Hey guys! As you guys probably know, HESS English school holds on to your passport if you take the interest-free loan from them and they don’t give it back to you until you’ve paid it in full. I know there have been many debates over the legalities of this etc etc, but what I’m wondering is if I could get around this. My friends and I want to go to Japan for vacation before I will be able to pay the loan back in full- would I be able to report my passport as lost to the U.S. and just have them send me a new one? That way HESS can be happy holding on to my “lost” passport until I pay back my loan completely, and I can feel free to go to Japan or any other country nearby before freaking March. I tried looking this up on the internet but it seems that not many people have considered this. It may be a completely stupid thing to do for one reason or another, so that’s why I thought I’d post here before even considering doing it. What do you guys think?
A passport is the property of (in this case) the US government and Hess could be in major trouble. OTOH you voluntarily handed it over, which might be a crime in itself, in some jurisdictions.
I don’t see any problem just applying for a new one except that it will cost you $$$.
And if I might make so bold, don’t borrow money, most especially not from scumbag companies like Hess.
Since you asked what we think, I will give my opinion (take with a grain of salt):
First of all, anyone who is giving you a loan (interest-free or otherwise) will require some kind of collateral. This seems to be a fair, but a sensible requirement given the ease with which the lender may simply “bugger off”, leaving the school with a loss. Since you came to this island with little more than the clothes on your back (which was, in retrospect, probably not the best plan, right?), holding your passport both ensures the school that you will not flee the country and that they will most likely get their money back at some point.
My personal ethics would prevent me from reporting the passport as missing or stolen (since you know this not to be the case). Additional problem might arise since a) the time required to process a request for missing/stolen passport and the provision of a temporary passport may interfere with your travel plans, and b) having a missing/stolen passport on your record can result in increased hurdles when renewing your passport in the future. In terms of your future dealings with an organization such as HESS, I can almost guarantee that if they found out that you reported the passport missing/stolen, you would be “blacklisted” or otherwise screwed. This kind of situation (lying to your boss before even beginning the semester) would, at the very least, set a bad precedent for a relationship to which you are contractually obliged and which could negatively influence the students you are responsible for teaching.
While I am not familiar with HESS, their policies, or the size of the loan, would it be possible to borrow a certain amount of money from each of your friends in order to pay off the principal of the loan, at which time you could get your passport back? This seems to be, lacking other forms of collateral, the only ethical solution possible. That’s just my opinion. Again, I have never had dealings with HESS (as other posters may have), so maybe you should wait for some of them to provide more grounded advice.
First of all it’s illegal. The rules of our forum prevent advocating illegal acts. I’m locking this thread as a result.
Second, I’ve heard they investigate lost passports pretty closely these days, for a number of reasons. Even if unlikely, I wouldn’t sleep all too well knowing if their investigation reached my employer my fate would be in their hands 