Unimaginative bureaucracy + terrible design & outsourcing = Kafkaesque online experience & exploitative moneymaking
Whine alert!: This is a chronicle of my experience with the new online visa application process for the UK. Despite having applied for and receiving multiple entry visas for the UK over the last four years, it is mandatory to follow the entire process for a new application - including the recently added biometrics stage, as I discovered this month.
This is not a problem in itself, except that the bureaucrats of the Foreign Office (or whatever faceless entity decides these things - perhaps one of my readers will oblige by identifying it!) have chosen to outsource the biometrics to a private company, without appropriate integration into the visa application process. See, here's what happens when you go online and apply on the UK visa site:
1. You initiate a pop-up that walks you through the application process (not bad, actually!)
2. It asks early on what location you'd prefer for biometrics, from a list (still not bad)
3. You finish about twenty stages of information including parents' details (!)
4. You pay for the application ($137) using a credit card (Still no Amex! But that's forgivable, the whole experience is reminiscent of a fussy little shop that has its own whims)
5. You are prompted to print and pack the application form with a photograph along with your passport (Hmm...)
6. You are then shown the next available date for the biometrics center at the location of your choice. It has no relation whatsoever with the dates you've put in for travel. So, for instance, I'd intended to travel on May-8, and the next available date for the biometrics location showed May-14. Come on! But anyway, cést la vie I thought - perhaps I should look at available dates for other locations close to me. That's when I started getting frustrated and furious. There seemed to be no way of accessing the list of biometric locations and their available dates. After a few exploratory clicks I landed on the website for the outsourced company that offered a phone number for inquiry (there is no way of talking to anyone at the UK consulate itself!). For a fee ($12), I was able to talk to a gent, who confirmed that indeed, the only way of finding available dates for an alternative biometrics location was to go through the entire visa application process AGAIN, and choose that particular alternative. For which the available date would become visible after you paid the application fee. Somewhere in the midst of the process, the system would recognize that you have a previous visa application pending, and it would prompt you to request for a refund (Incredibly unfriendly! Its like a visit to a carnival crapshoot! You keep paying $137 per try and hope and pray you don't end up with $137 times X tries in outstanding refunds from the UK Consulate or it's proxy, the outsourcing company).
Several phone calls and online tries later, I gave up. With apologies to my friends in the UK, it was simply impossible to penetrate the labyrinth. Perhaps I'll try later on for a long-term visa, because I'd still want to visit the UK - but I don't fancy my chances with this process...
I wonder if other countries are really quite as bad. I can say that the French (Schengen), Japanese, Chinese, Indian and US visa experiences are nowhere as pathetic in terms of fees involved or assistance provided.
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