Tardy, Tedious & Training Needed!

I had a rather bad experience today at VFS Global, in Cape Town. When I arrived, an unsmiling receptionist greeted me with: 'Empty your pockets'. In any other context, I would have thought I was being held up at gunpoint! Apparently, she wanted me to remove any metal or electronic objects before walking through the security scanner! A 'good morning', 'please' and 'thank you' would have made a huge difference!

My 11:00 appointment materialised one-half hour after the pre-assigned time. The agent was also stoney-faced and not particularly helpful. He seemed to misunderstand the meaning of 'most recent' bank statements and berated me for not having an April statement in mid-April. In his mind, my March statement was out of date! I explained to him that bank statements are retrospective, and are usually issued at month's end, not mid-month. For this reason I had also included a Transactional History (although not required). He got hung up on the fact that it was not a stamped copy. I explained that it was not an official form from the bank but something I had printed at home as supplementary material. Despite my explanation, he indicated on the form that I had not provided sufficient documentation relating to the section: ‘Evidence of Source of Financial Support’ – even though I had included my 3 most recent (stamped) bank statements; my 3 most recent (stamped) credit card statements and signed proof of my source of income. I also provided sufficient evidence of my entire trip having been pre-paid! His lack of basic accounting principles and his failure to correctly interpret the Embassy’s Tourism Checklist may jeopardise my visa application. His lack of customer service skills was also evident.

The entire process took over 2 hours after biometrics had been captured. Extremely long wait times on uncomfortable, squeaky bench-like seats persisted between human interactions. The entire process was most tedious.

This is probably my worst-ever visa application experience!