arick

You recommend. I told you I submitted 6 months bank statements. So don't continue to make excuses for the ECO. They are clearly looking at a tick box system.

8 weeks tomorrow for me. Last time my wife had a visa it was 4pm she got her sms.

We paid for sms before and they never sent one, visa was sitting in VFS for 10 days, that's why I check the website after 1.30pm, plus sms is sent to her phone not mine, she's at work and I'm sitting in the apartment!

sms never work they text you 2 weeks later after they receive the results.

So don't tell me we will be waiting 8 weeks. We have tickets june 4th for the concert at Buckingham palace. Our first application took only 3 weeks 3 days. Applied Feb 22nd refused March 14th. ECO intials VCF. Yes and refused because my bank statement showed a closing balance of £0.00 on the 16th and I get paid on the 18th. I make 4 times more that the UK governement states a couple need to live on but they still refused on teh ground of no immediate availabe funds. Yes also own my own house in SE1 by Tower Bridge.

I should change my name to Retard I gues.

I can always get a flight,but yeah a good price right now. I just want to get this visa first and think about flights later. I just wish the embassy could just contact people to tell us what's going on. "Sorry for keeping you waiting sir,you are in a line and we will do our best to get your visa done in the next week or so" Anything like this so we have some kind of idea what is going on!

Dear Mr Chogiekim

I writing to inform you today that we have not processed your visa as yet. We have many applications to process and yours is not a high priority for us, we are not sorry about the delay, but it will be processed according to our guidelines of up to 12 weeks for settlement visas.

Thank you for your application fee of £810, we all decided to have a bit of a jolly up on your account, we had a great time in Pattaya! Things could be worse, Mr Bloggs has been waiting for 11 weeks, but his wife is quite ugly and so is he!

Yours sincerely

ECO, UKBA, Brtish Embassy, Bangkok, Thailand

My partner and I are Gorgous that is why they refused us in 3 weeks and a day! Or were they jealous.

Still no news yet! Getting angry now. Found flights with quite a few airlines at around 18,000-23,000 one way. Cheapest with EVA and British airways! Come on Embassy sort yourselves out!!

skyscanner check that. it was only £281 oneway to London form BKK on air India.

Another week gone by. That makes it 8 weeks. The house has been aired out, the furniture is in place, there's food in the fridge, the car is topped up witth petrol. There's a job waiting for her.What else is left? Ah yes! the bloody visa

I can not believe you have waited for 8 weeks. Do you have children with your partner? Is your application lost? when did you apply?

This should give you a clue why settlement/fiancee visas take so long, it's got nothing to do with the process being more complex and time consuming, it's all about how much money UKBA receives in Bangkok and other countries.

In February there were 5293 applications for the following visas, general visit, business, family, other, and these visas cost £78 each, that makes a total of £412,854, there were 125 settlement visas in February at a cost of £810 each, total amount £101,250.

UKBA guidelines, non settlement visas up to 15 days, settlement visas up to 12 weeks, guess which visas are processed first, the one's that make the most money for UKBA!

Excellent work. I will text news of world via David cameroon.

Possibly. I just think they don't have many staff and they probably work on flexi time. It's friday today,can't see them really working hard today! I'm really not that impressed with their service. They charge us for this visa which is way over priced,then we have to pay further more for the uk test and citizenship. Surely if we have to pay for all this we should at least get some kind of help back towards our visa. I might write to my local MP to see if he can help!

Teachers in London make £11000 to £20000 more then a ECO

What I find annoying about this waiting game is that when we lodged the application, my partner was told it would take about a month and that we were lucky to apply when we did ( miss the longer waiting time). I know that it states on the receipt that it could take upto 12 weeks which is in my opinion a worse case scenario. It would have been better for the VFS staff to not have given an indication at all, there we were thinking a month, it'll be two months next week!

Strange ours was place on Feb 23rd and given back March 14th refusal. We wrote that we were traveling on the front page in 4 weeks do you think they even look at that!

Called them today,still they say within 3 months. Went on the application tracker,and it just says the same,being processed at the embassy. They did send me an email about 5 mins ago. This is what they wrote.

