Problem at UK Visa Office - Bangkok (Child Visas). Anyone else had this?

[henry123]

Evening all,

So today I visited the Trendy House Building to apply for my step children's UK visas. I used the online service to apply for a standard tourist visa.

After waiting a short while in the queue today to finalise the visa, it was our turn to go to the check out and submit our application. This is where it all went wrong: I was told that I had filled in the incorrect form and I should have completed a Special Visitor form for children under 18. Instantly I was confused by this as there was no such option on the online website. She then said: "Do you want to submit this form?" So logically, her telling me it was the wrong form, I said no and left the building with my tail between my legs.

Upon arriving home, I cancelled my online application in order to get a refund and then started the application process again. I have just been informed by 7by7 (thank you!) that their information was incorrect.

Apparently all child visas now come under the Standard Visitor form i.e the one I had.

https://www.gov.uk/standard-visitor-visa

I now have to fill out the forms again, make an appointment and take time off work again to go there in person.

This is just a warning to others in the same situation who may get the same BS when the get there.

Thanks for listening, rant over.

Henry.

[brewsterbudgen]

Did you get the refund? It seems astonishing that such incorrect information can be given out by VFS staff. Can you complain?

[SantiSuk]

Yes. Same issue for me. The situation is an absolute disgrace.

2 months ago I submitted a general visa application for my 17 year old and was told at Trendy that I should have submitted a different form. I was invited to cancel my existing application, seek a refund later, make a new application and pay again. I was disgruntled but was up against time constraints so I was directed to one of their 2 online terminals to make a fresh application.

After a minute or so of entering it came to the part where the process asked what type of visa did I want. There was no apparent option for a child visa amongst about 6 standard drop down options and no apparent help function. I turned to the on hand employee and questioned this. "You have to select special visa and then the child option will appear", came the reply.

"So it is not surprising then that I selected general visa option in my original application then is it?" I challenged. "A child visa is not 'special' in nature really is it?". "Lots of people make that mistake and have to reapply" came his response. The guy was sympathetic and agreed that I had a legitimate cause for annoyance. At this point I hit the roof and demanded to speak to 'the boss here'.

A supervisor came over who was conciliatory and spoke good English. He agreed that I had a legitimate complaint but said there was little he could do about it. I could continue to make my application in its original form and 'hope' it was accepted or I could complete the new freshly paid for application and apply separately for a refund. He could offer no assurance that I would get my money back either.

I was incandescent and decided to continue with my original application and scribbled a hasty explanation of why I had continued to submit an incorrect general visa application (and a politely worded obsevation that the process was flawed. 'Why is there no transparent option to select child visa when this is such a standard category', I questioned on the back of the submission.

I then spent 2 weeks fretting that my rage-driven approach of continuing with an incorrect application was going to cost us the holiday and some serious cancellation money. A need for my daughters to be back at school for term openings was an ultimate backstop. Eventually I was relieved to get a visa - several days too late to avoid a GBP 200 airfare re booking fee on our outbound leg.

The situation is a disgrace to the UK immigration process. If you complete the form, working through it very carefully and referring back to guidance by coming out of the online aplication process to consult online guidance in a separate window I am sure that you will have no issue. If you read the guidance first and then complete the form later there is a good chance that you will be misdirected like me, the OP and (apparently) some others. Once you have selected the general visa category there is little to alert you to the error of your ways. The system does not flag up your error at the point where you enter the date of birth of the 'applicantee' - rather it reinforces the correctness of your choice by sending you into subroutines of collecting information about the child's family connections.

So why have I not written a complaint through the proper channels? Because I have learnt that complaining about visa process is a complete and utter waste of time. For this particular application I had a long exchange through several layers of the proper channels for advice (and ultimately a written complaint) about my unofficially adopted daughter. I wanted to know what to do in a situation where one of her legal parents who gave her up to my MIL as a baby had now disappeared into Thai undergrowth. My experience of advice and complaint processes included a hopelessly misdirected answer from their free email channel and the throwing away of GBP 25 on a premium phone call to their subcontinent helpline "good question - hold on while i come back with an answer". The expensively delayed answer was that it had to be referred to UK policy officials. They responded a week later that they would not explain or clarify policy and I would have to pay a lawyer to advise me about their requirements.

No doubt some here will conclude I am a grumpy old b who loves to complain. Just suck it up and get on with life.

Wrong on the first count, right on the second!

Postscript. I will send a copy of this thread to the Embassy and the relevant Minister's office. Perhaps you are right on the first count!

[brewsterbudgen]

Yes. Same issue for me. The situation is an absolute disgrace.

2 months ago I submitted a general visa application for my 17 year old and was told at Trendy that I should have submitted a different form. I was invited to cancel my existing application, seek a refund later, make a new application and pay again. I was disgruntled but was up against time constraints so I was directed to one of their 2 online terminals to make a fresh application.

After a minute or so of entering it came to the part where the process asked what type of visa did I want. There was no apparent option for a child visa amongst about 6 standard drop down options and no apparent help function. I turned to the on hand employee and questioned this. "You have to select special visa and then the child option will appear", came the reply.

