• Hello Members, This forums is for DV lottery visas only. For other immigration related questions, please go to our forums home page, find the related forum and post it there.

Old Photo used - interview result?

Hey,
sorry for being late with my account, but everything has been crazy for the past couple months.
The gist of it is:

Old photo used? yes
How old? a few years
Was it verifiable? used in NIV that's in the current passport and a lottery entry about two years back
Am I sure the CO saw it? absolutely
Did the CO care? not one bit

The full story isn't very exciting, really. After reading so much on this forum I was bracing for a 3-5 hours wait at the embassy and I was about 95% sure I'll get denied. I wanted to see what happens, though so I still went for it.
At the embassy I spent maybe 30 minutes, the whole process was super quick and the CO barely asked me anything.

Also it may be worth mentioning that one of the few questions the CO did ask me was about who's sponsoring my visa, to which I replied "no one, I'm sponsoring myself". I was ready to get my accounts statements, but the CO didn't care and told me to put them back.
And I was done in under half an hour.

Best of luck to everyone here, especially now.

95% sure you would be denied?????

Where on earth did you get that idea from. As previously mentioned, old photo denials are rare!
 
95% sure you would be denied?????

Where on earth did you get that idea from. As previously mentioned, old photo denials are rare!

With respect, I went through a lot of posts on this forum that even brushed on the subject and the strongest argument for those denials being rare was "we didn't hear about people being denied en masse and I know one person that wasn't". That's it.

After that Veronice came with several very recent examples of people being denied their visas. In those cases the photos were supposedly 6-12 months old, and the denials were harsh and formalized. If the CO has at the ready a printed out sheet saying that the visa is being denied based on the photograph, that to me sounds like a rather common occurance.
On top of that my case was pretty blatant, so I was convinced that if so many people were denied I should be denied too.

By the way, answering the question from a post before yours: I had the interview at the beginning of March. Very very last minute.
 
With respect, I went through a lot of posts on this forum that even brushed on the subject and the strongest argument for those denials being rare was "we didn't hear about people being denied en masse and I know one person that wasn't". That's it.

After that Veronice came with several very recent examples of people being denied their visas. In those cases the photos were supposedly 6-12 months old, and the denials were harsh and formalized. If the CO has at the ready a printed out sheet saying that the visa is being denied based on the photograph, that to me sounds like a rather common occurance.
On top of that my case was pretty blatant, so I was convinced that if so many people were denied I should be denied too.

By the way, answering the question from a post before yours: I had the interview at the beginning of March. Very very last minute.
And all the denials she mentioned were at one embassy, which was part of the point of her starting the thread - to see if it was actually common or just that embassy.
 
Also, since the data I have available is from the Bogota's embassy, I would like to know if the trend of deny green card on the basis of using an old photo is being enforced this year in all embassies or it is just from that one. The denial rate for my country in that embassy is extremely high according to the information I have available (a small sample, but still a mixed group)
To quote
 
With respect, I went through a lot of posts on this forum that even brushed on the subject and the strongest argument for those denials being rare was "we didn't hear about people being denied en masse and I know one person that wasn't". That's it.

After that Veronice came with several very recent examples of people being denied their visas. In those cases the photos were supposedly 6-12 months old, and the denials were harsh and formalized. If the CO has at the ready a printed out sheet saying that the visa is being denied based on the photograph, that to me sounds like a rather common occurance.
On top of that my case was pretty blatant, so I was convinced that if so many people were denied I should be denied too.

By the way, answering the question from a post before yours: I had the interview at the beginning of March. Very very last minute.


And a quote from me in January - "Now - are they disqualifying people SOLELY based on that - no - I doubt that is true (and I didn't say anything like that). Experiences will vary greatly and there is only one embassy that seems to be denying a lot of people based on old photos. "
 
Yeah... I don't quite understand the multitudes of question marks, all the exclamations, and the combative posture of y'all.

I went through all the posts on the subject from 2017 onwards and that was the conclusion I arrived at. And I was looking for good news, mind you. Cherry picking a single comment where I could find many more on that forum that are way softer on the possible outlook sounds pretty petty to me, especially that I don't have any feelings on the subject one way or the other.

If you guys feel so strongly about it maybe take my "95% sure" insert as a piece of unwilling feedback?
I don't know, I said my piece. I can only hope that will help someone in the future.
 
Yeah... I don't quite understand the multitudes of question marks, all the exclamations, and the combative posture of y'all.

