Settlement Gold Premium Service Appointment

Hey! Glad you made it over safely, we did as well. It was a trek! I don't know how you keep making the trip! I had my 5 year old and was carrying SO much stuff, Iceland air had some fun stairs to carry it all up and down too! Haha! That's where my complaining ends though, it's absolutely stunning here and I'm so happy to be back with my boys.

Good luck getting your NIN quickly and sorry you ran into more paperwork. I don't think I have one either but I'll have to check. I have a provisional driving license from before, and a NHS number, so I might have sorted that as well. My mother-in-law will know lol.

So happy to hear you made it !!! Just landed yesterday at Heathrow  with Iceland air wonder if we crossed paths with a layover in Iceland!! The weather was horrible.. we had stairs as well 😩 Getting on and off the planes .. every time I land in Iceland I never seem to get an actual gate ...
So I'm most likely going to be picking up my BRP today at the post office is there anything I should know before I go ?!

So happy to hear you made it !!! Just landed yesterday at Heathrow  with Iceland air wonder if we crossed paths with a layover in Iceland!! The weather was horrible.. we had stairs as well 😩 Getting on and off the planes .. every time I land in Iceland I never seem to get an actual gate ...
So I'm most likely going to be picking up my BRP today at the post office is there anything I should know before I go ?!

@Soccer4ja9 congrats on making it over too! Just be sure to bring your passport w/ stamped entry clearance and the accompanying UKVI letter. She stamped my letter. Your letter should have stated the date your BRP would theoretically be available for pick up. If it's far away (as mine was) you can call ahead and confirm they've got it.

Hey guys! I hope everyone is well! I'm settling in well here in sunny Scotland 

I wanted to pop in and get some advice on how I should request a refund for the gold service. I have no idea where to even begin.

Also, always the planner, I'm starting to think about having things in order for my next visa. I just wanted to check that it is in fact, FLR(M) that I will apply for and what the total cost of that will be in Oct. 2020?

As always, thanks in advance! 

Hey guys! I hope everyone is well! I'm settling in well here in sunny Scotland 

I wanted to pop in and get some advice on how I should request a refund for the gold service. I have no idea where to even begin.

Also, always the planner, I'm starting to think about having things in order for my next visa. I just wanted to check that it is in fact, FLR(M) that I will apply for and what the total cost of that will be in Oct. 2020?

As always, thanks in advance!

Hey everyone! @Dani1983 any luck with that refund? I'm not sure how we should go about it either...

We did get a response from UKVI after writing to our MP. Supposedly this is the first complaint they've received. Not surprising, considering we were amongst the first to apply. I've attached a redacted copy of their response, for posterity. Pretty useless but hopefully they'll at least poke VFS. Oh well.

Hey everyone! @Dani1983 any luck with that refund? I'm not sure how we should go about it either...

We did get a response from UKVI after writing to our MP. Supposedly this is the first complaint they've received. Not surprising, considering we were amongst the first to apply. I've attached a redacted copy of their response, for posterity. Pretty useless but hopefully they'll at least poke VFS. Oh well.

Hope this clarifies....  <wipes their hands>. 

Hey everyone! @Dani1983 any luck with that refund? I'm not sure how we should go about it either...

We did get a response from UKVI after writing to our MP. Supposedly this is the first complaint they've received. Not surprising, considering we were amongst the first to apply. I've attached a redacted copy of their response, for posterity. Pretty useless but hopefully they'll at least poke VFS. Oh well.

  Omg this is so infuriating! They will only mention the one part of the service we did receive (biometrics & scanning docs) but conveniently can't comment on any of the rest? 

I haven't written to my MP again yet regarding the refund/complaint but I will give it a go just to be sure they can't continue stating there are no other complaints. I completed the survey a couple of weeks ago so not sure it was in by the time of your reply from UKVI but I fully ripped in to VFS about how abysmal the service was. I've had 2 more emails since then asking me to do a survey so I suppose I'll complete those as well just to be sure they're not missing my feedback 

Ughhhh. 

I truly wonder if the online application is actually submitted to them for some type of preliminary processing once you click to Finish it. That would explain why you can't go back in & edit/update anything. And could potentially explain why they didn't keep all the pages of the application but they wanted the barcode/identifier and maybe a signature page.

So they only took the top sheet of the online application.. did they scan the rest of the application? Or they didn't even bother with it at all ?

