Selling appointment slots: the business no one is stopping
Social media is full of ads selling government appointments, yet ordinary citizens cannot get one. Behind it all, a business that no one is pursuing.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The appointment-selling scam: why is no one pursuing it?
Social media is saturated with ads offering government appointments for 20, 30 or 50 euros. At the same time, the average citizen finds it impossible to get an appointment with the doctor, at the SEPE (Spain's public employment service) or to renew their DNI (national ID card). The paradox is no accident: there is a whole black market fed by the artificial scarcity the system itself creates.
Cases of schedule manipulation keep making the news. A doctor in Barakaldo was fired for filling his schedule with fake appointments so he would not have to see more patients. In Seville, another physician was investigated for collecting allowances for appointments that never existed. The height of absurdity came when the SEPE peine disciplinary proceedings against a civil servant for seeing people without an appointment in an empty office. The administration would rather go after those who work than those who speculate with appointments.
The reselling business: a chain with accomplices
Behind the sale of appointments there are not just lone scammers. Some claim that civil servants and politicians take their cut. Far from organizing things, the appointment system allows public employees to reduce their actual workload. Empty waiting rooms contrast with the impossibility of getting a slot. And when someone offers a service to get one, they profit from a shortage the state itself fails to fix.
Some claim the problem is concentrated in appointments for immigrants, but the reality is it affects every area: healthcare, benefits, ID renewals... The only exception seems to be Hacienda (Spain's tax agency), where the system runs smoothly. Coincidence or not, it is the tax agency that pursues the most.
While appointments are sold on Telegram and Wallapop, those in charge look the other way. Perhaps because administrative chaos is profitable for some. Or perhaps because scrapping the appointment system would force them to admit the state cannot cope. The truth is that citizens remain trapped between the scam and the bureaucracy.
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Social media is saturated with ads offering government appointments for 20, 30 or 50 euros. At the same time, the average citizen finds it impossible to get an appointment with the doctor, at the SEPE (Spain's public employment service) or to renew their DNI (national ID card). The paradox is no accident: there is a whole black market fed by the artificial scarcity the system itself creates.
Cases of schedule manipulation keep making the news. A doctor in Barakaldo was fired for filling his schedule with fake appointments so he would not have to see more patients. In Seville, another physician was investigated for collecting allowances for appointments that never existed. The height of absurdity came when the SEPE peine disciplinary proceedings against a civil servant for seeing people without an appointment in an empty office. The administration would rather go after those who work than those who speculate with appointments.
The reselling business: a chain with accomplices
Behind the sale of appointments there are not just lone scammers. Some claim that civil servants and politicians take their cut. Far from organizing things, the appointment system allows public employees to reduce their actual workload. Empty waiting rooms contrast with the impossibility of getting a slot. And when someone offers a service to get one, they profit from a shortage the state itself fails to fix.
Some claim the problem is concentrated in appointments for immigrants, but the reality is it affects every area: healthcare, benefits, ID renewals... The only exception seems to be Hacienda (Spain's tax agency), where the system runs smoothly. Coincidence or not, it is the tax agency that pursues the most.
While appointments are sold on Telegram and Wallapop, those in charge look the other way. Perhaps because administrative chaos is profitable for some. Or perhaps because scrapping the appointment system would force them to admit the state cannot cope. The truth is that citizens remain trapped between the scam and the bureaucracy.
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Related forum debates
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (18 replies).
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