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Sagareva, you are a saviour! Finally there's an explanation that (sort of) makes sense.sagareva wrote:OK then. I may know more than you do.
My daughter's TOEFL was from 2013.
But that doesn't matter, the thing apparently started in February with a BBC Panorama program. They have been putting people on hold since then, they just haven't told anyone.
I know people who applied with TOEFL before us, and whose applications were on hold and they have managed to submit new English tests and get ILR (too bad I didnt know of any of these people before 29th April). If you search the Internet, people have been put on hold all March. As it now turns out. What you hear about pre-April-17th- TOEFL being accepted for visa applications, relates to TOEFL taken abroad. If it was taken in the UK, it doesn't matter when. They accept it -- they have to, it was on the list -- but they put everyone on hold indefinitely.
However it is true that between the time you applied and the time we applied two weeks later, they may have developed a new procedure to deal with TOEFL.
There is a standard letter they gave us on the day, it's on the Internet, sample can be found here:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j& ... 5247,d.bGE
I am not sure why you didnt get it. It may be that they only came up with this letter between 15th and 29th of April, or maybe they only give it to some applicants and not other based on some weird criteria. But trust me this is definitely TOEFL.
What is the date on the letter you got from Amanda W? Ours is dated 28th May.
It was roughly 28 days after we applied so I reckoned, the best I could, that by then they decided that new English test results weren't forthcoming and passed the case on to Amanda= somewhere else (although the caseworker assured me it wouldn't happen).
Or maybe there was a moment that they had so many deferred TOEFL applications piled up that they have one day decided to do something about them, eg give them all to one person, send them all to some place to sit there in a box, or whatever? Or maybe even established a process to sort real ones from suspicious one? and that is where all the applications went?
We only submitted another certificate on 2nd June. And some of it may explain it, we sent it to our caseworker but our file may be already somewhere in the box with Amanda W. Who knows where they passed them onto, if anywhere. Who knows if the new test certificate will get there or what will now happen. But anyway it has actually only been a week so fingers crossed.
Thanks. I suppose it's possible that there's also something else in our case, but I can't think what on earth it could be. We submitted significantly more than the minimum level of documentation.sagareva wrote:lol thanks but i can't even save myself can I.
and "makes sense" is an expression that has to be heavily qualified when dealing with the Home Office. everything is relative ))
but yeah clearly we are in the same pile. and a person named Amanda controls it. one thing we still dont know, is WHERE is it.
why your caseworker didnt tell you it was toefl I dont know, maybe she was new or just came off a holiday. maybe we just got a talkative caseworker, he said it was a first one for him and he had just found out all this stuff himself, so he spilled the beans, even told me to go to youtube and watch BBC panorama program ))
I am a bit ahead of you, I did try to guess the caseworker's email address, e-mail went somewhere but no reply. Hell, I even email the caseworker who approved my daughte'r previous application, asking her to look on the system to see who has our file (she has previously written to me so I knew her email for sure). Not that it did any good, I can't see how this can do much bad though.
But be careful if your caseworeker has a very common name there may be more than one person with it in the HO, I once had a caseworker who had an email with her middle name and number 1 after last name so I surmise there was more than one of that exact first and last name. This is the same reason I did not try to email Amanda W, i figured could be more than one.
I contemplate going back there to be honest. They have some sort of a desk there you can walk up to and ask stuff, not that it does many people a lot of good but anyway.
As for taking the test without a passport, spot on -- as our letter explained "the Home office reached agreement with other english test providers that these applicants will be allowed to take the test using this letter and the certified copy of the passport", and a photocopy of the passport with caseworker's signature scribbled on it. Of course there are like very few known pplaces in the entire country that actually agree to let people in with those letters. They are all IELTS centres and IELTS take a long time. We ended up having to wait two weeks and go to a very ggeographically random place where was the only test centre we were told about on the forums that accepts this.
But none of this did any good, I guess it wasn't soon enough to avoid Amanda.
To be entirely honest I heard that the alternative English test letter is to be given specifically to applicants whose applications are otherwise approvable immediately but for TOEFL. Not sure, yours being SET(M) maybe there is something else.
