hello123

Hello, Sorry, I am not sure which forum this would go under. Please move if you like. My wife and I sponsored her parents to visit us last summer and Fall. They both received 10 year traveler's visas. The visit went well except we discovered that her Father had previously undiagnosed (Type II?) Diabetes. During our process in getting the initial diagnoses and initial treatment, we occurred some medical expenses. Before their visit, I had payed for medical insurance through "Insubuy". Unfortunately the clinic would not take the insurance card and billed us directly. So when I saw the bill I filed a claim and forgot about it. About a month ago I found an old bill and called the medical facility but they refused to give me any information as to whether or not the bill was paid because I was not her Father. So again I forgot about it. Well, long story short we got a call from a debt collector today indicating that her Father had unpaid bills. They said that it was against the law for them to give us anymore information and they would try to contact him again in the future. So now what do we do? If I can't talk to anyone about the unpaid bills and no one will accept a payment how can we get this off his record? Will this affect him if he visits us again? Could he be refused entry? Also, we have other relatives that have travel visa's that we sponsored. Would they be refused entry because a person we sponsored has unpaid debt? It's such an odd feeling for me to be so involved with paying their expenses and medical insurance and now be blocked out of everything. If I could I would simply pay off the remainder since it should be less than $400 anyway.

We use a ItalkBB account which gives us a VOIP option and a local number in China. This has helped my wife's parents and other relatives that do not use computers as much. They can simply use their regular phone and call a local number that will not charge them long distance fees. We just have the basic service and pay .02 cents a minute. Since we only use occasionally use the service we normally don't pay more than $10 a month. I think there are unlimited plans too. However, we mostly use WeChat.

Thanks dnoblett, Does that allow for live TV too? I think they are looking for things on CCTV 1, etc. I ran across something called maige TV today. It looks interesting. Not the cheapest option but if it works as advertised it would be quite the box! Have you ever heard of someone using that?

Hi, I think this thread is a little old now but I would like to know what your experience was with italkbb TV service. My in-laws are in town and I signed up for channels via satellite but it seems the channels they offer are not good. Does anyone have any new suggestions or experience? Thanks!

Hello, I am also searching for health and travel insurance option for my sister-in law. I checked out the links posted earlier. Did anyone actually use these websites? Are there any that you had a good or bad experience with? My sister-in law is in good health and in her mid 30's. I don't think she will visit for more than 2 months. In my searches, the price wasn't too bad. I am just wondering if anyone here has actually purchased travel insurance and had to use it? Was it a good experience or bad? Thanks,

Well just a quick update. My sister-in law was approved for a tourist Visa today! She was only asked 3 questions: 1. Where are you going to visit? 2. Why do you want want to go to the USA? 3.Where do you work? "Congratulations, you are approved"... Unlike most who have posted here, we did NOT give any financial support promise but we did promise to help, for speed and convenience, with health/travel insurance. My own sister also added an invitation letter which may or may not have helped. I am not certain of the exact Visa she will receive as it has not come in the mail yet but "I think" it is normally a 1 year multi-entry? Anyway, just wanted to update and Thank everyone who helped with advise!

Hi Dnoblett, I was looking at the I-134 today. With your suggestion regarding us using some support, are you suggesting that we leave some of the income areas blank and simply enter a house address? Or, are you suggesting we fill it out normally and in our invitation letter we mention that we believe she would qualify on her own accord? Thanks!

Hi Warpedboared, Whooops, you are right! I used the word "sponsor" incorrectly. I was basically trying to find out "roughly" if she has any obvious red flags or if anyone "roughly" knows how much money/assets a Chinese national would need proof of to satisfy the VO. Thanks!

