Spouse Visa 2018

[chenmyster]

I made applications for my wife and son to come to the UK back in August.

Paid the fees, sent the documents, it was all going well...

I was a bit anxious though as I called in a line that cost £1.37 per minute every week to check on the status.

On the 11th of October an email was sent from the IHS team explaining there was a problem in the system that prevented us from paying for the IHS fee for my son making it seemingly to be free for a child. Because of that we had to pay using a link they just sent with deadline on the 18th of October. Unfortunately my wife didn't have access to that email during that week and saw the email a couple of days too late. Even though I did call in on 15th of October for my weekly check on the applications and was told they are awaiting a decision, nothing I need to do in the moment by the adviser.

So I called in again on the 22nd of October and was told they would raise an urgent escalation to the IHS team to send us a new link in order to pay for the fee. Days and days passed as we've not received the link and whenever I called I was told I must wait for 15 working days before they can raise another escalation, then all of the sudden, after 15 working days when I called they told me the status on the application has been changed to "a decision has been made", which I fear the worst, because we never received another link for the IHS fee so we couldn't pay for it, the decision is probably a reject, on top the that they will not refund any of the £4000 we've paid for the application and all the time we lost waiting for the application.

I feel so let down by UKVI on how they treated us. Spent so much money every week calling a number that provided no help what so ever. They just use us as a way to donate money and tell us "there is nothing they can do", Even though it was their own fault to have a problem in the system as well as not telling me we needed to paid IHS fee when I called in on 15th of October or any of the numerous times I called in before that.

[Londoner007]

To be fair they did email you with a top up link but your wife failed to respond to it, you cant blame it all on them.

Until you see a rejection letter, dont assume a rejection. UKVI application status isnt the most accurate. Send email to IHS directly asking for a new link. IHS.Sheffield@fco.gov.uk

[CR001]

You should have paid it as soon as you saw the email too.

[chenmyster]

We did try to pay as soon as we saw on the 20th but the link did not work and expired. I did call them on a paid line on 15th of October asking for status of the application due to her not having access to email that week. They didn’t not mention anything to do with upstanding IHS fee.

We already tried emailing them, calling the paid line numerous times.