**** COVID19 Biometrics appointments and UKVCAS ***** (Discuss here ONLY)

[CULLINAN]

Post by Alakazam » Wed Nov 04, 2020 9:22 pm

Hi all

On the UKVCAS website, the Document Upload webpage says that you can upload documents in stages right up to your appointment time. After payment however, the appointment booking webpage says that the option to submit uploaded documents is only available 48 hours before appointment.

Which one is it? 48 hours or right up to appointment time?

Has anyone uploaded documents 1 day before the appointment without any issues?

I wish there was some consistency in the instructions.

Thanks in advance
Best regards
Alakazam

You can upload anytime before or at the appointment (if you pay extra) and can be submitted at the appointment.
The 48hour window only applies IF you want to SELF-submit.

Do not confuse “upload” and “submit” or “self-submit.”

[Alakazam]

Post by Alakazam » Wed Nov 04, 2020 9:22 pm

Hi all

On the UKVCAS website, the Document Upload webpage says that you can upload documents in stages right up to your appointment time. After payment however, the appointment booking webpage says that the option to submit uploaded documents is only available 48 hours before appointment.

Which one is it? 48 hours or right up to appointment time?

Has anyone uploaded documents 1 day before the appointment without any issues?

I wish there was some consistency in the instructions.

Thanks in advance
Best regards
Alakazam

You can upload anytime before or at the appointment (if you pay extra) and can be submitted at the appointment.
The 48hour window only applies IF you want to SELF-submit.

Do not confuse “upload” and “submit” or “self-submit.”

Thanks for the quick response again Cullinan.

I cancelled my appointment because of the 48 hour statement and tried to rebook. But it is not allowing me to rebook cause of a payment template loading error. Is there like freeze period where you are not allowed to rebook 1 hour within cancellation or something like that?

[CULLINAN]

Oh no!! You will have to rebook now. If your appointment was paid and cancelled within 48 hours window, you will not get refund either. Maybe you can not book the same slot again. You will have to try or see more appointments 12AM GMT. Earliest will be for 2nd Dec now.

[Alakazam]

Oh no!! You will have to rebook now. If your appointment was paid and cancelled within 48 hours window, you will not get refund either. Maybe you can not book the same slot again. You will have to try or see more appointments 12AM GMT. Earliest will be for 2nd Dec now.

I managed to secure a paid appointment for Monday 9th Nov. I think the webpage got a bit confused earlier since it gave a status of "Payment Pending" but I could not pay cause of the template loading error message. I just waited 30 minutes for the reservation to time out and managed to rebook.

Thanks for your help Cullinan.

[CULLINAN]

Oh no!! You will have to rebook now. If your appointment was paid and cancelled within 48 hours window, you will not get refund either. Maybe you can not book the same slot again. You will have to try or see more appointments 12AM GMT. Earliest will be for 2nd Dec now.

I managed to secure a paid appointment for Monday 9th Nov. I think the webpage got a bit confused earlier since it gave a status of "Payment Pending" but I could not pay cause of the template loading error message. I just waited 30 minutes for the reservation to time out and managed to rebook.

Thanks for your help Cullinan.

When was your old appointment which you cancelled? Was it paid?

[Alakazam]

When was your old appointment which you cancelled? Was it paid?

Hi Cullinan

The original appointment which I cancelled was for Saturday 07 Nov. That was also a paid appointment. I understand that I will be charged 10 GBP and refunded the rest.

[CULLINAN]

When was your old appointment which you cancelled? Was it paid?

Hi Cullinan

The original appointment which I cancelled was for Saturday 07 Nov. That was also a paid appointment. I understand that I will be charged 10 GBP and refunded the rest.

Looks like you cancelled when less than 48 hours left to your appointment? In this case no fee will be refunded.

[Alakazam]

Looks like you cancelled when less than 48 hours left to your appointment? In this case no fee will be refunded.

Hopefully I get the refund since my appointment was at 0900 on 07 Nov. So 48 hours before that appointment time is 0900 on 05 Nov - which is tomorrow morning.

Or am I missing something?

[CULLINAN]

Looks like you cancelled when less than 48 hours left to your appointment? In this case no fee will be refunded.

Hopefully I get the refund since my appointment was at 0900 on 07 Nov. So 48 hours before that appointment time is 0900 on 05 Nov - which is tomorrow morning.

Or am I missing something?

Yes my bad. You will get the refund then minus £10.

[Alakazam]

Yes my bad. You will get the refund then minus £10.

Phew!! - you scared me a bit. I thought I made another blunder. . All good. Thanks again for your help and rapid information.

[MALCOM2]

I have got appointment as well on 20 of November. Do you think if I cancelled and rebooked I will get appointment next week? Thanks

[CULLINAN]

I have got appointment as well on 20 of November. Do you think if I cancelled and rebooked I will get appointment next week? Thanks

Not sure. Risk is involved. If there are any cancellations or availability (rarely) you may get an earlier slot, otherwise you may even loose your 20th Nov slot. Normal earliest appointments are running @ 2nd Dec.

[Alakazam]

I have got appointment as well on 20 of November. Do you think if I cancelled and rebooked I will get appointment next week? Thanks

Hi MALCOM2

As Cullinan says, it is a risk. I checked the last 3 days at 11.55 pm and again a few minutes past midnight on all 3 days. I only saw appointments available on the last possible day that is allowed on the system (i.e 28 days later).

Luckily, I thought I'll check yesterday at about 8pm and I saw several appointment slots available in Landsdowne Road. Impossible to say whether those slots are still available. They were all 135 GBP appointments. Didnt see any which were free or the 70 GBP ones.