Hi all, I'm back after a bit of a hiatus whilst I've been settling into our new life together in the UK... I finally sent off a refund request to VFS and copied the UKVI Home Office complaints email address. I know we won't get our money back but writing this was somewhat cathartic (since it was my partner who previously wrote to our MP about this).

I'm glad to see a couple people changed their mind about going Gold after seeing what @Dani1983 and I experienced with VFS. Here's a copy of the complaint and a summary of our experience, for posterity:

Dear VFS,

Now that I have received my UK Visa and have joined my partner in the UK, we felt it was important to provide feedback on the relatively new Gold Settlement service you offer on behalf of UKVI, following our experiences with your Premium Application Centre in Washington, DC. We are also copying the UK Home Office on this email.

We feel that VFS did not deliver most of the services promised as part of this package and feel we should get our money back. We’ve also written to the UK Parliament and UKVI with this feedback and can only hope that if you continue to serve as a contractor for the UK Government, that you make a concerted effort to improve upon what is an incredibly low standard of service.

The “Premium Application Centre”
The staff at the VFS PAC in Washington were completely disinterested in their jobs. As we came in for our appointment, the receptionist simply told us to see the security guard. We couldn’t find her at first, and then realized she was hiding in a corner, wearing headphones and playing with her phone - wholly unprofessional. She then pointed to some chairs and just said wait there. We had no idea if she was informing anyone we were there. About 30 minutes later, a member of VFS staff approached us and asked if we were there for an appointment. We said yes, and he asked us for confirmation and proof of payment. We explained we were there for a Gold Settlement Application and wanted to sit down with someone from VFS and go through all the documentation. He refused. He said his job was only to take our documents and scan them into some predefined sections and send them electronically to UKVI in Sheffield. We had several questions and were forced to disclose personal details in the waiting room, with many other applicants present (students, walk-ins, etc.). It was shocking, considering we were expecting assistance from someone knowledgeable and professional, as your website explicitly states. I’m still unclear why this service cost twice the price of standard priority given that your staff refused to provide most of the services listed in your Gold Settlement brochure.

Priority
Firstly, we only opted for the Gold Settlement service over the Standard Priority service because your marketing materials imply that it’s faster. This is clearly untrue, as we found on US-UK Immigration Forums that applicants who sent off standard priority applications around the same time as us heard back with decisions from Sheffield within days, rather than weeks. Another VFS Gold Settlement applicant who applied on the same day as I did, from your Seattle PAC didn’t receive a decision from UKVI for seven weeks. We realize this is not under your control, but it’s dishonest not to disclose that there is no difference in the processing times for priority service vs. Gold Settlement service.

Form Filling / Document Check
As noted above, the VFS staff at the PAC simply refused to review any of our forms or supporting documents, saying it was only their job to scan documents. He couldn’t even answer some of our most basic questions. We know this is a new service, but to have completely untrained staff on-hand after charging applicants $1,600 (now apparently $1,700) is unfathomable. As a direct result of him ignoring one of our explicit instructions about scanning a hand-written correction, we ended up with a typographical error on my BRP card and had to have it corrected.

Keep Passport
I was allowed to keep my passport after having to ask for this service, but it took several emails to VFS to find out if I could actually use it to travel to the UK while my application was pending. Aside from the fact that you provide this service to Canadian applicants for just CA$50 in Toronto as a stand alone service, it’s unacceptable that this simple question required five emails to be answered. It became quite clear over the course of this correspondence, that different VFS staff were responding each time and that many of them seem not to speak English as a first language. Coupled with the fact that you refused to provide a phone number for customer service, even for these so-called premium services, this was also shocking and unacceptable. Since VFS offers customer service numbers for contracts with other European countries, we simply can’t see why this can’t be offered to UK visa applicants as well.

Certification Service
This was apparently done, but again since there’s no transparency or communication from VFS, we don’t know if everything was actually scanned as the VFS staff simply took our materials and refused to go through it all with us. Our originals were very well organized into labeled sections but when we eventually got these back from VFS at the end of the process, it was all a total mess.

Courier Service
Once I received a decision email from UKVI (Friday morning), I immediately contacted VFS asking if I needed to send my passport back. I didn’t hear anything back from VFS until the following Monday. I sent my passport (from Maryland) to DC using the Next Day Air UPS waybill provided by VFS. It took four days to be sent the 25 miles to DC. USPS mail would’ve been faster. This was just the cherry on top of an already excruciating process, as our lives were put on hold for several weeks.

SMS Notifications
I had to go out of my way to ask the VFS staff for this, and had to point out that it was listed as part of the Gold Settlement package brochure he handed me. I insisted that he take my cell phone number, so I could get text updates from VFS. He took it down, but I never received a single text from VFS throughout the entire process.

