Premiere + Variable Frame Rate = Audio Desync

I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit some video footage together. Premiere seems to have some trouble with "Variable Frame Rate" video footage, causing the audio to become desynced.

I've seen some possible solutions on forums and YouTube and have been unable to get either to work with me, so speaking to someone who has worked their way around this issue would be helpful.

The solutions I've tried unsuccessfully:

1. Renaming the mp4 extension to mov, dif, or mpg in the hopes that Premiere is "fooled" into using existing quicktime or other codecs to parse the video correctly.

2. Re-encoding the video to "Constant Frame Rate" using Handbrake, attempting to guess the correct settings to do this correctly by either copying the settings shown in the YouTube solution videos, or guessing best settings based on the "MediaInfo" of my videos.

Any help would be appreciated, I've spent too much time on this one problem and need to resolve it asap.

ps: If Adobe would provide either the ability for us to work with VFR, or convert to CFM, or even step-by-step how to convert it successfully using third party tools it would make many people's lives so much easier. The sheer amount of forum posts and youtube videos shows this a massive problem for a lot of people.

We don't always have control over the footage we need to edit. Clients come to us with footage they've had shot by other people, or that they've shot themselves. And this problem is just growing exponentially as more and more people have cellphones, businesses, and youtube channels.

THANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR HELP