My 17 year old son has bought plane tickets to texas in America to meet a girl he met online, he is from scotland, I really need advice please.

[scottishmother]

He has made his mind up to go, to be honest I thought he would have saved up more money but he has sprung it on me and is going in 2 weeks time!! I have asked him things and he has told me, and it seems fine, but he does not like me to ask him anything as he thinks it is invading his privacy lol. He has been very secretive, and this is not helping my worrying, I have said to him I will not let him out the door without him giving me a address and letting me speak to the girl who is 2 years older than him first. I need advice as to what to do please as I am going out of my mind.

peggyundercrackers

It's fairly standard that you have to have enough money to support yourself when entering a non EU country, and for foreigners coming in to Britain.

OP if that is you, £4 a day is not enough to buy a burger and a cinema ticket.

I was 16 when I did my first long haul (actually first flight period) flight to stay with strangers in Australia, they were relatives but I'd never met them.

That was early 1980s and I took about £1000 plus credit cards. It was not all 'fun' money, I had instructions to pay for a certain number of meals, gifts for my hosts etc.

These days I'd take £350 for a weekend in London.

OP's son because I think that's who replied last time, you are being naive. I have done the long haaul to stay with strangers at a similar age, I've done long haul to stay with friends of friends, couch surfed, met people from the internet IRL etc etc. I've also hosted friends of friends, couch surfers, people I don't know well.

It's fantastic that we can and do chat to people from all over the world and make long distance friendships but you also need to have a big dose of reality.

On my first morning in Buenos Aires I met a lovely gentleman who spoke good English and offered to show me 'his beautiful city', and I was tempted, but declined because I had that big dose of reality with me.

My rule of thumb is to treat everyone you meat on line as an Axe wielding maniac, and let things develop from there. It has stood me in good stead.

I'd actually consider letting him go - if you went with him. I couldn't ever have my son be over there alone because I'd be too worried about it all being one of those tales you read about in the internet. I'd need to be on site. Can you drop everything and go with him? Or get him to postpone and make it a family holiday?

Last tip from me before I'm outa here. Tell him to have her address with him.

He'll need her address on the immigration card he'll have to fill in on the plane out

OP You've said:

He says he has been speaking to her on Skype ect for nearly 2 years now ...

So he was skyping a total stranger from when he was 15? Without your knowledge? Without telling you or involving you? You had no idea this was happening?

Fascinating ...

Just ONE little tip about the immigration card...

In the US, you put your birth month, before the day then the year. So if you were born on 30 Aug 2001, you would write 08 30 01. Just a leetle tip. (I made this mistake and a big man with a machine gun over his shoulder wasn't very patient with me when I tried to enter the US, in fact I might have cried a little bit)

It seems like you have every thing else sorted, OP's son...

£350= £ 4.07 per day ( 86days)

I challenge your son to travel to London and 'live' ( exist) on that, even if someone provided a roof it would be nigh on impossible!
My knickers are fine thank you , but I am quite concerned about your 'heid being up your a**e '

Wave him off merrily, with £4.07 oh and another £7.14 per day ( your £50 a week ) = £11.21 in his pocket.
He and you, may think he is a big boy, but believe me when one of those immigration / border control men/ woman start to question him he will feel his little bum cheeks going .

I could live on £11.21 a day if I had free accommodation. That is no big deal.

AugustVZ your reply was fine the person I knew in question did it four times, staying between a week and a month in the UK between return visits. We did wonder how he got away with it as it all seemed a bit dubious.

Like I said I've not been asked anything but I've normally been travelling with DH so look very much like a couple on holiday / visiting family and I know the volumes they deal with are huge.

Yes, Salty, whereas an unaccompanied NEET (and a minor at that) would fall into the category of maybe a bit of a stoner, maybe a bit of a loner, vulnerable and susceptible to being used by others - undoubtedly WILL be questioned by immigration...

Wasting our breaths guys.

So I should take a contact number from you? A complete stranger , that is even worse than me sending him over there , thanks but no thanks

Why would you post for help and advice, only to be so rude and unpleasant when people are kind enough to give it?

I dont normally comment. But since no one else has mentioned this HEALTH INSURANCE. Also does this las live alone? I she lives with her parents then you should talk to them as well as her and have should have enough money to fly home if they have a arguement and she kicks him out

I and quite a few others mentioned travel insurance; going abroad without it is nuts and going to America without it is absolutely insane.

Over my dead body would this be happening and I'm in Scotland.

It just sounds very dodgy and your son sounds quite vulnerable.