"So it is not surprising then that I selected general visa option in my original application then is it?" I challenged. "A child visa is not 'special' in nature really is it?". "Lots of people make that mistake and have to reapply" came his response. The guy was sympathetic and agreed that I had a legitimate cause for annoyance. At this point I hit the roof and demanded to speak to 'the boss here'.

A supervisor came over who was conciliatory and spoke good English. He agreed that I had a legitimate complaint but said there was little he could do about it. I could continue to make my application in its original form and 'hope' it was accepted or I could complete the new freshly paid for application and apply separately for a refund. He could offer no assurance that I would get my money back either.

I was incandescent and decided to continue with my original application and scribbled a hasty explanation of why I had continued to submit an incorrect general visa application (and a politely worded obsevation that the process was flawed. 'Why is there no transparent option to select child visa when this is such a standard category', I questioned on the back of the submission.

I then spent 2 weeks fretting that my rage-driven approach of continuing with an incorrect application was going to cost us the holiday and some serious cancellation money. A need for my daughters to be back at school for term openings was an ultimate backstop. Eventually I was relieved to get a visa - several days too late to avoid a GBP 200 airfare re booking fee on our outbound leg.

The situation is a disgrace to the UK immigration process. If you complete the form, working through it very carefully and referring back to guidance by coming out of the online aplication process to consult online guidance in a separate window I am sure that you will have no issue. If you read the guidance first and then complete the form later there is a good chance that you will be misdirected like me, the OP and (apparently) some others. Once you have selected the general visa category there is little to alert you to the error of your ways. The system does not flag up your error at the point where you enter the date of birth of the 'applicantee' - rather it reinforces the correctness of your choice by sending you into subroutines of collecting information about the child's family connections.

So why have I not written a complaint through the proper channels? Because I have learnt that complaining about visa process is a complete and utter waste of time. For this particular application I had a long exchange through several layers of the proper channels for advice (and ultimately a written complaint) about my unofficially adopted daughter. I wanted to know what to do in a situation where one of her legal parents who gave her up to my MIL as a baby had now disappeared into Thai undergrowth. My experience of advice and complaint processes included a hopelessly misdirected answer from their free email channel and the throwing away of GBP 25 on a premium phone call to their subcontinent helpline "good question - hold on while i come back with an answer". The expensively delayed answer was that it had to be referred to UK policy officials. They responded a week later that they would not explain or clarify policy and I would have to pay a lawyer to advise me about their requirements.

No doubt some here will conclude I am a grumpy old b who loves to complain. Just suck it up and get on with life.

Wrong on the first count, right on the second!

Postscript. I will send a copy of this thread to the Embassy and the relevant Minister's office. Perhaps you are right on the first count!

Or post it on the "UK in Thailand" Facebook page!

https://www.facebook.com/ukinthailand?fref=ts

[bigyin]

I had this same experience last year when there was a different category but having claimed the refund and started to do the revised child application form it was exactly the same in every respect even asking my 9 year old step daughter if she had ever engaged in acts of terror or genocide! This was also the case in my recent successful application for a settlement visa.

[henry123]

SantiSuk, that is absolutely disgusting! I feel for you there. This is how I felt yesterday, I literally could feel my blood boiling. The woman at Trendy House couldn't even speak good enough English and was asking my daughter to translate for her, how bad is that.

So anyway, I already know I have another problem now, the online process is completely flawed and here's why: I cancelled my last visa last night and this morning applied for another. However, there is no option for a standard visitor visa so I chose the special, child visitor. When it got to the section of "are you staying with a family member" I ticked 'yes' as I will be staying with my father. The online form then proceeded to tell me I had the wrong form so instead I then chose the family visit visa, completed it, paid the fee and then explained on the additional notes and covering letter that the reason I chose this visa form is because there is no standard visa form to chose from, and all the other applications were giving me problems when stating we were staying with a family member.

I already know they are going to decline the visa, even though it all comes under the same hub. What bureacrats! I have solid information from my children's International school and all other information they require. The only problem is, where is the bloody form you are suppose to complete!?

The online process is suppose to make it easier, not confuse the sh*t out of people.

[SantiSuk]

Yes henry - I had similar issues with inconsistencies about reporting who you were staying with and intra-family relationships.

The UK Visa immigration online form is one of the worst examples of government online application processes I have ever come across. It struck me as a very cheap rubbish piece of systems development, constructed without professional design advice and with absolutely zilch customer testing. Must be a victim of budget cuts I suspect.

It's not as though Government cannot put up decent professional customer-facing IT. The HMRC suite of taxpayer guidance and tax returns is absolutely first class - a joy to use for its simple English and intuition. This immigration stuff needs to be binned - go back to paper guys where you're probably still got the in-house skills to pull it off if you can't afford to do it right online.

Unless of course the conspiracy theory - that the system is deliberately obtuse, to dissuade people from coming - applies!!

[No axes to grind. I'm not an IT consultant or IT professional and I'm retired, but I was a business and finance consultant to the public and private sectors]

[bigyin]

You have to complete the child application as though it was the child applying. I felt vaguely ridiculous completing it at 65 as though I was 10 but having said that I had no real trouble with the form apart from being annoyed that it is exactly the same form apart from the opening question.