In short, the Gold Settlement service felt like a dubious scheme meant solely to extract money from customers who you expect will never return. That the UK government has contracted with VFS is an egregious error on their part, and one we sincerely hope they correct.

We would like to insist on a refund, given that VFS did not honor any of the services advertised as part of the Gold Settlement package. In the meantime, I’m simply sharing my experiences on online forums so that other applicants who may be considering this service understand just what they’ll be getting for their money.

Respectfully yours

Hi all, I'm back after a bit of a hiatus whilst I've been settling into our new life together in the UK... I finally sent off a refund request to VFS and copied the UKVI Home Office complaints email address. I know we won't get our money back but writing this was somewhat cathartic (since it was my partner who previously wrote to our MP about this).

I'm glad to see a couple people changed their mind about going Gold after seeing what @Dani1983 and I experienced with VFS. Here's a copy of the complaint and a summary of our experience, for posterity:

Excellent letter.  Let us know how you get on!  And yes, your shared experience has saved others from paying for this "service".

I hope you are settling in well!

Hi all, I'm back after a bit of a hiatus whilst I've been settling into our new life together in the UK... I finally sent off a refund request to VFS and copied the UKVI Home Office complaints email address. I know we won't get our money back but writing this was somewhat cathartic (since it was my partner who previously wrote to our MP about this).

I'm glad to see a couple people changed their mind about going Gold after seeing what @Dani1983 and I experienced with VFS. Here's a copy of the complaint and a summary of our experience, for posterity:

Thanks for sharing FLgator! And hey, you never know, you may yet get a refund, that's a pretty convincing account of you not getting what you paid for! 

I'm glad to see a couple people changed their mind about going Gold after seeing what @Dani1983 and I experienced with VFS.

I 100% decided against the Gold based on your and Dani’s experiences. Love your letter. I hope you can get your money back and that they actually work on the package because it is a major fail right now.

Patiently waiting (ha!) for my priority application to be processed 

Excellent letter.  Let us know how you get on!  And yes, your shared experience has saved others from paying for this "service".

I hope you are settling in well!

Thanks KF! Loving our city centre apartment and everyone at the new job has been super welcoming. I was initiated into British Pub culture with colleagues last week... Boy can these Brits handle their pints! The house in the states sold in a couple days but a friend had to close for us with a PoA so I could avoid having to go through the embassy. The kitten also made it here safely, albeit a little worse for wear. Just waiting for our stuff to arrive by container vessel in mid April. Incredibly stressful six months or so from start to finish, but so thankful we're happily together again.

Also very grateful to the experts  and fellow applicants on this forum for helping to keep me sane through it all!

Happy Easter everyone! 🐰🍫

Thanks KF! Loving our city centre apartment and everyone at the new job has been super welcoming. I was initiated into British Pub culture with colleagues last week... Boy can these Brits handle their pints! The house in the states sold in a couple days but a friend had to close for us with a PoA so I could avoid having to go through the embassy. The kitten also made it here safely, albeit a little worse for wear. Just waiting for our stuff to arrive by container vessel in mid April. Incredibly stressful six months or so from start to finish, but so thankful we're happily together again.

Also very grateful to the experts  and fellow applicants on this forum for helping to keep me sane through it all!

Happy Easter everyone! 🐰🍫

Fabulous!  Don’t be a stranger!

Hi all, I'm back after a bit of a hiatus whilst I've been settling into our new life together in the UK... I finally sent off a refund request to VFS and copied the UKVI Home Office complaints email address. I know we won't get our money back but writing this was somewhat cathartic (since it was my partner who previously wrote to our MP about this).

I'm glad to see a couple people changed their mind about going Gold after seeing what @Dani1983 and I experienced with VFS. Here's a copy of the complaint and a summary of our experience, for posterity:

Glad to hear you're settling in well and that all those other pieces (post visa worries) are falling into place! Your letter is excellent! I've not sent anything to them but I have tried to write a very similar account a few times, also detailing each service we didn't receive, but each time I have to give up after I inevitably spiral in to an unproductive angry rant.

I'm also glad to see people posting that they stayed away from gold based off our experiences! They ought to just axe the service and refund those who used it. 

I'm also glad to see people posting that they stayed away from gold based off our experiences! They ought to just axe the service and refund those who used it. 

And for each one who has posted about it, there will be many who haven't...you've saved a lot of people a lot of money!