Hello All
Applying for a Work Permit holder dependent VISA online did seem very difficult due to various reasons. I have left the following feedback in UKBA website. Hope it helps the future applicants.
Hi
I have recently applied for a work permit dependent VISA for my wife and we are awaiting a decision. I am now in the UK and my wife has applied for her VISA from Hyderabad, India. I am not quite sure about the reasons for making the VISA application online as we really felt stressful while filling the application.
PROBLEM 1: The real misleading part of the application was
1. Type of VISA : Work
2. Purpose of Application: Employment (Non points based)
3. Type of Application: Dependents of Current Work permit holders
Due to the many options in the first page of the application, it was only after 8 hit and trials (filling complete application with different combinations) that I have found the correct combination. Why does it have to be so hard? It's rather unconvincing and illogical that my wife's VISA type is "Work" and it's unbelievable to say the 'Purpose of application' as "Employment". She would like to be granted a VISA to live with me but not work in the UK. I think the information contained with in 3 steps is of no use whatsoever as it only adds confusion to the applicants. "Type of Application" is only option which makes sense.
PROBLEM 2: The next problem is with VFS, India. I have called VFS India to know which options to select to get to the correct application form (online) and the person on the other side managed to help me set the options for a settlement VISA category. I explained to him several times that I am a work permit holder (Only been in the UK for 4 years) but he insisted that his guidance was correct. During the submission of the application, VFS staff are not checking if the filled application is correct as per applicants expectation. The question I ask myself now is what if a person who is fairly new to application process ends up in filling the wrong application as he/she were misguided and pays the expected fee. His/Her VISA gets rejected for sure and British High Commission obviously wouldn't return the fee. It is a shame on VFS part as the staff were trained poorly to perfection but BHC pays a percentage of application fee to VFS.
PROBLEM 3: Software bug : During the application process, I encountered a software bug in part7 where the applicant is supposed to enter the "Date of Issue" of the sponsor's work permit. To my surprise, only the current and future dates were enabled making it impossible to select a date in the past. How can it be that my work permit's date of issue is today or in the future. I was surprised due to the fact that the application process wasn't thoroughly tested before making it live for users.
PROBLEM 4: Due to problem 3, I have spent a lot of time "TRYING" to fill the application and proceed with scheduling an appointment time in VFS offices. In the process I have tried using different browsers and found the behavior to be the same in all of them. This became frustrating as to why scheduling an appointment was made dependent on the application completion. If the process were to be such that the application is to be filled and submitted by hand but the appointment has to be scheduled online, it would have been a lot easier.
PROBLEM 5: We have contacted VFS to know what the required documentation is and have been told that they were instructed by British High Commission to not to comment and it's the responsibility of the applicant to satisfy the ECO. This requirement assumes the applicant to be educated enough to understand immigration rules, categories and all the complexities behind them. While I understand the reasons for the requirement please note that this condition could only give birth to several consultancies who claim that they know what the required documentation is and it is such consultancies which produce forged and illegal documents that BHC receives every year. The requirement can only make the situation worse as applicants will definitely approach the consultancies for guidance.
I believe "VISA application process" is not a litmus test for applicants genuineness and patience. After all the applicant is paying a lot for the seemingly very little work done by (VFS+BHC) duo, so please think from customer's (Applicant) point of view.
On a whole it wasn't an easy and smooth process as we hoped to be. I am not sure if other applicants have faced similar issues but all the problems above will have significant impact. I would really hope that all of the above are addressed within reasonable time frame so that future applicants time, money and the overall process will be better optimized.
Regards
Work permit holder.
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