3 months almost gone

[andypaul]

I used ManilaVisaEnquiries @ fco. gov.uk

And at first i got a reply from one eco (the name was familar from another applicants report of an interview at the same time) saying they were out of office.

A little later the manager replied

her name at the time was j lewin

As you know many companies used the format

Jbloggs @ fco.gov.uk for example

I have no idea if she is still there?

but a quick google shows there is a

ANDY BATTSON, ENTRY CLEARANCE MANAGER, BRITISH EMBASSY, MANILA, PHILIPPINES

mentioned on vfs global website.

Whoops should have mentioned this auto response was from Jlewin back in 2005.The football distracted me last night.

What i was getting at is they themselves have guidelines that they should reply within 20 days (i presume they dont have blackberrys that or
really fat fingers)

Now i got a auto response straight off which had written among other things

Thank you for emailing the Visa Section at The British Embassy Manila. All correspondence will be replied to as quickly as possible within our best practice guidelines of 20 working days.

I would if nothing is heard by late monday start to get in contact with your MP they should be able to ask on your behalf and from what i read they normally get an answer very quickly not always the right answer for you but are rarely ignored.

A manger in an office in the british embassy will not want a complaint or an MP kicking up a fuss for most they want a better posting so will not want to blot the copybook.

[joebloggs]

well said andy

it shows sometimes how the embassy drag things out, near 3 months for a child, i just hope they don't ask her to attend an interview after all this waiting..

her life and her parents life are on hold waiting..

as for auto responses, that's what made me , i would receive an email from someone, then i would reply, and then i would receive an auto response saying that they were on holiday for 2 weeks, on a training course, out of office from different people, after a few weeks i had enough , getting a reply from a different person, then sending a reply only to get nowhere

my email wasn't nasty, but i do remember saying something like ' if you're going to reject the visa application, just do it, so we can get on with our lifes and end this wating game, so we can start an appeal..' also 'is everyone on holiday, on a training course, out of office' i was really by then..

[andypaul]

well said andy

it shows sometimes how the embassy drag things out, near 3 months for a child, i just hope they don't ask her to attend an interview after all this waiting..

her life and her parents life are on hold waiting..

as for auto responses, that's what made me , i would receive an email from someone, then i would reply, and then i would receive an auto response saying that they were on holiday for 2 weeks, on a training course, out of office from different people, after a few weeks i had enough , getting a reply from a different person, then sending a reply only to get nowhere

my email wasn't nasty, but i do remember saying something like ' if you're going to reject the visa application, just do it, so we can get on with our lifes and end this wating game, so we can start an appeal..' also 'is everyone on holiday, on a training course, out of office' i was really by then..

I guess things can get lost/stuck in the system and worth just asking and reminding goverment workers of their duties and obligations.

[joebloggs]

i don't know the reason why they take their time, 3 months is just tooo long,
funny when i sent the email thou, i'm sure i sent it 7am so it would have been 4pm+ in the phils., but it was less than 24hrs b4 my misses got the call from the embassy..

[IainBusby]

Hi John,
I also wrote a few polite but slightly sarcastic emails to the British Embassy in Manila when we were waiting for my wife's visa to come through and at the time the best address to use i found was ManilaVisaEnquiries.manila@fco.gov.uk.

As Joe said, you quite often get an automated "out of office" reply first, followed by a real reply with a real person's email address, but if you then reply to that email, you usually get the automated reply again followed by a reply from a different person. I definitately think it's worth doing though as it seems to make things happen.

Iain.