visa - Shanghai police shuts down US visa call center

Shanghai police has last Friday closed a visa call center, a commercial operation by the US embassy, because it was considered to be illegal. The official Foreign Affairs spokesman addressed the issue, writes the China Daily. Also the website of the US embassy reports about the closure.
The official reason is the - indeed rather high - charge of 54 renminbi (US$7) per 12 minutes callers had to pay when they waited to get connected. The centre got up to 10,000 calls a week, the Shanghai Daily writes. The closure on Friday made it impossible to make new appointments for visa applications, dragging an application process that has already caused much annoyance, but among the Chinese applicants and US companies and institutions that see many opportunities go awry because of the difficult visa process.
Many Chinese applicants do not get visa or get them too late because of the increased control.