Beware of the information sheets that they give out for Filipinos to apply for British visas, because they do not represent the reality of the situation. I am a British national currently living in the Philippines with my wife. When she was still my fiancee we filled in and filed a visa application for her to visit my family in England. It was immediately rejected on the grounds that we had failed to provide documentation to satisfy three requirements. When I objected that nowhere in the information they give out, or on the websites, or at the UK VACS office when the documentation was submitted and my fiancee was questioned, did they ask for this documentation or set out these requirements, their response was basically, ""Yes, it doesn't say that, but too bad, you were supposed to guess."" And that was that, my application fee remained in their grubby little pockets and they completely refused even to consider the idea that they were in any way to blame. What do you call it when money is taken from you on the basis of incorrect or incomplete information? You call it fraud, but of course, being a government, there is no comeback, they can afford to act so as to amuse themselves and are not answerable to anyone, least of all the public. The information that they give out is a tissue of misrepresentations. Of course, they do provide an appeals and complaints procedure, but this is as farcical as their application procedure. They give you three procedures, implying that these are independent: 1) Complain to the Embassy that you applied to; 2) complain to the head of UK visas in England; 3) write to your local MP. I complained several times to the Embassy. At no point would they show me something in a public place, e.g., information sheet or website, where the 'requirements' that I was said not to comply with were specified. At no point, despite asking them directly several times, would they tell me exactly what these requirements were and what documents were considered to satisfy those requirements. Despite the fact that this effectively makes it impossible for me to know what the requirements are, I am still apparently solely to blame for failing to comply with them. On the contrary, they claim that there is no particular documentation that is required and have the nerve to smugly claim that this is being ""flexible""! So, I complained to the head of UK visas. What did he do? He referred it back to the British Embassy in the Philippines!
The very people who I had already complained to and had hoped to bypass by writing to the head of UK visas. So, I wrote to my MP. My MP referred it to the Home Office? And what to the Home Office do? You guessed it -- they referred it back to the head of UK visas! And they have the nerve to make out that these are independent procedures. To call these independent is to indulge in empty verbiage, even an idiot can see that this procedure is entirely circular.
British Government Reviews
Beware of the information sheets that they give out for Filipinos to apply for British visas, because they do not represent the reality of the situation. I am a British national currently living in the Philippines with my wife. When she was still my fiancee we filled in and filed a visa application for her to visit my family in England. It was immediately rejected on the grounds that we had failed to provide documentation to satisfy three requirements. When I objected that nowhere in the information they give out, or on the websites, or at the UK VACS office when the documentation was submitted and my fiancee was questioned, did they ask for this documentation or set out these requirements, their response was basically, ""Yes, it doesn't say that, but too bad, you were supposed to guess."" And that was that, my application fee remained in their grubby little pockets and they completely refused even to consider the idea that they were in any way to blame. What do you call it when money is taken from you on the basis of incorrect or incomplete information? You call it fraud, but of course, being a government, there is no comeback, they can afford to act so as to amuse themselves and are not answerable to anyone, least of all the public. The information that they give out is a tissue of misrepresentations. Of course, they do provide an appeals and complaints procedure, but this is as farcical as their application procedure. They give you three procedures, implying that these are independent: 1) Complain to the Embassy that you applied to; 2) complain to the head of UK visas in England; 3) write to your local MP. I complained several times to the Embassy. At no point would they show me something in a public place, e.g., information sheet or website, where the 'requirements' that I was said not to comply with were specified. At no point, despite asking them directly several times, would they tell me exactly what these requirements were and what documents were considered to satisfy those requirements. Despite the fact that this effectively makes it impossible for me to know what the requirements are, I am still apparently solely to blame for failing to comply with them. On the contrary, they claim that there is no particular documentation that is required and have the nerve to smugly claim that this is being ""flexible""! So, I complained to the head of UK visas. What did he do? He referred it back to the British Embassy in the Philippines!
The very people who I had already complained to and had hoped to bypass by writing to the head of UK visas. So, I wrote to my MP. My MP referred it to the Home Office? And what to the Home Office do? You guessed it -- they referred it back to the head of UK visas! And they have the nerve to make out that these are independent procedures. To call these independent is to indulge in empty verbiage, even an idiot can see that this procedure is entirely circular.