I have a story to share about the PHL Global Entry office, and it's not a good one. My husband and I were mistreated here and I would not recommend it to anyone. We were travelling to Venice, Italy via PHL and I thought I would utilize our 3.5 hour layover to complete our interviews. From what I had read online, they are generally pretty short, no more than 15 minutes, and they take some fingerprints.

We had a 1 year old girl at the time, we all had appointments, arrived on time, and were buzzed into the office with two other gentlemen who did not have appointments. We sat in a small waiting room where they were showing a video about the Global Entry process. I noticed some very tiny signs on the wall about no cell phones, and made a mental note not to call anyone. We kept looking at our watches, and pretty soon, 45 minutes had gone by and we had watched the looped video 6 times. We were tired after flying early from LA, my husband and I running on 2 and 4 hours of sleep, respectively. My baby was getting fussy. No one came to tell us anything. Finally, my husband fell asleep in his chair, and I was trying to keep the baby entertained. My husband's phone rang, and he jolted out of his nap, a little confused about where he was. He saw it was his mom, and answered because he was waiting to hear if she and her husband had made her connection in DC, as they were meeting us in Venice. I don't think he had noticed the No Cell Phone signs or was too tired to remember, and I was too busy with baby to think to remind him.

Within 20 seconds of his answering, a very intimidating border agent stormed into the room and yelled, "Sir, there is no cell phone use in here! Get off your phone!" My husband literally jumped in his chair, looking startled, and said to his mom, "Mother, I have to go, I'm being scolded." As he hung up, I turned to the agent and said, "I'm sorry, he didn't see the signs." But the guy gave us no opportunity to explain anything else, not that we were exhausted, that he had been asleep and confused, or that we had been waiting for 45 minutes past our appointment. He turned to the two people without appointments, and said "I'll take you two," turned back to us and said, in a very threatening tone, ”You two will have to wait.” We were shocked and utterly blind-sided by this aggressive overreaction and unreasonable person.

We were forced to wait another 20 minutes. Our baby had a poopy diaper, and I was very irritated at being made to wait. The agent came back, and without giving us another second to explain ourselves, said to my husband, “We are not going to see you today. You will have to come back another time.” My husband leaped up, saying, “What?!” I jumped up and tried to defend him, saying, “Sir, he didn’t know about the no cell phone rule, and I should have reminded him but-“ The agent cut me off saying, “Are you with him?” “Yes,” I said. He replied, “Then I’m not going to see you either.” My husband and I then demanded to know why, and to explain our side, but he wouldn’t listen. He made us leave the waiting room, and my husband was very upset (he hates to be disrespected), and demanded to have this man’s name so he could report him to a manager, and the guy said, “I could give you this business card, but if I do, I will put a note making sure you NEVER get Global Entry.” I said, “Then we don’t want your card,” and I pushed back at him, but he wouldn’t take it back. My husband was fuming, I was almost hysterical, and our baby was fussy. The man went back into the office, and I burst into tears in front of several employees. One kind woman listened as we told her our story, and a male employee told us how mean the agents can be. He said one airport employee was fired because he failed to show his badge to an agent fast enough. We said that we are never coming back and will report this as soon as we could. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we had to go back through security, where, in my emotional state, I misplaced my passport and had to run around in a panic before our flight trying to find it. It turns out I had hastily put it in my backpack instead of around my waist. So we started our trip in a state of shock and tears. Fortunately, the rest of the trip was fantastic and helped us forget about this temporarily.
A few weeks ago, however, we decided to try to get Global Entry again at LAX, seeing as we had already spent $300, non-refundable. We got there super early, ready to explain what happened if they asked about the prior “issue at airport,” as it said on our GOES website profile. There was no need. They took all three of us early, no waiting room, no questions about PHL, and we were done in 5 minutes!! The agents were super nice, too. We couldn’t believe the difference between our treatment there and our treatment in Philidelphia. We are now happily in possession of our Global Entry cards. I’m not sure if I will be able to, as we have since lost the card that the mean agent wouldn’t let me give back, but if it is possible, I will be reporting this incident to the Customs and Border Agency in PHL. Some guy on a power trip should not be able to bully and intimidate good, law-abiding people. I hope anyone else who goes there gets lucky and has an uneventful experience, but be aware … and avoid Phili if you can.