I went through all the posts on the subject from 2017 onwards and that was the conclusion I arrived at. And I was looking for good news, mind you. Cherry picking a single comment where I could find many more on that forum that are way softer on the possible outlook sounds pretty petty to me, especially that I don't have any feelings on the subject one way or the other.

If you guys feel so strongly about it maybe take my "95% sure" insert as a piece of unwilling feedback?
I don't know, I said my piece. I can only hope that will help someone in the future.

Oh man. Take a breath and calm down. No one is worked up here. You are assuming your comments are far more important to us than they actually are. Just trying to correct a narrative that you apparently fell for and to avoid others reading your comments as building on that false, misinformed narrative.

Let me explain. The original post was about the UNUSUAL denials at one particular embassy - that frankly was way out of line denying the cases they denied. They were denying over photos - but clearly would have denied over any excuse they could find, because the photos denial was so wacky.

The photos causing denial concern started a couple of years back when the rules were changed a little to talk about re-using photos that had previously been used in the electronic entries. In the end though, a couple of years later I am yet to hear about even one case denied for a re-used photo (outside of Bogata). Old photos have always been a risk, but a minor one unless the appearance of the person has dramatically changed over time.

So - when you say things like you were 95% sure you were going to be denied over the ALMOST NON CONSEQUENTIAL old photo thing, you were re-enforcing a narrative that just was never true. AND whilst you decided to "take a risk" and go to an interview, someone else might have read your comment, believed there was some logic behind it, and then NOT proceeded with their case.

So - this is not about you, this is about other people. I hope you now understand.
 
And you get denial in a different country and it’s tickets anyway. Sorry, while I recall your very unusual and interesting story, It doesn’t work for most people, and while it looks like you can just request an embassy on the ds260 actually you can’t; embassy assignment is done based on the home address you provided (we have seen this enough times to know).
embassy assignment is done based on the home address you provided----> Question about this part:

This is a bit irrelevant, but if my E-DV entry says I live in a country, but I have since moved to another country and live there, even if I specify on the DS-260 that I live there and want to be interviewed there, I have to go back to my home country to interview?
 
embassy assignment is done based on the home address you provided----> Question about this part:

This is a bit irrelevant, but if my E-DV entry says I live in a country, but I have since moved to another country and live there, even if I specify on the DS-260 that I live there and want to be interviewed there, I have to go back to my home country to interview?
The post you quoted wasn’t talking about the address on the E-DV entry, she is talking about the address listed on the DS260 form which is what the KCC go by when scheduling the interview.
 
The post you quoted wasn’t talking about the address on the E-DV entry, she is talking about the address listed on the DS260 form which is what the KCC go by when scheduling the interview.
Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Yeah, Susie said "address provided" and I just wamted to confirm where exactly. Your reply was exactly what I needed.
 
Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Yeah, Susie said "address provided" and I just wamted to confirm where exactly. Your reply was exactly what I needed.
Glad I was able to provide you with the confirmation you needed. She did mention DS260 in that post though, which I thought made the post clear enough.
 
There were at least two rejections based on a re-used photo in Warsaw for DV 2023 selectees. Photos were used for NIV before.
 
Just curious, does anyone know if reusing a photo from an older DV application affects your chances of winning the DV lottery? Over the years I have occasionally used the same photo 2-3 times in a row.

These days you can actually use your phone to take a photo that meets the requirements, of course make sure you have proper lighting and you frame it right. So it's much easier than going to a photo studio.

And the other thing is, what's clearly more important than using a new photo is not using one that you've used for a US visa application before including DV, or for any other US government ID or document. Otherwise they'd have no way of telling it's old unless you used a 10-year old photo or something.

You have to understand that as a DV lottery winner, especially one from a poor country, you are the lowest life form in their eyes, they can deny you for any silly reason based on their mood, absolutely no one cares, so any discussion about whether it's fair or silly or whatever is irrelevant really...
 
Last edited:
I have always been interested in the question, what prevents the applicant from taking the right photo, instead of worrying for a whole year later because the photo can cause the application to be disqualified?
Is this some form of masochism or the result of not knowing how to check the photo?
There is a special program for checking photos designed for the lottery. It can also properly crop photos taken with a mobile phone. What could be easier than taking the right photo and not spoiling your nerves. Hint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@*Astar* - advertising is not allowed on this platform, your post therefore has been edited accordingly. There’s an official photo validator tool that DV applicants can use, that is where we prefer to guide people to.
 
In case you are wondering,
some people use old pictures because it's rush hour and the only photo they have, is the one they saved preciously from previous year's entry.
Since the chances of losing is very high, they do not really take the instruction seriously.
 
Top