Bjorn Olsson

Deep Foiled Malls:

    >On 23 Jan 2005 02:46:48 -0800, [email protected] (Bjorn Olsson)
wrote:
    >>Deep Foiled Malls wrote:
    >>
    >>>On 21 Jan 2005 02:00:06 -0800, [email protected] (Bjorn Olsson)
wrote:
    >>>>Deep Foiled Malls wrote:
    >>>>>Pity those that want to travel from the other side of the planet,
    >>>>>and do not want to be turned away due to some technicality. It
    >>>>>can happen!
    >>>>I don't quite understand what you are talking about. We were
    >>>>discussing how to get a visa by applying in your home country well
    >>>>in advance of your planned trip, right? If your application is,
for
    >>>>some reason, "turned away", you are "turned away" well before
    >>>>embarking on your trip.
    >>>No, I mean that if there is a problem with arriving there and
    >>>finding that something it wrong with your visa, and being sent
back.
    >>>It does happen, and (as I have relayed before) almost happened to
me
    >>>due to a mistake by the Russian embassy.
    >>Well, it also happens that people get run over by a car or that they
    >>are hit by lightning. That's why you should look twice before
crossing
    >>the street and never stand under trees during thunderstorms. In the
    >>visa case, you should check the visa so that dates, names, and other
    >>crucial information is correct. That's why the lady who hands over
the
    >>visas at the Gothenburg consulate always says "Pliiz check your
visa"
    >>when handing it over.
    >Hang on a second...

OK.

*hanging on*

    >*gets passport*
    >OK, the problem was this. I got the invitation and voucher through
    >Intelservice, who are very good. I then sent this, with all the
    >forms etc. to the embassy, with my passport, and got the visa back.
    >There is a long code called "INVITED BY, GROUP AND REFERENCE NO.",
    >in Cyrrilic and numbers. The embassy put down the GROUP number as
    >1805 instead of 1850. I don't think there is any reasonable way I
    >could be expected to find this in a 35 character code! The rest of
    >the details were correct. When it came to registering it though,
    >only they was it clear what had happened.
    >Next time I know to check, but quite simply this just illustrates
    >how a small piece of incompetence can make things much, much
    >harder. It took days to sort out, and cost a lot of money.

Yeah, well, OK, you were very unlucky. I'm not sure what conclusion
you want anyone to draw from this. Never visit visa-requiring
countries because there can be errors in visas?

Bjorn