Hey HamoHass, They have not acknowledged receipt of my documents yet. I sent it earlier this week.

I followed up with another email copying in my university, asking them to respond to any verification request from SACB via email.

Hopefully my uni will copy me into their response to SACB for proof.

I’m anticipating a few weeks before I get any sort of response. iA will hear back soon. Will keep you posted.

With regards to bypassing attestation, my agent also advised that attestation has to be done for a professional/office level job. I am taking their advice as agents do this on daily basis so know everything.
My only worry is that will the employers wait for months while this issue gets resolved?? Remote working is not possible due to data compliance in my case.
Also very strange to believe that currently no one is able to apply for work visa(due to attestation issue) from a country like UK - there has to be a workaround...like granting a visa and getting attestation done at later stage etc

I’m equally baffled, it doesn’t seem right. Maybe the degree attestation is only for some jobs so the impact is not as high for everyone else applying. Critical systems being down for 6weeks+ is a joke. I tried to call their office too but no response. Do let us know if they acknowledge your documents, as that’s the only hope there is right now.

Update:

The Consular Department of the UK Saudi Embassy replied to my email confirming that despite the attestation site being down for over 6 weeks now, degree attestation is still a “STRICT REQUIREMENT”.

PROMISING UPDATE:

The Attestation team have acknowledged receipt of my degree documents and have contacted my university. My university takes 15 working days to respond to verification requests. Here is the email:

Awesome - great job. I emailed them last night, so patiently waiting for a response asking me to send the docs.

fingers crossed it works out in this way for all of us!

Thank you! I hope it works out for you too. I wrote my initial email subject line in both English and Arabic to get their attention. I also copied in my university to make it as simple as possible for whoever is handling the attestation.

Have pasted a template of what I wrote below.

Brilliant, thank you for sharing this. What is store payment #? Where can we find this from if applied via agent? Assuming agent would have it.

This fee was specifically for my university. Your university may or may not require this. I was required to fill out a separate form and pay my university a fee for which I provided the reference number. I would check for more information on your university’s website. It should be called “Confirmation of Award” or something along those lines.

Shouldn’t SACB be paid something for this service? I suspect they’re not doing this for free right?

otherwise visa agent is ripping us off

Well, the SACB Attestation service is free. Just going by this blog: https://blog.vitalconsular.com/sacb-...-saudi-arabia/

But yeah, we are being bumped by the agent for sure. I have already paid my agent £299 for the degree certificate part alone which I doubt I will be getting back despite dealing with this SACB Attestation directly with the embassy myself.

Once it’s been through SACB Attestation though, it will still need to be solicitor certified and then stamped by the Foreign Office (FCO).

I was researching about Saudi joining The Hague Convention which I think means our docs don’t need to be stamped by the embassy anymore if it has been issued with an Apostille.

Does anyone know how do we get back the UKSACB attested copy back? Is it a scanned copy or actual hard copy? Assuming it goes back to agent for next steps FCO + Solicitor attestation?

The SACB applies an official stamp and signature to the scan. You will then get a digital copy of the signed and sealed version for you to print off or send to agent. You will not receive a hard copy of the SACB version.

So, from my research there used to be a 4 stamp process.

1. SACB stamp
2. Notary stamp
3. FCO stamp
4. Saudi Embassy stamp

4 used to be equally tedious process as 1. But due to Saudi Arabia joining the Hague convention, we no longer need that stamp (replaced by Apostille process).

Stamp 1 is on a scanned copy.
Stamp 2 is on a scanned copy with the notary seeing and witnessing the real document
Stamp 3 & 4 - Are also scanned copy now

And thanks Leolibra - I assume we are using the same agent, whose been adamant there is no other way round, as I also paid £299! 🤯

Thanks haychq! That’s really helpful to know. I’m finding out from another London based company how much they charge for stamping etc. they quoted me £62 for one document on the phone. My agent is going to be angry 🤭