Thank you for your e-mail dated 11/05/12

Entry Clearance Applications fall under the Data Protection Act and therefore we are unable to provide information regarding possible visa applications to third parties including an applicant's partner or sponsor. Please also note that you will not be informed when your application is ready for collection unless you choose to purchase the SMS and email update service at the time of visa application submission. However, you can use the Track your Application facility on the VFS website to track the status of your visa application and to determine when your visa decision and documents are ready for collection from the VFS visa application centre.

So really still not getting anywhere!

I included a letter giving me dpa to talk on her behalf, I previously sent an email to UKBA last year regarding a visit visa, but I didn't have dpa, so got the same response as you. I can pick up her passport from VFS, (she signed an authority letter), when it's been processed that is.

Do you think they are sitting on settlement applications until near the 12 week timescale and dealing all other visas as a priority?

Settlement visas should be priority.!!!!

Called them today,still they say within 3 months. Went on the application tracker,and it just says the same,being processed at the embassy. They did send me an email about 5 mins ago. This is what they wrote.

Thank you for your e-mail dated 11/05/12

The UK Border Agency aims to process 95% of settlement applications in not more than 12 weeks and is currently working within these time targets. You can visit the UK Border Agency website for a detailed guide to visa processing times, and further details on customer service standards. Each application is assessed individually, and the actual processing time may depend on a number of factors. We are unable to guarantee that your visa application will be assessed by the date that you have requested. This is because of the unique circumstances of each cases.

Entry Clearance Applications fall under the Data Protection Act and therefore we are unable to provide information regarding possible visa applications to third parties including an applicant's partner or sponsor. Please also note that you will not be informed when your application is ready for collection unless you choose to purchase the SMS and email update service at the time of visa application submission. However, you can use the Track your Application facility on the VFS website to track the status of your visa application and to determine when your visa decision and documents are ready for collection from the VFS visa application centre.

So really still not getting anywhere!

I think Bangkok must be one of the Awkward Embassies. Like I ealier said. Friend and collgues first hand have had their settlement visas in Nigeria done in 32-3 weeks. Jamicia was done in 4 weeks. 5000 vistor visas where completed in Feb 2012. I don't understand why settlement visa take the longest. They are dealing with spouses and family. It is not lawful under the EU law to kepp spearated family but the Uk charges for teh priveldge. wait gets better. in two years time you will ahve to pay another £830 for indefinte leave and then another £840 for citzinship. plus the UK LIFE TESt!

There terrible. They take so long! I know many people are going this year,but i'm getting a bit angry now. I quit my job because i expected to get the visa already now. It has to be soon. I need to start my new job!

As has been said before, but is worth repeating for new users, the major cause of delay is the sheer volume of applications.

Apply at a quiet time and it will be processed quickly. I personally know of settlement applications that have been processed in 5 working days; a member here has reported previously that his wife's took one day!

However, for reasons which are beyond me, for the past few years the number of applications seems to increase from February each year, before dropping again round about September. So for that period waiting times do tend to be longer. There is a fixed number of ECOs in post and they can only process so many applications each day.

To be fair to the UKBA and it's staff in Bangkok, all the official guidance does recommend allowing three months for a settlement application to be processed.

BTW, whether one used an agency or not will have no bearing on the speed with which an application is processed (or the result!) and any agent who tells you differently is lying. Unless there are strong compassionate grounds for an application jumping the queue, all applications are dealt with in the order that they are received.

In the Month of Feb and March Nigeria was 14 days for completion for a Settlement visa. Then 6 days to get it back to teh VFS global. Jamica in March was exactly 4 weeks. In Bangkok we has a refusal in 3 weeks and 1 day. This time it better not be more then 5 weeks. Because my Thai Partner and myself are invites to Buckingham Palace for teh royal Jubilee concert June 4th.

WELL DONE UKBA you manage to complete all EEU SETTLEMNET AND NON SETTLEMENT within 3 days. Mean while David Cameroon is text the NEWs of the World '' quote LOL waste...