VFS Global Payment and Shipping Issues

Hi all, apologies is this a bit of a repeat post.

My wife (US) and I (UK) are applying for a spouse visa and have everything ready to send to Sheffield. Yesterday she tried paying for the round shipping on the VFS Global website and ran into a few problems. She tried paying twice, each time on a different card and didn't receive a receipt, confirmation email or anything either time. She subsequently phoned the bank who have said that both cards have been charged.

This is already adding to what has felt like a stressful process and it seems to be difficult to get in touch with anyone at VFS Global. I've read through a few posts in the forum history and it seems that some people have received their emails but up to three days later. Given that there's a time limit on sending these things off after doing the biometrics appointment, we're a little worried that VFS may not get moving in time (next Thursday).

Could anyone offer any advice on who might be best to contact about getting this sorted out?

Many thanks, Alistair

You don't have to use VFS Global for shipping. You can just do it yourself if you want to.

So, if you don't hear anything from VFS before you need to send everything to Sheffield, I would ask them for a refund on both cards and just organise the shipping yourself.

All you need to do for the outbound shipping is mail it yourself at a UPS or DHL store, and also open an online account with either DHL or UPS and include your account number with your documents for the return shipping.

UKVI will then use the UPS or DHL account number you've provided to charge your online account for the return shipping when they are ready to mail it back to you.

Thanks for the response. I think that's the route we will probably go down since I no longer trust the VFS Global website to handle the request properly.

Do you know if it's easy to get a refund with VFS, i.e. as long as we don't use any shipping labels (that they may eventually provide), then we should get our money back with no hassle?

Thanks for the response. I think that's the route we will probably go down since I no longer trust the VFS Global website to handle the request properly.

VFS Global have only been offering the shipping service for a few months... so it's pretty new.

Also, it's not actually offered by VFS (they are just a website), you're actually paying for fixed-price, pre-paid UPS shipping... you might even find it's cheaper for you to ship it yourself anyway. Although it could be more expensive, just depends on the size of the documents - for reference, if the documents are more than about 1 inch thick and a couple of lbs in weight, you're sending too much.

Do you know if it's easy to get a refund with VFS, i.e. as long as we don't use any shipping labels (that they may eventually provide), then we should get our money back with no hassle?

I'm really not sure, to be honest - I don't recall anyone not getting their email in the end or needing to request a refund.

I think we may just send it directly via UPS and deal with the fallout from VFS when it comes.

And thanks again. It's reassuring to be able to talk about it with someone.

Well so much for that plan, according to this: http://www.vfsglobal.co.uk/usa/frequently_asked_questions.html

The UPS courier service purchased through VFS Global is a non-refundable service.

They've been good about refunds before.  I don't think you'll have an issue receiving a refund as you are NOT using the service.  Worst case scenario, you can dispute the charges with your bank/credit card.

Have you looked in your junk folder?

Yeah, we've looked in there with no luck. Might just have to wait it out for a day or two and hopefully something will happen.

I'm very sorry for resurrecting this thread from last month but I'm at a bit of a loss.

To quickly recap, my wife and I tried paying for the courier service from VFS Global but their website didn't work. We ended up going through UPS directly but found that her card had been charged twice by VFS anyway.

We've tried contacting VFS by email three times over the last three weeks about a refund but have had no response. We're very concerned given that we've paid almost $450 in fees for a service that we didn't receive.

Could anyone please recommend someone else to contact who may be able to help us with this problem?

You could try disputing it with your bank/credit card company.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, good idea, thanks. I'll get in touch with them today.

That's exactly what I was going to recommend - disputing the charge.