Post
by krishnakumarg » Sun Aug 30, 2020 11:22 pm
I have a quick niche experience to share, which perhaps might be of interest to others here.
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So, I was put in the biometrics reuse pool and waited it out for the IDV app. On Friday, Aug 28, I was able to log in to the app even without invite. In all the excitement to quickly be done with this, and from the feedback I gathered from internet forums about how easy the app is, I was a bit overconfident and trigger happy with the IDV app. I thought everything was fine, photo, liveness check and all, and submitted. Justt afterwards, I was just reading the FAQs (sorry, I know a bit silly not to read upfront) in the app was that "the photo must be with a clear/transparent background so that the person shall be in clear contrast with the background, and without any shadows on the face"
To my horrors, I realized that in my enthusiasm to avoid shadows, I had taken the selfie against a real dark background (a closed bedroom door). I realised that I could no longer use the app since I had already submitted, and the "submit" button was greyed out. Now, the last thing I wanted was that when UKVI folks finally get to my IDV biometrics in 2 weeks or whatever, to redo my biometrics and put my immigration application on hold until I got a biometrics appointment to fix the photo. After fretting about for a while and blaming myself for being stupid, I thought I should just login to UKVCAS website to see if in-person appointments are available.
When I logged in, I found an appointment slot for Saturday, Aug 29, 2020 for like £62 at Croydon, Landsdowne Road, and I immediately tried to book it. I was almost expecting an error message like "Sorry, but no further biometrics can be submitted for this UAN", since the IDV app doesn't allow any type of resubmission. Luckily, I got the appointment, and thought that this is a software bug in their system, and that surely when I showed up the next day at the VAC, they are going to turn me away.
So, I show up at Croydon, and after a bit of wait, gets called into a biometrics till/station. When they scanned my QR code, I was expecting them to give me a puzzled look, and saying that the system will not permit me to take your biometrics. Instead, they just proceeded. Took my photo and fingerprints, and before submitting, the person at the counter said "Okay, I can see your passport, your BRP, your supporting doc x, the photo that you uploaded, your supporting doc y, zzzz. Is there anything else you want me to add to your application?".
At that point, I was just hoping that the thing would just go through and no errors would further show up at submission. I just inquired if I could see the list myself, and the staff turned their monitor around. I literally saw my photos (from IDV app as well as from the in-person ongoing appointment) just like two others among the 5 docs I had uploaded. Not standing out or specially titled or anything, but they were just was so inconspicuous as list items buried among the 5 different supporting docs.
I asked them about the "duplicate photo". They just said, "it is just the photo that you had scanned/uploaded yourself along with all other supporting docs". They didn't know about IDV app. They then proceeded to submission, and I expected problems one last time, but luckily it went through fine.
