Payment not taken

[cedricdh]

Just wondering if anyone here was in a similar situation or has any advice.
I have sent my husband's EEA(FM) last Friday 13th and it was received by HO on Monday 16th.
I know they usually charge the fee straight away, within a day or so, but I still wasn't charged.
Today I realised that I gave info for a new card that I have just received from my bank and never used it - and starting to wonder that maybe it wasn't activated yet (by making the first purchase) when they attempted to charge me.
I don't know what to do - will they attempt to charge me again? Will they let me know somehow?

[noajthan]

Just wondering if anyone here was in a similar situation or has any advice.
I have sent my husband's EEA(FM) last Friday 13th and it was received by HO on Monday 16th.
I know they usually charge the fee straight away, within a day or so, but I still wasn't charged.
Today I realised that I gave info for a new card that I have just received from my bank and never used it - and starting to wonder that maybe it wasn't activated yet (by making the first purchase) when they attempted to charge me.
I don't know what to do - will they attempt to charge me again? Will they let me know somehow?

As per application form:

If you do not pay the full fee, your application will be invalid and returned to you without consideration.

[cedricdh]

Thanks noajthan for your reply.

I have talked to my bank, and they informed me that they no longer require new card "activation" by making a PIN protected transaction, so if anyone tried to take a payment using my card details, it should work.

That means Home Office did not yet try to charge me. I am a little worried, since from browsing the forum, I see payments are usually taken the following working day or max. 2-3 days after receiving the application. Mine (ours) was delivered on the 16th of Jan, so it has now been 10 days...

Apart from the pre-Article 50 rush, are there any reasons why they might not have taken my payment yet? Is anyone else experiencing delays?

[cedricdh]

(continued, as haven't figured out how to edit a post)

I know that applications normally take 6 months or longer to process, but as I understand, HO does not even start reviewing them before the payment is taken, so that's why I'm worried. We would both like to travel in August, and lack of passports means we have no flexibility to change jobs etc.

I have already emailed Customer Complaints and Public Enquiries to ask if there's been problems with payment or if they have the application at all, but I've been told to wait. I saw another post here on the forum that someone's application was send back only after a month when payment didn't go through...

[twgal]

cedricdh, if you have your Royal Mail tracking number - the one you might have used to send them your application - you can request back your passports right now, by filling out the form here: https://eforms.homeoffice.gov.uk/outrea ... ments.ofml (Make sure you answer NO to the question that asks "do you want to withdraw your application?" - as you don't want that, you only want passports returned.

In my case, I send the application on the 30th of December, UKVI received it on the 3rd of January and right after I saw on Royal Mail that they got it - the same day on the 3rd - I went to the above link and requested our passports and my child's birth certificate back, because of upcoming travel. I did not have a case ID assigned yet, the system lets you enter your name, date of birth, postcode I think and Royal Mail tracking number (which helps them find the application ).

Payment of the fee was then taken on the 5th and I got a confirmation email with a case ID on the 6th. Passports came back on the 10th of Jan. My requesting back passports might have 'helped' things, I believe that how I got a confirmation email so fast.

Also, I don't think cases take 6 months. Each individual case takes probably a couple of days to review, it's just that there is a huge backlog of applications. They enter them in the system and then we just wait and wait until our turn comes.

[da_tnt]

Mate - same happened with me.

Submitted application in November and realised in December that one of the credit card digits i entered is wrong.

What i have done is re-submit just the payment page with the correct payment details with a cover letter referring to the Royal Mail reference number to help them find my original application.

Unfortunately the next day I received all my documents with a letter saying payment could not be taken (this was approx 1 month after I applied). This letter was dated 3 days in the past, so they haven't received my new letter with the payment before they refused my application. If this worked, I would have saved a month.

So I applied again (Fresh application) and they have taken the payment and everything is fine.

The issue is now they have taken the payment twice but i don't want to call them to ask for a refund until I receive my card.

My advice would be send in a letter with a valid payment to be on the safe side (maybe postal order - but you can't track that). From the 2 applications that I have submitted, payment was taken few days after recieving so if you are more than one week away, there is a problem.

I have also called them when I was worried about my payment not taken and they advised me that the team that processes the payment is the first team that receives the application and then they transfer it to the "caseworking" team. So the caseowrking team has no information or details of your application until the payment has been taken. only way to track it is through the royal mail tracking number.

Hope that helps

[cedricdh]

Ok guys, thanks for your advice
I have now requested our passports back, hoping that, even if they decide to return all submitted documents saying the payment could not be taken, it might be quicker then just waiting a month for them to do it...
Regarding the payment, I'm still pretty sure we put all the right details, I have no idea why it wouldn't work...