Visa Request.co.za

Shocking servive

This company rendered the worst possible service ever recently when friends and I wanted to do a hiking trip through Monte*****, Albania and Kosovo organized by a well known adventure travel company. The plan was simple- fly in to Albania, do the hiking trip , basically following a well known hiking route spanning the three countries, fly out of Albania. Suddenly in January all 3 countries decide that SA citizens now need visas for travel to the respective countries. We call in the services of Visa request naively thinking as it’s 3 countries, the services of a visa agent may be useful and I have used the company before with success. We paid all money and submitted all necessary documents 3 months before departure on intended trip. The agent from Visa request for some reason decided to start with trying to apply for a Kosovo visa. Until today (we who could go have returned) we have received no reply from Kosovo consular services. I kept nagging to please also submit all applications also with Albania and Monte*****. What followed was a series of phone calls, whatsapps, emails, asking for feedback, receiving none. When we ask did the agent call the embassy the reply is simply “no”- no reason, excuse , nothing. Eventually my friends were denied entry to Monte*****, Albania issues a useless visa valid for 2 days of which in the itinerary we would not even have been in Albania. My friends lost out on their holiday and also paid Visa request a big admin fee on top of the visa fee. We have up until Today not been refunded for the Kosovo visa fee and travel insurance does not cover failure of Visa company. When the visa for Monte***** was denied no advice was offered for appeal or what steps to take. I can confidently say I will never use VisaRequest again or recommend them. They are unprofessional and by no means experts in visa applications. I realise they can never guarantee the outcome of visa application but the lack of guidance, follow up and feedback throughout this process was shocking to put it mildly.. We have used VisaRequest successfully in the past, which makes this experience particularly disappointing. We paid in full upfront for assistance with visas for Kosovo, Monte***** and Albania. Our Kosovo application was never submitted, yet we have still not received a refund for that portion of the fees despite repeated requests. Throughout the process we had to repeatedly chase the company to progress our applications instead of them managing the process proactively. On one occasion we asked whether the consultant had phoned the Albanian Consular Service as promised that day. His response was simply, ‘No.’ We were repeatedly given reasons for delays, including needing airtime to make international calls or having been moved to another department. We also received no meaningful assistance in following up with consulates, escalating matters or exploring appeal options. Our experience fell well below what we expected from a professional visa facilitation servicE