Why Is It So Difficult? (Visa applications - Have you had any trouble getting a visa to visit a foreign country?)

Member Name: pussycat

Product:	Visa applications - Have you had any trouble getting a visa to visit a foreign country?
Date:	13/01/01 (546 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Straightforward for visitors

Disadvantages: Confusing for anyone else, lack of telephone contact, no apology or refund, branded a visa reject!

Recently, I was asked to give a conference paper in Sydney. Not having been to Australia for many years, I jumped at the chance, especially as it was paid for my the conference organisers. My husband had never been to Australia so we decided that he would come with me and see some of the sights of Sydney whilst I was at my conference and we would then take an extra week or so as a holiday.

The difficulties arose when it came to applying for a visa. The Australian Embassy website is pretty user-friendly and I had no difficulty in locating the relevant information. The difficulty arose in trying to work out which visa to apply for. The choice was immense.

It was straightforward for my husband. He was a visitor. I printed out the appropriate form straight from the website, he filled it in and made out a cheque for £35 and that was that.

Working out which visa I had to apply for was not as simple. Was I visiting lecturer? No, because I was not getting paid. Was I part of a reciprocal academic arrangement? No, because nobody Australian wanted to, um, reciprocate (!) with me. I certainly wasn't a visitor because I was going to do some work - a whole hour of it!

Totally defeated, I telephoned the helpline. This was totally recorded information - plenty of options, buttons to press and recorded music but no facility to actually speak to anybody. I resorted to email and received a prompt reply telling me that I needed temporary academic residence. The email even attached a copy of the relevant form. Prompt, polite, helpful advice but totally inaccurate.

My visa application was refused because I had applied for the wrong category of visa. This led to the ridiculous situation whereby I was booked to give a conference paper but couldn't get a visa but my husband who was only coming along for the ride, so to speak, had a visa to go without me. It was at this stage that I started to wish that I had just kept q
uiet about the conference and gone on a visitor's visa - they would never have known.

To add insult to injury, the Australian Embassy refused to return my application fee as there are no refunds for rejected applications. This was infuriating as not only did I not get my visa, I was out of pocket and branded as a person who had been denied entry. I made several written complaint and enclosed with these a copy of the email I had sent requesting information and the email that I had received in reply with the erroneous information. I received absolutely no response.

I was forced to cancel my flight, return the funding cheque I had received to cover my expenses and re-organise my teaching that I had originally moved because I thought I was going to be away. Then I contacted the conference organisers to tel them that I was not going to be able to attend.

Within 24 hours, I had an email from the Immigration Office in Australia, apologising for the inconvenience and providing me the the correct information for me to get a visa. More than that, the visa that I did need was free, could be issued immediately if I went to London in person and included my husband (also free). Ostensibly this was brilliant news, but I had cancelled my flight and returned my funding, and finding a flight to Australia with less than a week to go does not give a great deal of change from £2,000 (as opposed to the £800 that my original flight would have been). Equally, I would have had to moved my teaching again which would have been extremely aggravating for my colleagues who were covering for me. So despite this last minute intervention, I was not able to go to the conference.

And I have still not had my application fee for the first visa returned.

I appreciate that if you are a straightforward visitor to Australia, the procedure is simple. But once you travel for any other purpose, the choice of visa is immense. It is so unclear tha
t even the Embassy staff didn't know which visa I should apply for.

If there is any confusion, it is impossible to speak to anybody on the telephone and the only response to email that I had was the first one which provided the wrong information. They refused to admit that it was there mistake and wouldn't refund my application fee. I think there is something particularly ironic about the fact that I was not able to get any sort of response from this end but the conference organisers in Australia got results their end within a day. The ultimate insult is that I still count as a person who was refused entry and I have to state that on any future visa application I make!

Maybe it will be easier to go somewhere else instead.

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