But I'd be pretty sure you are in the TOEFL pile, based on the Amanda letter, No one else ever got them if you look back at the deferred cases forum.
It also came to us via recorded delivery which made no sense at all. They usually only use recorded delivery when they are returning documents or requesting something.
Looking online the Sheffield PEO address is Vulcan House, Riverside entrance, 6 Millsands, Sheffield S3 8NU. So I would be surprised if it's a different address.sagareva wrote:psnlb
yeah, you see. on ours the address was peo. so this is what changed.
can you please post the sheffield address, or at least PM it to me? much appreciated.
Posting it again under this topic as sagareva suggested .Still not sure if this is the right place to post this as no further checks or documents were requested and the delay was down to a system failure on their part.Would be useful to hear from anyone who have had similar experience.ssr wrote:Hi,
We had an appointment at Solihull PEO y'day for ILR.Our appointment was at 9:50 and we were there at 9:00.The case was registered and biometrics was taken before 9:30 and we were told to go out and wait for their call.Everything until this point went fine and we went to the town centre and waited for "the call".We were told that it would usually take about 2-2.5 hours and when it was well past 3 -4 hours we started panicking.We went back to the PEO and were told it may take longer depending on the individual case and were told to come back when we get their call.There was nothing unusual about our application so I was getting worried with each passing moment.We didn't get any call until 3.00 pm and we decided to go back and enquire again.We had the same response as our previous one.One lady at the reception was kind enough to go inside and check and she told us the delay could be because of IT issues they had in the morning.So we went back and waited and at that point we were really losing our patience.It was well past 5:00 pm and finally around 6.00 pm we received the call- only to be told they couldn't complete the application due to their IT issues and was asked to go to PEO.When we reached there we were told the same thing about the IT issues and they appologised and gave a letter to the effect that they are sorry for the inconvenience caused and the problem was beyond their control.Also, we were told we will receive a call from them today and the documents will be sent back to us by special delivery.We haven't had any call from them yet.So my question to fellow members here is , has any of you had a similar experience and if you had did they follow through quickly? More importantly, how long did you have to wait?
Thanks
Well done ssr!!ssr wrote:Just received a call from PEO to inform us that ILR has been granted and the dcouments will be posted.So they did act as they said.
Interesting 1unicorn. Thanks for reporting back.1unicorn wrote:Here is my update for the marriage interview: we went in yesterday morning, along with our photos of past 7 years. The interview went very well and fairly short compare to other people over there at the same time. We have been told to give 4 hours time for interview, however ours were about 1.5 hours in total. The lady interviewed us said straight away that she didnt need to ask anymore questions that our marriage is consistant. However,the down side was, she can't give me a decision on the same day. Because we are both self-employed which made the case a bit complicated. However she said she will recommend us to caseworker and hopefully i will get a decision soon so lets just wait and fingers crossed for all
Hi FireballXL5, we didnt ask why. However before the interview, the lady asked us if we understood the purpose of the interview,as we have been given a paper to read, which was to test whether the marriage was genuine. So i guess they were suspicious about the marriage.FireballXL5 wrote:Interesting 1unicorn. Thanks for reporting back.1unicorn wrote:Here is my update for the marriage interview: we went in yesterday morning, along with our photos of past 7 years. The interview went very well and fairly short compare to other people over there at the same time. We have been told to give 4 hours time for interview, however ours were about 1.5 hours in total. The lady interviewed us said straight away that she didnt need to ask anymore questions that our marriage is consistant. However,the down side was, she can't give me a decision on the same day. Because we are both self-employed which made the case a bit complicated. However she said she will recommend us to caseworker and hopefully i will get a decision soon so lets just wait and fingers crossed for all
Could you share for those who might be in the same situation in future what kind of questions you were asked? They were around your relationship right? In which case I don't see how the self-employed thing comes into it.
I've heard that in these cases they separate you and check that you answer in the same way? Is that what happened to you?
Did she give you any indication as to why you were selected?