How many other centres are there? Is that not half of the centres. When I went to Victoria the photo booth was not working. My photo was the old size but they accepted it, That was in December.

The emphasis was on NEW photo booths, ie capable of producing the NEW size of photo. For weeks after the instant change of size, those centres blessed with a booth, could only offer the old size, which after the brief period of grace was refused at the counter a few feet away.

Why do the aforementioned cities not have booths? Who knows? Lack of demand maybe. Why do the machines remain out of order for weeks on end? To prepare you for India of course.

How long are the queues?
I can't believe you asked that.......but here we go anyway;

It depends on how many people are wanting photos at the time


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Do you have to be so unpleasant? I just asked a question? when I went for my visa in August at the Birmingham office I don't remember any photo booth, maybe I just didn't see it. My impression of the VFS site was that the booths were put there for the new photos if they were not why not just say so without the capital letters.
As to the queues: from this forum I get the impression that most people get their photos done earlier, I just wanted to get a rough idea how many actually did use the on-site booths, and whether it was worth the risk of getting photos done there when I next go. Those who have recently been would surely have some idea. Is that such a silly question?

because they are just collection points not visa centres?

AndyD 8-)#

No, but you bring out the best in me..........

Given what friends are saying, they had to go outside the offices to get the new size photo's, costing from £12.99 to £16.99 each for two photo's.

VFS website says:
AndyD 8-)#

No photo booths in Edinburgh vfs centre last week so we had to go to Jessops - 2 photos £6.50

As I'm in Goa for a couple more months I'm going to have a few strips of these 2"x2" photos done. SUBASH in the photo shop next to Snow White Laundry in Candolim has told me he can do them & certainly at a fraction of the cost in the UK. Will report cost when I get them done.

(BTW, if anyone has had framed family photos ruined out here during the last monsoon, take them along to Subash - he has managed to "recover" many photos for me which I thought were destined for the trashbin)

I do not think it was a silly question at all. My advice would be not to rely on any of the machinery on offer at the visa centres, go prepared with absolutely everything you could possibly need and make sure that you keep a photo copy of your passport at home in case of loss. Go prepared for a long wait, I waited over 3 hours at Victoria when I took our documents in.

Agree with you, I always take every possible document including old passport.
The waiting time at Birmingham has improved, in the old days people brought small folding canvas stools for the outside queue, which caused much envy from those who didn't think of it (me).

Hayes is by far the best place to go!!If convenient of course!In my past experience there has never been a queue!

I think London was always more civilised and had tickets/timings. When the Birmingham Consulate moved to the Jewellery Quarter tickets were issued but by 8am there were usually at least a 100 people waiting for the doors to open. Now much, much better.

Friend emailed the Visa office on Friday, and had a reply to-day. He asked what sort of visa we could expect next season and was told it would either be a 3 or 6 month visa depending on the HCI.

Quite frankly, that means absolutely nothing.......

Several of us have reported in detail on this forum and others the obstructive attitude of VFS staff when applying for a one year visa. They have told us face to face that we stand no chance and will not get a refund. In most cases, however, the one year visa has been granted. This has been the case for at least three years.
So why am I not surprised that an anonymous employee of this wretched company is spouting the same old cr*p by email?

Also, for anyone to predict visa conditions nine months into the future, in view of the number of spontaneous changes that have occurred in the last few months...........absurd in the extreme!

There are more than enough things to worry about in Goa, without persisting with this "rumour" of shorter visas, solely attributable to some lazy and innacurate reporting by the Herald a few weeks ago.

As I said at the time, pure Goa-noia........


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