moonpie77 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 19, 2020 1:37 pm
Hi All,
I applied on June 15th and managed to get Biometrics enrolled only on August 15th. In between there were list of confusing things that happened, so here is a timeline:
1. Application Submitted June 15 (Tier 2 General + 2 dependents, Set (0)
2. Uploaded all documents to UKVACS over the next few days (at the time there was no "Submit" button or atleast they didn't show me one.
3. On June 21 I received and email requesting for documents to be sent via email. The email also says if you are unable to send documents via email it won't affect your application.
4. Tried to send documents but email got rejected due to attachment size. Tried twice and failed.
5. On June 23rd, I received another email saying my application processing may take more than 6 months (the same format as others have posted here). I panicked and thought this is because I hadn't sent documents via email. So I wrote back to them saying I am sorry but I can't send the documents because I don't know what attachment size is acceptable.
6. Soon after on the same day I broke my documents down to sizes of about 5Mb zip files each and send all the documents they had asked for. Also ensured all of those were uploaded in UKVCAS as well.
7. On June 24th I received a response to the email sent in step 5 saying it's is okay, it was a generic email and that attachment size should be 10Mb.
8. I received no further communication from the email address where I had sent the documents. No acknowledgement, nothing.
9. July 14th, I logged back into UKVACS portal and found that a "Submit" button and checkbox had appeared. So I did a recheck of documents and hit submit.
10. July 20th, I received email to Book an appointment. Frustratingly the link they provided would not show my anything, it would take me to login, then I would log in and it would land on a dumb "Loading..." page. After spending a couple of frustrating days trying to look for Appointment slots (everything seemed filled at the time but could be I didn't go back far enough on every center), I called them. Eventually after 40 minutes of call waiting I was told I could book in Birmingham starting August 11th. I booked for August 15th (110 GBP per person).
11. Early August I again called them to see if I could move the appointment to Swindon because Swindon center was open by then, but the lady on phone said I would have to cancel my appointment first for her to do anything, even to tell me if there was a Swindon appointment available I had to cancel first. I gave up.
12. Finally did Biometrics enrollment on August 15 in Birmingham and now waiting anxiously for any further response.
(A colleague of mine applied for ILR Set(M) and got approval email the very next day after Biometrics, but Set(M)s generally get approved quicker...)
I didn't post this in timeline because I wanted to add the additional bits of details, hopefully it will help someone. I'll post final updates in the Timeline discussion.