So you can risk it and cancel to see whether earlier ones are available. If they are all gone you will have to book 28 days later which is 02 or 03 Dec.

[MALCOM2]

Thanks a lot . I will wait for the 20 of November. I don’t want gamble it .thanks again for your response.

[Aragon1]

Managed to get a free appointment in Birmingham for Dec 02 and plenty more available. Interesting that when I checked at 12AM, there were only paid ones made available.

[caTSworn]

I have got appointment as well on 20 of November. Do you think if I cancelled and rebooked I will get appointment next week? Thanks

Not sure. Risk is involved. If there are any cancellations or availability (rarely) you may get an earlier slot, otherwise you may even loose your 20th Nov slot. Normal earliest appointments are running @ 2nd Dec.

Hi! You are right, my friend paid for the application last night and the earliest appointment was 2nd Dec!
How did you know that? Is it because of the lockdown? Sorry for so many questions!

[CULLINAN]

@caTsworn

UKVCAS releases slots for a new date at 12AM midnight. Unless there are any cancellations and one is lucky to secure an earlier one, the appointments will be released for 3rd Dec tonight and so on. UKVCAS is running at a 28 days lag.

[okigen68]

Got my approval email this morning. Applied on 13/9 and submitted documents on 20/9, so roughly 6-7 weeks. Seems like it's the general timeline for quite a few people here. My case is pretty straightforward though - when I applied for ILR the decision came through the next morning.
Submission was done via IDV app only.
Good luck everyone

[surabhi]

Thank you ..I will give a call tomorrow anyways..
But the thing which makes me to think that this is a generic email is, my minor applicants had ILR hardly 4 months back. So the existing biometric is just 4 months old.

Maybe but only for minors and not adults in the same group, makes me think otherwise.

Please let me know what they say by phone. As I wrote a week ago, I applied with my son (minor) and he received the 45 day message and I did not. We submitted via IDV app on 5 Sept. Applied July 12. I DM’d after the message and they looked up our application and said all was in order for both of us relating to biometrics and to ignore. We have saved the messages.

I called them and they gave the same response and aske dme to ignore that email.Infact they logged in system and verified everything and said all are in order.No action needed

[BetterHuman]

Got my approval email this morning. Applied on 13/9 and submitted documents on 20/9, so roughly 6-7 weeks. Seems like it's the general timeline for quite a few people here. My case is pretty straightforward though - when I applied for ILR the decision came through the next morning.
Submission was done via IDV app only.
Good luck everyone

Many congrats Okigen68. Hope you get your Invite soon.

Did HO contact your referees? if so, did you get notified that they have emailed/contacted your referee ? I am conscious that my referee might not be checking their email or the spam box. I don't want to constantly ask them to check their inbox. i applied around the same time as yours and is a straightforward case.

[okigen68]

Got my approval email this morning. Applied on 13/9 and submitted documents on 20/9, so roughly 6-7 weeks. Seems like it's the general timeline for quite a few people here. My case is pretty straightforward though - when I applied for ILR the decision came through the next morning.
Submission was done via IDV app only.
Good luck everyone

Many congrats Okigen68. Hope you get your Invite soon.

Did HO contact your referees? if so, did you get notified that they have emailed/contacted your referee ? I am conscious that my referee might not be checking their email or the spam box. I don't want to constantly ask them to check their inbox. i applied around the same time as yours and is a straightforward case.

No I don't think they ever contacted, otherwise my referees will have let me know.
HO did try to call me to remind me to check my mailbox for the decision letter, in case it went into spam. So I guess they may do the same for referees as well?

[CULLINAN]

HO did try to call me to remind me to check my mailbox for the decision letter,

Thats new. Was it a private number?

Referees are very rarely contacted.

[BetterHuman]

Got my approval email this morning. Applied on 13/9 and submitted documents on 20/9, so roughly 6-7 weeks. Seems like it's the general timeline for quite a few people here. My case is pretty straightforward though - when I applied for ILR the decision came through the next morning.
Submission was done via IDV app only.
Good luck everyone

Many congrats Okigen68. Hope you get your Invite soon.

Did HO contact your referees? if so, did you get notified that they have emailed/contacted your referee ? I am conscious that my referee might not be checking their email or the spam box. I don't want to constantly ask them to check their inbox. i applied around the same time as yours and is a straightforward case.

No I don't think they ever contacted, otherwise my referees will have let me know.
HO did try to call me to remind me to check my mailbox for the decision letter, in case it went into spam. So I guess they may do the same for referees as well?

Thank you. i didn't know that HO would try to contact the applicant directly unless you made a query or complaint. how did you know that it was from HO ? did you manage to speak to them directly later ?

[BetterHuman]

HO did try to call me to remind me to check my mailbox for the decision letter,

Thats new. Was it a private number?

Referees are very rarely contacted.

Thank you, CULLINAN.

Yes, phone call from HO is a new thing for me as well. I had missed few calls in the past week some from a completely new number, when you call back it doesn't go through, so not sure weather it is from HO or just some spam sales.

[CULLINAN]

HO did try to call me to remind me to check my mailbox for the decision letter,

Thats new. Was it a private number?

Referees are very rarely contacted.

Thank you, CULLINAN.

Yes, phone call from HO is a new thing for me as well. I had missed few calls in the past week some from a completely new number, when you call back it doesn't go through, so not sure weather it is from HO or just some spam sales.

HO calls are normally from a private/no caller ID number.