Scousejohn

Mmm
Just took another look at that and i see why your wife would be upset!

I did not notice that their visa was processed in 22 days and in the non priorty list! Thats fast even for priority.

Seems they added her to the wrong list!
Any idea who is generating this list??

I ask because i presummed it was the applicants on a whattapp group but yesterday i looked and the field where it states "Application received by sheffield" ours was left blank!

But today it states received by sheffield on the 5th June!

Who could possibly have this information other than the ukvi or vfs? Cant imagine either of them to be using messenger to create any sort of information portal!

I asked my wife if she had updated it and she didnt!

What makes me even more confused is in the applicants name field it shows her messenger id and not her name! So its clearly connected to messenger in some way.

According to the document im 57 days in, so that would be from the date docs received by sheffield on 5th June.

I would take the escalation with a pinch of salt as your so close to the SLA that its likely to be processed this week without any escalation!

KernowIan

Sorry mate, we are at cross purposes. The forum my wife is on is Thai Facebook, so I have confused things. My apologies.

Scousejohn

No worries my friend!
I have sent a pm to you , let me know if this is the same as your wife has been looking at!

Britflyer

[QUOTE=mattthefat;12301911]Hi folks.
Now spending the day at my parents home after renting out my house, pulling my daughter out of school, and separated from my wife who's back in our home town also staying with family working until we know what the heck is happening.

Well Matt at least we know we not fighting this bureaucratic inefficiency alone, and thankfully in our case we are at least still together as a family and can lean on each other for support so you have my sympathy in that regard.

I think you will agree the most frustrating thing is the complete lack of any flow of information as to the status of the applications. The main role of the privately contracted answering service/email reply service seems to be to fob you off and not disturb the busy civil servants, and the Home Office have the audacity to charge for this non-service.

Thank you for the suggestion Angie, I may well do that but I think i will wait until this whole farce is over, I don't want to now get on the wrong side of the decision makers at Sheffield having waited so long.

mattthefat

[QUOTE=Britflyer;12303042]
100% agree. Tempting as it is to raise hell, I think I'll hold my cards and go for a refund of the priority fee and call fees when this is all done and speak up for others experiencing this with a louder voice from a closer distance.

For me, the non info and paying for the pleasure of it is what's really got me going. I'm a government employee and everyone is always clattering on about the latest and greatest thing the UK government is doing in government service delivery. These people have obviously never actually used those improved services.

At least I've got my health. Your situation makes my jaw drop, and added to my prayer list.

Matt

Blackpearl

Anyone waiting for their spouse visa from march?

garyede

Well we are well in to our timeline now biometrics 10/5/17, received at sheffield 19/5/17, application from Philippines with a dependant child. Just letting everyone know we have had a reply from Sheffield case not straightforward and will probably not make the 60 day deadline. Its a joke listen to this guys! My wife received a mail last Friday in respect of her 17 year old daughter saying supporting documents not received and if not sent within 10 working days case would be rejected. Somehow Sheffield have separated my step daughters application from my wifes!!If they had looked at my wifes application they would have seen that my step daughters docs, passport, birth cert, health cert, death cert for birth dad are there. My wifes application and daughters application both also contain references to the fact that our case is a dual application parent/child. My solicitor who completed the forms made it very obvious. Result panic from my wife and I she is not sleeping and me as usual stressed up to the limit. Anyhow i immediately emailed Sheffield explaining the situation at a cost of £5.47 and got a reply 6 hours later asking me to write down the details of wife/daughters application GWF numbers etc, despite them already having the information to hand if they bothered to read the applications. First worry i have is that Sheffield not got my wifes application and supporting docs or alternately thinking that my daughter is my wife!! Anyhow i thought i better contact my solicitor and let him know the situation. Meanwhile i get a mail from Sheffield case not straightforward we might not meet the normal deadline of 60 days. My solicitor then sends a very nice but more succinct letter asking Sheffield to check my wifes papers to find the relevant info for my daughter. That was sent 2 days ago no reply as yet. I think sheffield using every trick in the book to delay meeting the the service level agreement deadlines!! After all our case is pretty straightforward as far as i can see and what is difficult about going through my wifes supporting docs to pull out my daughters. I wasnt aware that dependants have to have separate supporting docs. Maybe someone on here with kids can clarify what they did.
Next step wait for reply to my solicitors letter, if no response wait till 60 day deadline is complete before contacting my MP. I aint going to be f***ed about by anybody!!!

