ave

and yeah I guess that set me off on a bit of a route of enjoying collecting as many ones with my name as legally possible. I have 4 rn, will be up to 5 once I get the foreigners' TD.

@Willeke I could write endlessly on this topic. eMRTDs were my lockdown special interest :p

I totally forgot I wrote this answer 3 years ago.

"hm this question looks like a good one, but it already has an answer" "oh it's kinda in-depth" "oh."

@Willeke ha.

@Willeke as I said above (sorry for late reply), I would be interested in the scope of it: is this a known scam? is this done at a scale where people may lose items even if they choose a locker at random? I do rely on the train station lockers for my bag sometimes, and it'd suck to lose it.

@ave er. not answers, comments.

It'd also be useful to know if this is a more widesprrad thing. One could theoretically clone a bunch of the keys, not just one. They did look hard to clone thru normal methods (never seen blanks that'd suit them) but did look potentially 3d printable, wouldn't even need much precision due to the size of the bittings.

@RoryAlsop oh I'm pretty sure it was a scam, but I was curious about the MO

Perhaps even "what's stored in my passport chip, and who can access it?" etc, seems even more informational for travelers that way (different sets of data have different access methods so it'd make sense to have those two adj questions together imo)

inspired by this interaction, which I'm not very happy about as it's pmuch a q and an a in answers travel.stackexchange.com/questions/192201/…

Hmm, does anyone think there'd be interest in a question and answer set like "what's stored in my passport chip"?

Is this within the allowed rules? I have googled and cannot really find any scams of this exact sort, there are people swapping keys when you're distracted but that's about it, but that seems odd to do with a specific locker so I doubt that was it. Cloned key sounds a lot more likely but I couldn't find examples.

"I had someone try to get me to put my luggage into a specific locker at a german train station. There were many others of the exact same type that was available, but someone acting helpful took me to a specific one and told me I can use it. This felt a lot like a scam and I did not use it, it wasn't the type of luggage locker I wanted anyways, so I walked away from them and used another in a place where they lack line of sight."

So hrm, I am tempted to ask a question on the topic of "was this someone trying to scam me, if so, how does the scam work?", or rather more specifically:

Ah you did it already, thanks

@JoErNanO I lack the permissions, can someone do that?

To summarize what I tried ro communicate: there's no outright ban. I looked a lot into it and cannot tell if it needs the documents for narcotic prescriptions. If they do tho, they need one of the documents I listed.

I could've worded that comment better to state what they'd need if it is required, so that they can prepare it in case. Maybe I'll go back and do that.

(that did come off a bit harsh: not intentional, I'm sleepy af waiting for boarding rn)

@Willeke If I was confident on an answer I'd send it. I wasn't. I sunk an answer's worth of effort and didn't get anywhere, I'm not sure if it's answerable without reading a lot of small law snippets (as the additions are published but not the resulting list).

I also find your adversarial tone unhelpful, and it does remind me somewhat why I stopped participating in SE for years.

Refreshing my memories on the rules, travel.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment comments are allowed to provide relevant information, and yes, they are not for answers. I would say I was providing relevant information and in fact, not answering the question.

But the core question is if more documentation and a special procedure at customs is needed, and there I stated what I looked at (to help others trying to answer the question) and the procedure in case it is (to help the asker prepare just in case. an absolute "yes" or "no" shortly before, during or after travel is not useful as the asker may need documents from a doctor). I don't think I'm "post[ing] a comment as if [I] know".

Yes, I answer the question in the title because I can say for sure that it's not outright banned.

@Willeke I find your comment rude.

Any particular reason travel-agents and travel-agencies are different tags? Tag text does seem to present some difference, but most uses of travel-agents seems to also be about travel agencies, specifically OTAs.

time sure flies

only applicable in Germany (and as such EU wide I guess) but still

I consider this my canonical first "coming out", start of my transition. Now 7yrs 9 months later I finally changed my gender marker legally :D

~40 or so trains

Anecdote: I have never been required to show a card on ICEs. Think I only had to show an ID once and foreign passport sufficed.

@ave these visas, notably, do not bar you from marrying or seeking jobs inside EU, but you may not be allowed to apply for a residence permit. You may instead have to leave, get the correct type of visa (at that point: married couple and work visas respectively), then come back to then apply for a residence permit.

You're also not allowed to lie on your application and your planned itinerary, and then use that visa to enter Schengen. If you say you're getting a visa to work seasonally, but at that time you already intend to apply for a long term visa, that may be withholding information. If you, as an employer, hire people temporarily while you have an agreement with a company a country over that you'll get these workers to go work there afterwards, that may be seen as human trafficking.

EU does not make the distinction this clear, but there's several things that to me hint they have the same mentality. One is that in several countries you cannot apply for a residence permit if you entered with a tourist visa, I can only give examples for germany. Getting married and will apply for a residencce permit after? Need a marriage visa. Going to look for jobs and then if you find one apply for a residence permit for it? Need a job seeker visa.

@user1721135 I'll explain it in the US framing which is clearer: You're not allowed to get a non-immigrant visa if you intend to immigrate. US is stupid about this and is known to reject even if you're trying to get a visa to attend university and you say you want to seek jobs in US after you finish university.

@user1721135 see my message above. It does not imply victimhood of a person. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_passport_scandal is one where people willingly paid to get a passport type they did not qualify for, they were illegally issued them, and then they traveled thru normal means and started overstaying. There's no victims or unwillingness here except maybe for the country they are now illegally staying in.

@user1721135 job seeking, as an activity, requires a different visa, at least in Germany. digital.diplo.de/navigator/fr/visa/overview/job-seeker-beruf I was wrong and I think it's type C, but the endorsements will say it's for job seeking. Notably, you can upgrade from a job seeker visa to a work residence permit in Germany, but not from a tourist visa (or many other type C visas).

Of course one's plans can change and that is allowed, but that's why I'm differentiating investigation vs actually criminally charging someone. Former can just conclude "the people just did it on their own, there's nothing systemic here".

Type C is still allowed to come for a job interview but not for job seeking as a whole as far as I know, but as always: If you lie on your application or at the border, that's illegal. If you get a visa saying "I'll work here seasonally, then I'll go have an interview at this company" and the visa is approved, that should be fine.

@user1721135 Type C visa is not for jobseeking. If you plan to seek jobs, you must apply for the appropriate visa type which will be issued as type D. If you had planned to seek jobs and still applied for the easier Type C visa, that is lying on the application which is illegal, and if done systematically ("we sponsor your type C visa so that you can seek jobs elsewhere"), that's human trafficking.

Human trafficking, as a reminder, need not involve things being involuntary or any sort of inhumane treatment being part of it. "We'll get you from point A to B, where B is a place you could otherwise not get to, and process will involve fraud" is sufficient to fit the criteria, here's a recent example that comes to mind: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_passport_scandal

I think also if a company is getting workers temp visas, then they keep going to other countries to seek employment, it makes sense to investigate for human trafficking. An investigation need not result in a charge, and I hope that showing that this was not something precommunicated and is not actually a pattern would be sufficient to satisfy the investigation.

Yeah, indeed, it's about seasonal hotel workers. Which are not within allowed lines of work within the scope of a basic schengen visa.

@jarnbjo question is, to me, clearly about disallowed types of work. If human trafficking is even a concern, I doubt "researchers, journalists, artists, sportsmen" is the line of work involved.

ah I see