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Original poster

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.

390 replies

scottishmother · 26/03/2015 21:58

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.

OP posts:
ditavonteesed · 28/03/2015 19:32

your all spoiling my fantasy of running off to texas with a gorgeous country singer.

totally off point

expatinscotland · 28/03/2015 19:37

'Last year, some friends of mine were in a coffee shop in a 'nice' FW neighbourhood early one evening, when, on the road outside, a driver got out of his car at traffic lights and opened fire on another driver who had just overtaken him. The second driver then tried to run over the shooter. This is real life here...not every day, but this type of thing happens regularly.'

I was living in Logan Street in Denver, right at 12th and Logan before I came here 13 years ago. Nice flat. One evening, I heard screeching in the road and then the car park. Two drivers had got into a road rage spat a few blocks over, pulled into our car park and started firing.

At least 3 bullets hit our actual building.

I ran for cover in a hallway. Two windows on apartments were shattered and one car windscreen.

All over road rage.

It does happen.

Summerisle1 · 28/03/2015 19:38

everyone else seems to base everything they say off a MTV show lol,

Well no. Most of the people that have expressed concerns about this desperately ill-advised adventure (and who must now wish they'd never bothered answering your post) have based their replies from personal knowledge.

But hey, you carry on blissfully assuming that Arkansas is to Texas as Brighton is to Hove and that your son can manage a 90-day trip to the US on £350. Let alone that he still hasn't the faintest idea what he's really getting himself into because in the main, he doesn't leave his bedroom, let alone travel halfway round the world.

askalice · 28/03/2015 19:40

Not everywhere in the US is like Texas, but Texas is where OP's son is planning to spend 3 months with internet friend and 500 dollars. And she herself says he's vulnerable. I agree that Texas is very different to much of the US, but that's kind of the point

expatinscotland · 28/03/2015 19:42

'I agree that Texas is very different to much of the US, but that's kind of the point'

And it's not just Texas that's very different. I've lived in several states that were just as Conservative with a lot of people with similar ideas and not nearly as much ethnic diversity.

mathanxiety · 28/03/2015 19:45

Rafterplease, 'Texas is a phone call away' and so is Beijing.

It would seem a lot further away than the planet Mars for the OP if she were to call and have nobody pick up the phone, or to sit waiting for a daily call that did not come.

How much do you think it would cost this socially inept boy to get a taxi from wherever it is that he is staying in the Ft Worth area to the Greyhound or MagicBus depot?

Immigration won't automatically know about his accommodation. They will ask. They will ask about his job in Scotland and ask for proof, phone numbers, a contact name. They will ask how he and the GF met and how long they have known each other. Etc.

askalice · 28/03/2015 19:47

I'm sure, expat. :) my only real experience of living in the US has been New York City and California. And it was clear that such places are almost a different country to places like Texas, Mississippi, Carolina, for example

expatinscotland · 28/03/2015 19:47

I'm trying to remember how long it's been since I ever saw MTV. I think it was early 90s, when they still played music videos.

askalice · 28/03/2015 19:49

And even within state ( Austin has many great things about it)

expatinscotland · 28/03/2015 19:50

I lived a wee bit in Pasadena, CA, with an ex who had a post-grad position at CalTech. Quite different, yes.

expatinscotland · 28/03/2015 19:54

I went to University of Texas at Austin. Good times.

Colorado can be quite Conservative and gun happy outside the liberal bastion of Boulder. And then there's Utah, excepting Moab Wink, Wyoming, Idaho.

lertgush · 28/03/2015 19:57

I'm in Maine which has high levels of gun ownership and low levels of gun crime. Go figure...

Footle · 28/03/2015 19:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

expatinscotland · 28/03/2015 19:59

That's cuz there's no one there, lert Grin.

Summerisle1 · 28/03/2015 20:01

Joffrey, the spouse earning the £18,500 has to be the one who's the UK citizen

And in a secure job. Not a short-term contract. This I know from seeing ds1 jump through the various and very expensive hoops when applying for (Amercan) ddil's fiancee visa. Luckily ds1 qualified but it was a long and by no means certain process.

EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 28/03/2015 20:05

Taking what we've been told at face value.

This would be a woefully under-researched and under-funded escapade with massive potential for disastrous consequences.
That's without taking into account that it's been dreamed up by a boy who doesn't seem to function much outside of his own bedroom in the family home.

I was very keen for my own teens to have adventures and experiences and to seize the day, but it all had to be within the realms of their safety and some common sense at the very least.

lertgush · 28/03/2015 20:07

...and they're mostly aiming the guns at the deer :-)

expatinscotland · 28/03/2015 20:08

There is also a big fee for the visa applications, Joffrey, and if your application fails, you don't get the money back.

TrulyTurtles · 28/03/2015 20:09

I am actually shitting myself as my Ds is going to California later in the year to get married. Dil to be has applied for spouses visa, she works there, so the laws about the resident spouse earning a certain amount are followed, they are going to live with her parents, fil to be has offered him work. (She has done her homework)But still... He has mh issues, as, anxiety and doesn't work here. He is 25, so I can't forbid him. I'm dreaded him getting turned back at immigration, ticcing like mad when confronted by big men with guns, saying something inappropriate, then living in South Central LA. Drive bys are everyday....

Gruntfuttock · 28/03/2015 20:11

"Because everywhere in the US is the same as Texas?"

No, because it has happened all over the US, not just in Texas.

caker · 28/03/2015 20:12

I worked and travelled in USA about 5 years ago (had a visa from the embassy). I met an American guy in his late teens who had travelled from East Coast to West by Greyhound, and even he had struggled in his own country! In one city he was picked up by the police and escorted away from the area for his own safety, after straying into a bad neighborhood on foot. In that case it was his ethnicity which made him stand out, but it could be accent, clothing etc. I found that in some areas if you used public transport people thought you were poor, and if you walked they thought you were homeless.

Gralick · 28/03/2015 20:19

Drive-by shootings are a moderately regular occurrence in parts of Birmingham, England, too! Doesn't stop me going there. But I know quite a few people who've moved out because gangstas moved in.

This has no relevance to the thread topic, but I thought maybe the US was getting a bad comparative rep Grin

TrulyTurtles · 28/03/2015 20:23

Maybe not as much as Compton, but as we live in a small quiet country town, the culture shock is going to be massive.

GreatAuntDinah · 28/03/2015 20:26

Another case of someone being shot for knocking on the wrong door : en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Yoshihiro_Hattori

Blazing88 · 28/03/2015 20:32

Ok. When I was 34 ( so clearly old enough to know what I was doing) , I had an internet friend. We spoke every day for nearly 2 years. Every day. Extensively. I would have sworn on my own life that he was genuine.

Then he sent me a message by mistake that was meant for someone else. I didn't let on.

I got digging. He had duplicate fb accounts..same photos, but different name. His friends all had duplicate accounts..same photos, different names.

I felt physically sick as I realised I probably had been talking to someone who wasn't who they said they were.

When I got enough amno to confront him, I did (gently).

After 2 years..what happened? He literally just disappeared.Just. Like. That. As if the last 2 years hadn't happened. Took me literally years to get over it.

OP WAKE UP! You cannot let your child got to Texas to meet some random! God knows who she is!!! Get your own damn passport sorted NOW and insist on going with him at the very least.