SamBen

Hi Blackpearl

Yes I am waiting still from the 15 of March (non priority)my solicitors advise is to just wait and still not recognising my reference and sent few emails with no help just saying in progress .. received email last month saying saying they can`t reach decision on my case because it`s not straight forward case ! I don`t know what that means it`s just except that I don`t believe them and I believe they are unprofessional and disrespectful to say the least we pay dear for this service it just non existent this department not fit for purpose ..
How long have you been waiting for ? and do you have any advise into what could be dose ?

Regards

Blackpearl

Hey my application on 27march. (Non priority). nd still waiting.. got d exact mail dat the case is not straight forward.. just wondering what is soo difficult in the case... its so damn frustrating to have to wait since so long.. i mean if its not so straight they can ask for further details rather maintaining this silence for months... highly unprofessional and very very disappointing.. they cannot imagine what kina stress we go through staying so so far away from our loved one.. really... its sad...
Well we are also just waiting... hoping for some update from their end..

Avon81

Sorry to hear about everyone's issues with Sheffield..... we too have experienced problems - in our case it is communication (or lack of it). I sent two emails - on 5th & 6th June - & have yet to receive a response to the first, & an automated response to the second after 10 days or so saying "enquiry resolved" & inviting me to complete a survey. The website says that if anyone has questions about their email, they should call, at 1.37 per minute (naturally) to follow-up.
Anyone else had good/bad experiences with emails?

KernowIan

Scousejohn, I have just sent another paid email now to reiterate the position of the phonecall 2 days ago where they agreed to escalate.

Waiting now. Au Aukane now inserted on the spreadsheet. Many thanks for signposting that.

Cheers

Scousejohn

No problem!
Hope the escallation goes well!
Im on day 60 today so if no word by this time next week then the phone bombardment will begin!

PaulandJoy

Scousejohn/Kernowlan,

Can you post an updated picture of the Thai spreadsheet (my missus can't seem to find it!)
Was wondering if there was any movement, day 57 myself now
Paul

mattthefat

Wow...that's really bad. At least I got responses to emails so far (even if written poorly and largely canned responses).

I think you have a couple of options. First, you can call and follow up. You will pay for the privilege. However, you should ask for the reference number for the call (it will start with the date you made the call in reverse order ie YYMMDD). This will allow you to follow up on the original matter you raised in the email.

Then you can raise a complaint to request a refund of the call fee and the email fee. I'm currently going through the process to request refunds of fees for emails with wrong info and follow up phone calls. It took about three weeks to hear back from their complaints department for further info. They asked for time and date of phone calls, and what phone numbers I called from and to.

You can email their complaints department at [email protected], or if you're in one of the relevant countries use the following form:

https://eforms.homeoffice.gov.uk/outreach/_static/ukvi-international-complaints.html

Even if you choose not to call, you can still raise a complaint to request a refund of the email fee.

Hope that helps.

Matt

Ahhhhh

Application made 20th April. On day 60 I emailed and asked to the application to be escalated - I received an automatic email saying that my enquiry had been resolved. I phoned up and they guy sent an email requesting application information. Not long after replying he emailed me to confirm that he had escalated the application. I got in touch with my MP and asked that she contacted the Home Office to find out what was going on. UKVI fobbed off the MP with "this application has gone beyond our 12 week timescale, we will tell you when there is any news". I lodged a complaint with UKVI via their website - it takes them up to 20 working days to respond. Once they finally respond, I will be asking my MP to raise my complaints with the Parliamentary Ombudsman (breaking customer charter; not updating published timescales monthly, not keeping applicant informed, etc. Yesterday I checked the status link (as I have been doing hundreds of times a day) and it said that the decision was made on the 25th! Funny that this wasn't mentioned to the MP when she called the day after and that it wasn't mentioned in the email I received from UKVI in response to my request for info on the application status.
Shambic "service". I plan to seek costs incurred due to the retention of my wife's passport.
I'm so glad that this debacle is almost over.