I paid a fake lawyer or an intermediary for my residence permit

How to recognise the scam

A page on a social network promises guaranteed papers, quick regularisation, a sure appointment at the prefecture. Payment is made in cash, through a money transfer service or to a private person's account, with no fee agreement and no invoice, and the conversations take place on WhatsApp with a first name only. A registered lawyer appears in the directory of French lawyers(https://www.cnb.avocat.fr/fr/annuaire-des-avocats-de-france) kept by the Conseil national des barreaux (National Bar Council) and in the directory of his or her local Bar; if you doubt someone who says they are a lawyer in Bordeaux, you can ask the [Bordeaux Bar.] A lawyer never promises a result: the decision belongs to the prefecture.

A common variant: the intermediary really did file an application on ANEF (the online platform for residence permit applications) with your login details, but with fabricated documents (job offer, employment contract, proof of address, proof of presence in France). You then receive a refusal for a fraudulent application, sometimes with an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) where the period for voluntary departure may be refused (article L. 612-2 of the CESEDA, the Code de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile), and you have never seen the file.

What you risk, and why the firm reads your file before the complaint

The law holds nothing against you as long as you did not know that a document was forged: forgery and use of forged documents require a fraudulent alteration of the truth (article 441-1 of the Criminal Code), and obtaining an administrative document unlawfully requires a fraudulent means (article 441-6). Someone who believed in a real contract or a real appointment does not have the required intent.

The difficulty lies elsewhere. If a forged document was filed in your name, the prefecture can withdraw a permit obtained by fraud with no time limit (article L. 241-2 of the CRPA), refuse a pending application as fraudulent, and it must report to the public prosecutor any offence it knows of (article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). A complaint written without care can describe, in your own words, how you handed over a forged document.

The same type of fraud exists for housing: a fake landlord takes a deposit, then disappears. The page housing scam in Bordeaux describes the complaint and the steps to take.

Before any complaint, the firm therefore checks which documents were filed and by whom, what you knew when reading your exchanges and the price you paid, what the prefecture has already done, the dates, and which form of complaint is suitable. In some cases, the situation must be regularised voluntarily with the prefecture before a complaint is filed. You receive this analysis in writing.

And your residence permit?

The complaint gives no right to residence: for a scam victim, the CESEDA only provides a permit for the victim of human trafficking or of undignified housing who files a complaint, which is not your case. Nor does it take any right away from you. Your residence file is taken up again on its real merits: your actual situation, how long you have been here, your work, your family, the genuine documents you can gather. The complaint can count in an application for exceptional admission to residence (in French) (article L. 435-1), together with these other elements.

If a refusal has been notified to you, the time limit to appeal to the administrative court (tribunal administratif) runs whatever happens with the complaint: the two steps are taken in parallel. Read the decision you received and use the firm's appeal deadline calculator (in French).