Bomjeito

Today we received refusal for my wife's settlement visa "due to lack of evidence" - ----of a different applicant.

It gave her name but another applicant's situation - a lack of evidence of two divorces of other British men and her wish to settle in the UK with another woman of which she didn't prove marriage. (Umm, this isn't our case. Again, this is NOT our case/situation! It has names of people we have never heard of.)

All our paperwork was returned intact. The refusal letter was in her name but the reasons were for another applicant.


I'm the British citizen and my US wife had a settlement visa years ago before we moved to the USA 7 years ago. We have been married 8 years now.


What do we do now? We are moving back to the UK in March and seems silly to try to work through an appeal process when the cockup is clearly clerical and administrative.


The 0300 number is for general inquiries; does anyone have any way to contact Vulcan House directly or have any insight on best way to proceed? We can't have her arrive in UK at all with a refusal if it is indeed on her name.


I'm a bit gobsmacked with this mistake and unsure where to start to unravel it. We are in Houston - call the Consulate? Call Sheffield? Email Sheffield? Does anyone have a true number for the Sheffield visa office?

Wintersong

Wow, that's a mix up and a half.

Have you tried the general enquiries number at all? I'd start with that and explain the situation to them if you haven't already done so - you never know, you might actually get an immediate referral once they hear what's happened.

Failing that, I'd probably try the consulate and then a UK immigration adviser if you have no luck there - http://home.oisc.gov.uk/register_of_.../register.aspx

BritInParis

https://www.gov.uk/ask-for-a-visa-ad...outside-the-uk

angie_329

How annoying. Sounds like a data merge error, someone selected the wrong letter when they merged to your name and address. I hope you get the admin review quickly.

Perth

I would urge you to contact an immigration attorney in the UK. They have channels they can go through that you won't be able to on your own. You might be able to avoid being delayed up to 28 days by going through that admin review. The very best of luck to you

Bomjeito

We got through on the enquiries line and received an escalation to look into the problem.

UKVI Sheffield promised an answer within 5 days. We talked to an immigration attorney who wanted to charge us 300 pounds to file an appeal. We can fill out a form fine, that isn't a best route to wait up to a year for a hearing. We can't afford another fresh application, so we are really amazed at this clerical mistake.

Administrative review is not applicable to our situation so we can only wait and hope right now. Stressful indeed.

Perth

Let us know when you have had a response. Hoping it is resolved very soon

Bomjeito

No word yet but my husband's employer (I am the US spouse writing) has an immigration lawyer who looked into it yesterday. As she can't call directly as we filed the complaint, she did call the British Consul in NY who called FCO Sheffield directly! Sheffield is "working on an investigation into the matter."

We were also asked by the lawyer if they'd stamped any rejections directly in my passport which is a huge mess if so. UKVI did NOT which is a relief and further shows that a mix up has been made. This lawyer sees this a few times a year. Not encouraging for the process but shouldn't need a re-apply.

spouse of scouse

Very sorry that this has happened to you. It's the second time in a week I've heard about a patently incorrect refusal, it adds to an already stressful time. Best of luck in obtaining a successful resolution.

michali

We all realize the possibility of human error but, sadly, that is rarely applied to applicants! We risk the smallest mistake resulting in a refusal! I hope this case is resolved successfully.

Perth

Very encouraging that you found the right people to work on your case. I think it should be resolved forthwith! Hope so

Bomjeito

So every few days we get a different request. Four business days ago, we were requested to mail or scan in our supporting documents. Two business days ago they asked for some clarification. Today they asked for proof of our IHS payment supplement; we sent our original one. I mention this as the rejection letter stated that our IHS payment of 780 GBP was being refunded back to us. That has never happened, so we hope this isn't a snag in the process.

The whole affair is being sorted. One thing they haven't asked for is my passport.

Perth

Have you heard anything else? It's incomprehensible to me that this has not already been cleared up

Bomjeito

Very good timing Perth! On Thursday we got an email that they needed me to pay the IHS payment again. A refund was ordered automatically with the rejection and it takes up to 90 days to get that refund. But they needed the payment NOW. So I figured it was approved.

Friday morning we got an email saying "Sorry for the confusion and inconvenience." And the visa was approved. WHEW.

So an interesting new snag -

First time around we used VFS for the return UPS/Courier label as I had no idea how to make one happen quickly. We wanted to get the passport back to Sheffield quickly and when I went in to VFS site to buy another one, I was blocked to do so as my GWF number was attached to another UPS return paid label. Which of course was used to courier back my rejection package.

VFS only will take emails, so I sent off an email.

In the meantime, I went online for UPS and set up an account connected to a credit card and easily purchased a printable UPS prepaid return label. VFS charged $141. With my own account, it was $85.

Round trip UPS express saver with VFS was $250. I paid $62 to UPS solely the passport and $85 for the return. I saved about $100 doing it myself.

I got a return email from VFS 2 days later saying I"ll need a new GWF number, which means reapply. They didn't understand my email at all.

Sigh.

Thanks all for listening to my upsets! It was resolved but we did lose some sleep.

angie_329

Good news then! Hopefully they will re train whoever issued the mixed up letter.