Cita alert services — how to tell a legit one from a reseller
When appointments never seem to exist, paid help starts to look tempting — and the market is full of it, from honest alert services to bots reselling free citas for 100 euros. A checklist for telling them apart before you pay anyone anything.
Two very different things get called "cita services"
When you cannot get a cita previa for months, you will eventually be offered help: Telegram bots, browser extensions, "gestores" in locutorios, subscription alert tools. They all look similar from the outside — pay money, get appointment — but under the hood they split into two categories that could not be more different.
Alert services watch the official portal and tell you the moment availability appears. You then book yourself, on the official site, for free, with your own data. The service never touches your booking.
Resellers use automated scripts to grab free public appointments the second they are released, attach a name to them later — or swap yours in — and sell you what was never theirs. This is the "cita mafia" you read about: it is why batches vanish in seconds, and in many cases trading in public appointments crosses legal lines.
The first category competes for your attention. The second competes with you for the appointment itself.
The checklist
Before paying anyone, run them through these questions:
- Who completes the booking? Legit: you do, on sede.administracionespublicas.gob.es, and the service says so plainly. Red flag: "we'll book it for you" or "send us your details and we'll handle it".
- Do they ask for credentials or portal sessions? Legit: never — an alert service only needs to know which province and procedure you care about. Red flag: asking for passwords, NIE portal sessions, or remote access to your browser.
- Do they guarantee an appointment? Legit: no honest service can — availability is scarce and you still have to win the race. Red flag: "cita guaranteed in 48 hours" (only possible by hoarding, i.e. by being the problem).
- Do they sell a specific slot? Legit: you pay for monitoring or alerts, never for the appointment itself — citas are free. Red flag: a price per cita, especially "€50–150, half up front".
- Is there a company behind it? Legit: a named operator, terms, a working support channel, public reviews you can check. Red flag: an anonymous Telegram account that could vanish tomorrow with your money and your passport data.
- What happens with your data? Legit: you enter your personal data only on the official site at booking time. Red flag: sending your passport scan to a stranger so they can "hold" appointments under your name.
Why this distinction matters beyond your wallet
Resale bots are a big part of why the shortage exists: measured availability data shows appointments released almost daily in most large provinces — Madrid had availability on 28 of the last 30 days — yet each batch survives minutes, partly because scripted hoarders get there first. Paying a reseller funds exactly the machine that keeps everyone else locked out. An alert-only service does not remove appointments from the pool; it just makes sure a human hears about the release in time to compete for it fairly.
Where Cita Ping stands
For transparency, since this is our site: Cita Ping is an alert service — you create a monitor for your province and procedure, and we notify you by email or Telegram when our checks find availability. We never book, never ask for your portal credentials, never sell slots, and cannot guarantee you an appointment. Judge us by the same checklist above, and the availability data we publish is free with no signup either way.
Related reading
- Why are there never any extranjería appointments? What the data shows
- "No hay citas disponibles" — what to do, step by step
Official sources
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