Hello, So we have decided to try for a visitor's visa for my Wife's sister. Mostly, we are going along the same path as outlined in all these previous posts. However, we are not planning to be her sponsor in financial terms. We are going to try to have her visit based on her income and assets. I don't know what the $ amounts are that the U.S. Government would be looking for but I hope that it will be enough. Her sister has had multiple small businesses over the past few years and currently runs a flower Wholesale business. Also, she has a few pieces of property including a new apartment that she just purchased. As for additional ties, she has a boy (11years) and a Girl (8 years) and several other sisters, a brother and parents. Of course we will send an invitation letter. I was looking for another example where the US couple did not sponsor the Chinese relative financially but I could not find one. Is it that hard? Thanks for any feedback!

Wow! No cameras here in MN. A few years ago these cameras were installed and the government was sued. After a lot of legal business, it was determined that the cameras were not legal under the Minnesota Constitution! So currently, no cameras and I don't think there will be any in the near future. That's how it's done in the great state of Minnesota at least! We need to deal with the tough winters but not some stupid cameras at least.

Wow, we made it! Thanks to everyone for the help! The plane ride there and back was not too bad. We took the recommendations and loaded up entertainment on to smartphones, laptop and we even purchased an Ipad to help give our little guy something to do during the long trip. We got first class going there but not back but that is ok. For some reason Beijing was very uptight about letting toddlers on to first class. We had to fly Delta Air from MSP via Tokyo NRT to Beijing and back again. As far as milk, we went to the local Carrefour and purchased some whole milk from France and Germany. For some reason, I could not find anything from New Zealand or Australia? Also, we purchased a couple of expensive cans of fromula that was the equivilant of Similac in the U.S. Even though the formula cans were shown to be brands from other countries, it seems that some of the production (or packaging) of formula is still done in China. Perhaps that is a requirment of the Goverment. I am not sure. Between table food, formula and whole milk I think we did ok. Once we were setup with formula, milk, etc. it worked out pretty well. Too bad it was July in the hot and humid weather! Oh well, it was amazing to be treated like royalty with all the relatives for about 1 month! Now back to reality :-( Wife starts to teach in about 2 weeks and we send our 14 month old to a Montessori "school" at the end of August. It is so strange to buy school supplies for such a young child. I guess I am just feeling old :-(....

@danb - My 24 month Visa only allows for 60 day max stay. The link that NUWORLD is a good one. We sent in a certified copy of my wife's passport, green card, marriage certificate and our son's birth certificate because we requested one for him too. They were all signed by a notory from my local bank and then was stamped "certified copy". If you call Oasis Visa service, I am sure they will advise you what you need too. I called them a few times as we were requesting 5 Visas at the same time so we ended up with a little group discount.

Well, I tried OasisVisa service. Everything worked out fine. Me and my 1 year old ended up with a 24 month multi-entry Visa and my sister with her two daughters with a 1 year multi-entry visa. We had a total of 5 Visas so they gave us a bit of a discount. I had to pay extra for fast mail delivery service to and from but that was my decision. Mostly because of our schedule and when we all had our visa photo's and forms filled out, etc. So we plan on leaving July the 3rd. and I will be gone for almost a full month! Wooohoo, might be fun? I haven't been back to China for over 3 years! We will hit Beijing and Xian to play tourist then zhongzhou for a few days. Maybe I can see the shoalin temple again. Thanks for everyones help!

Thanks 2mike&jin, there is a carrefour near my wife's sister's place that I can remember going to. We should be able to find the items we need there. You might be right about switching over to milk. It's probably wise to focus on formula while we are there but having whole milk as an option is nice. Thanks Randy W, I never thought of buffalo milk. Where would they be shipping that from? I have seen the milk in boxes all over and never really took the time to learn what was the difference. I actually had to look up "ultra-pasteurized"... I guess I am not much of a farmer ;-)

Has anyone trusted whole milk (not formula) in china? At 1 year old, the doctor has mentioned that we can introduce more milk instead of formula. Also, has anyone tried to bring a car seat in china? In America I can't even imagine not having our son in a car seat but I can't ever remember seeing one in china. Maybe the traffic moves so slow that it hardly matters....