This story comes from a friend of mine who was recently traveling to Costa Rica, which is a country that according to my sources is starting to be mildly hostile at Immigration for some reason. Some would say it is political in nature but the person that was the victim in this situation was German so you can't blame US politics for this one. Or maybe they just don't like all white people. Whatever the reason is, this is something that I kind of fear about my own life and how it could really happen to any of us.
Immigration officials, especially in countries that could be considered developing or 3rd world, have a tremendous amount of power and some of these officials abuse that power on a regular basis. If one of them has a bad day and decides to take it out on other people, there is really nothing from stopping them doing that. While almost everywhere I have been has a really strict no bribe policy, there are others where a contribution is expected for them to stamp your passport. Which is which? Well, they will tell you.
The story I have is of a German friend who arrived in Costa Rica, a country that he had been to once before but it was many years ago. Like most people, how he looks has changed over the years and like most people, you are going to look a little bit different in real life than you are going to look in your stoic and serious passport photo. In his case his passport photo was taken when he was in his mid 30's and now he is in his mid-40's. His head was shaved in the photo, but now he has longer hair as he goes through his midlife crisis of soon not being able to have any hair. He has also done the trendy thing right now and grown a beard which since he is in his mid 40's is a salt and pepper beard.
Basically, he doesn't really look a great deal like his passport photo anymore. I think that most reasonable people would realize that in 8 years a person's look can change a great deal especially when they go from having no hair to having a head with gel matte all over it. This Costa Rican official was having none of it though, and he was forced to be detained at the airport even though he had several credit cards with the same name as well as an EU driving license. I don't think the authenticity of the ID was really the issue anymore at this point. The Immigration official made a choice and was sticking to it no matter what. Knowing what I know about my friend, he probably said something rude to the official as well and listen people, don't ever do that... No matter how wrong an Immigration official is always smile and be polite. Many of these people probably have power issues and if you challenge that, they will make you pay. You are powerless in these situations and you will only make the situation much worse by being rude.
They were not going to let him out of that room and he was there for hours. Eventually someone senior came in to talk to him and even though that guy could have overruled the lessor booth employee he wasn't going to do so. Instead, my German friend was required to contact his Embassy the following day for them to come to the airport and verify his identity. So thus began the very long night of sitting in a holding room where thankfully, the guy was provided with food and water and the ability to use the bathroom.
The German embassy in Costa Rica is surprisingly large but they don't have a ton of staff that can go running to the airport to rescue their citizens from this sort of thing. All in all he was in the airport more than 24 hours before the embassy was able to verify his identity via fingerprints and then the Costa Rican authorities kind of reluctantly gave him a visa.
Now, I am quite certain that my friend's attitude is the primary reason why he ended up in this situation and that is why I want to say again that losing your cool with an Immigration official is NEVER going to work out for you, so just don't do it! Remain calm and respectful even if you want to punch the person in the face for their actions.
In my over 20 years of travel, this is the only time that I have ever heard of this happening so attitude is almost certainly the cause here but in the event that someone actually doesn't believe that your passport is you, it probably isn't a terrible idea to have another form of ID on you. I can't really imagine there are very many people traveling on false ID's these days with all the bio-metrics and what not, but I suppose it could happen.