during our initial conversations).
April 15, 2025
Unprompted review