Received the documents today (originally had submitted via PEO on April 24th). Despite initially the application being very urgent due to intl. travel ended up waiting almost two months....
1. Current vignette: Tier 1 (General)
2. Date of expiry of current leave (visa) : Nov 2012
3. Number of applicants: 1
4. Home Office Location: Croydon
5. Time of appointment: 13:30 am
6. Date of PEO Appointment attended: 24/04/2012
7. Reason given by case worker: BRP not working
8. If call received, date of call received: not really received - details follow
9. Date Passport, Documents and letter of approval received (Collected from ROD Helpdesk Croydon: 12/06/2012
10. Date (new) leave to remain valid from: 11/06/2012
11. Date (new) leave to remain valid until: 01/11/2015!!! More than three years
11. Date BRP received: 13/06/12
The story was long and complicated.
24th April - When I submitted the documents I was told that the day after they would contact me - of course this did not happen.
On May 1st - Went to the ROD desk (played it dumb when asked whether received a call - mentioned that I had many missed calls - so I wouldn't know...) - given an answer by the lady there that the application is still waiting upon biometric results
On May 10th - went there again - ROD desk - was told that my application is with the refusal team because I did not submit enough points (75 instead of 80). This alarmed me very much, since I triple checked that I actually need only 75 points (initial application was paid-for before July 19th 2010, but they apparently didn't look at the date of application, but rather at the date of visa issue). Went to an internet cafe - wrote a letter explaining their mistake - managed to convince the ROD desk to add the letter to the case. As a personal favor I was told that the info will be passed to the refusal team.
May 11th - was contacted by phone by the lady from the ROD counter - was told that the application will take many-many weeks to even refuse because of the backlog.
May 18th - Went again to the ROD desk - was told by them to write a letter of complaint. Wrote the letter, received a relatively generic answer.
May 24th - Wrote another letter explaining the need for urgent review of my case (added a letter from my employer stating that I need to travel). Addressed it to the refusal team.
May 29th - Wrote to the MP of my borough via
http://www.writetothem.com/ - Mike Freer asking for help to expedite the case. Received an answer almost immediately, and \his assistant contacted me a few days after for some further details
June 6th - Wrote an email requesting again the urgent treatment of my application. sent it to:
UKBApublicenquiries@ukba.gsi.gov.uk,
Accessionenquiries@ukba.gsi.gov.uk,
PEOCroydonRepsBio@ukba.gsi.gov.uk,
barcurgentreturns@ukba.gsi.gov.uk
June 9th - Was contacted by mail by a senior case worker - Mark Budden - was told that the application will be refused (due to the same 75 points vs. 80 points issue). He asked whether I want the case to be passed to the refusal team or whether I want to withdraw the application. I answered to the same email explaining their mistake and submitted evidence of the initial application date being on July 15th 2010. Received an answer after 10 minutes that he thanks me for the additional info and that my visa is approved!!!
The communication email was:
UKBA LSE Region Public Enquiry Office - SCW Enquiries <
UKBALSEPEO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk>
All it took was getting in touch with the person who actually looks at your case - apparently they never added any info I sent to the file.
I don't know what actually happened and made them decide at last on the application, whether it was the barrage of post/emails or the questions from the MP...
Anyway, I am glad it is all over - just the BRP card remains