£350 will not be enough either. I hope you can find a way to stop him I'd be lying on the runway in front of the plane

If a 17 year old can be stopped from going by his parents telling him not to go, then he isn't old enough to go.

Opps daisy. Sorry I didn't spot someone else mentioning health insurance.

It could be a good idea to step away from the "letting him not letting him go" attitude because that could led to an adviserial stand off. Instead sit down and ask him to prove that this is a good idea then talk him through all the things that could go wrong.

So a complete disregard for parents' wishes and advice, based on their experience and superior knowledge of the world, knowing that they only have your best interests at heart is a sign of being old enough to travel?

When I went to Hungary at 18, my parents forbidding me to go would have had no impact. I would have listened to advice though about what to do if the people I was staying with turned out to be a problem

I don't think hiding his passport is productive advice. If your son has made his mind up to go there's not much you can do about it.

All you can do is advise him of the potential pitfalls and above all else, ensure he has adequate insurance. If he gets ill or involved in an accident or is any way liable for someone else's accident whilst he's there and doesn't have insurance, his life could be ruined.

If there was any way of persuading him to go for 4 weeks or so initially and then come back and make up his mind about returning, that might be a way forward.

I hope he's ok.

Footle, my neighbour's husband has a well paid job doing motorway maintenance - he can get this lad a job, apparently. I think they're still saving up to come back to the UK. I lived in the US a year and was very homesick so know how it feels. We were desperate to get home! It has to be the most bureaucratic place on earth and as others who have been there have said on this thread, it's not MTV or 'Happy Days'. ;o)

I lived in Colorado - probably much more liberal a place than Texas, but close-ish in terms of some aspects of the culture. OP's son is in for a rude awakening. Even though there were sidewalks in the town where we lived, if you walked on them (apart from 'downtown', the absolute centre of town) people would pull up alongside you as you walked, wind their windows down and offer you money - thinking you were a tramp! Other British and Aussie students there had the same experience.

The Mexican-American area of our particular little town was the one place no foreign student - apart from the most naive - would ever walk. Ever. The back window of my apartment looked out on this and just to counteract the idea that those of us who have lived there being 'hysterical' about guns, the toughened glass of our bedroom window had a bullethole in it, when we moved in. (The student family accomodation backed on to the dodgy area of town). If this girl lives alone ten to one, it's a trailer park. Now I had friends who lived in them, but generally - they are not for the faint-hearted.

One night on our local news there was a story. A Scottish tourist (yes, really - I didn't make this up because of the OP's name!) got lost and did what you would do in the UK... naively went to knock on some random door to ask for directions. Seeing a stranger walking down their driveway, the person in the house opened fire. He was killed. I dunno how or if this was ever reported in the UK but it was all over the Denver news at the time. (Ad they weren't shocked by it, either). I don't think the householder was ever charged with murder or even manslaughter.

We fool ourselves because we share a common language and a long and close history, that going to the US is just like going to another part of the UK only bigger, cleaner and sunnier. The reality is, it is as foreign and different as anywhere else in the world would be. And different states within the US are as different to eachother as different countries in Europe, in terms of the culture.

OP, I can't believe he will even be allowed on the plane with only $350. We had to show bank statements to show we had thousands in the bank. I have English friends who later got Green Cards who had some very sinister experiences with the Immigration people (and thousands and thousands of dollars paid to Immigration Lawyers in some cases, and all this YEARS after they'd been there). One of my friends was going for the Green Card - very highly paid academic so no problem you'd have thought... it took her several years, during which she was not allowed to travel home. Her father had a heart attack during this time and she wasn't even allowed to get on a plane to go and see him. Teenage romance is likely to not last long, let's be honest, but there are so many ways this could go horribly wrong. Those of us who have lived there can tell you it is not what you (or he) seem to think it is. At all.

last bit on here shows how much they may expect you to have if their suspicions are raised

and a quick google here gives details of the waiver programme - and suggests that " Remember that the border officers are trained to assume that you are entering with the intention of emigrating and thus the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence of intention to return to your home country."

I cant see the boy getting in tbh

I'm sure lots of people have travelled to the US and not been asked how much money they were carrying. I doubt any of them were 17, were staying for 86 days, and had put down their girlfriend/boyfriend's address as the place they would be staying.

Following Nettle's first link:

"For example a 15 days trip to US for an individual may cost $5,000 to $10,000 (in thousand US dollars). So you should have equivalent amount of currency in your bank. More balance is good..."

Looks like he has enough $ for a coupla days, then?

Whispers quietly........ I think this is a wind up