My Experience so far SS Route Colombia- Ireland

So,

It all began in Oct 2013 when my partner left the UK to work and live in Ireland.

after settling himself in, getting his pps number bank account etc etc and other loose end that needing tying up, he finally submitted the online Long stay application form for his son who is 20 to come and join him in ireland.


This is where the mess all began.

Over the christmas period the telephone number at Burgh Quay was relaying a message that due to this busy period, applications were taking over 7 weeks. I thought, well its christmas, lets not scream about 3 weeks. s*** happens.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we left it the 7 weeks and then attempted to contact them again.

There was "no record" of our online application.

Now this is the bit that really gets me.... so, there was "NO RECORD" of our "ONLINE APPLICATION" even though we had a PDF copy of the confirmation sheet saying "thank you, you have successfully submitted application ..." we spent about a week arguing this point with the embassy in Mexico who couldn't seem to grasp the concept of how confirmation receipts were generated or were hoping we were that naive and it illiterate to believe their blatant lies.

Also, my stepsons document's were sent to the Irish Embassy in Mexico, as the aforementioned PDF printout told us to do, within a week of submitting the vanished application. in the envelope was his passport, corresponding documents and a letter outlining the purpose of the application, along with full contact details of my partner. NOT once in the 7 weeks that this so called "random passport" (as they had no application to back it up with) did anyone attempt to send an email saying we don't know why we have this package.

They also attempted to charge a fee of $80 for the visa, they told us that the documents should have been submitted to the honorary consulate in Bogota, even though the printout specifically says submit to Mexico. They then told us that we should not of sent my stepson's original passport... and then finally. We were told to submit a short stay application as the long stay is "the wrong application"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!


after coming to the conclusion that we were running out of time, we jumped through their hoops filled in the application and then were told we need to send $50US for the courier back to Colombia. (We paid just to get the passport back asap as he is fast approaching 21)

this was a nightmare in itself as no banks will transfer for less than $200 from the UK/Ireland or even Colombia! in the end we had a friend with the same bank as the irish embassy who was allowed to make the transfer for us.

His passport is currently in transit back to him and his flights are all booked for next week.

All in all it has been a bloody nightmare, but i can only imagine what it would be like for someone who doesn't understand what having a "right" to something means.

I am making a massive complaint as this is not on.

I will try to keep this updated as the journey progresses!