Heritage Medical took ₹3.8L using fabricated hospital offer letters — Germany visa never processed

I first contacted Heritage Medical Consultants in March 2023 after seeing their advertisement on Facebook. They had a professional website, Google reviews (which I later discovered were fake), and an office in Kochi. At the first meeting, they showed me confirmation letters from two German hospitals — Asklepios Klinik Hamburg and Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf — stating they had 12 and 8 nursing vacancies respectively. The letters had hospital letterheads, signatures, and reference numbers. They looked completely authentic. I was told the total cost would be ₹2.6L, payable in installments. I signed an agreement and paid the first installment of ₹1.1L. Over the next 9 months, they kept requesting additional payments for what they described as mandatory charges: ₹35,000 for "apostille and document legalization," ₹25,000 for "CERPNO translation verification," ₹35,000 for "German Nursing Council registration" (which is not a real requirement), and ₹85,000 for "pre-visa processing fees." I paid all of these, trusting the process. In October 2023, I became suspicious when I could not reach my case manager for 3 weeks. I called the German hospitals directly using numbers from their official websites. Both hospitals confirmed they had no partnership with Heritage Medical Consultants and had never issued such offer letters. The offer letters I had been shown were fabricated. When I confronted the agency, a different staff member told me my case manager had "resigned" and promised placement was "one more month away." I stopped paying at that point. By December 2023 the office was empty. The phone numbers were disconnected. I have since filed an FIR with Kottayam Police and a complaint with the Consumer Forum. A consumer attorney has taken my case. Multiple other nurses from my district have reported the same agency.