The Home office VISA sub-contractors cost me an extra £2000. What are my rights?

JDV10

Hey MSE members,

I've got a bit of a tricky problem that I'd appreciate and and all support and advice with.

My wife and I got married in Feb 2023 in Colorado USA, she's an American citizen and I'm a British National from birth.

We decided that moving her to the UK would be the best option for us to start our lives together.

We went through the visa process with the Home Office, going through a solicitor to fulfill the documents and submit the application.
This application goes through a sub-contracted company called "VFS" which is notorious for visa application problems.

We had application issues on this sub-contractor side that caused a significant delay, forcing us to pay their "Premium fee" (£1,780.85) for fast visa processing as well as another temporary additional £1,657.81 fee for the UKVI and £2017.72 for the IHS for a second application.

I have complained to my MP about this with little support and to the LSECSU (Home office complaints) with no response. I think my email (Below) to the home office outlines all of these points: [EDITED FOR ANOMINITY]

Dear Home Office, My name is X, The reference number for the application is: GWF[X] The VFS ticket number: [X] UKVI reference number: [X]. Local MP Case Ref: TO[X] We have had an absolutely awful, and significantly financially damaging issue with the sub-contractor UKVI uses to process applications. As a brief summary: In February 2023, my wife (X) and I were married in Colorado, USA. She is an American citizen (USA) and a care nurse, I am a professional engineer and UK national. After many discussions we decided that her moving to the UK was in both of our current interests. We spoke to a solicitor and gathered all of our documents, evidence, payment, etc. and applied for a spouse visa on 24/05/23. Our solicitors have no doubts that this visa will be accepted as we meet all eligible criteria. We have already paid all VISA fees. We then went to book for the biometrics appointment immediately, however, there is an error with the VFS booking system, where we keep encountering the same error that prevents us from booking. Out solicitor, my wife and myself have all been contacting VFS since then with no significantly supportive or helpful replies. We were told to wait, to change aspects of browser, cookies, etc. all of which we have done, and have failed to provide a result. This was carried out on the 25/05/23. We have received poor correspondence from VFS, providing no help, timeline or evidence that they are working on a solution. They have simply said they are closing email chains to “Ensure a proper correspondence trail” even though the correspondence is essentially non-existent. There is no helpline to call for VFS. I contacted the UKVI helpline to escalate. However, I was given a reference number: [X]. I chased this the following week to see if there was any update from the UKVI team. I was told as there was no biometrics appointment booked, they have no way of escalating and/or updating the status of the application. I was told that even though UKVI and VFS are partnered, they have no contact details for the VFS team, nor could they help with any system issues on VFS side. I was told to hang up and re-dial the technical support team - Which I questioned, as they would not be able to support based on the previous discussions, as well as giving me some other odd advice, such as speaking to the UK Justice team. The only solution they advised is to request a refund and re-apply for the VISA, which would cost thousands of pounds, and take yet additional time. We can request a refund for the initial application, but that can take months. I spoke to a person called [X], their reporting manager is [X], this call was over an hour long. Overall, to this date (23/06/23) I have sent 558 emails to VFS to try and resolve this issue. No solution provided. After waiting 29 days of zero action of resolution from VFS, we have had to apply for another visa application from UKVI and VFS, and due to the delay, we have had to pay an additional £1,780.85 for a priority service to make up for the poor customer service from VFS. This application was submitted (23/06/23) This is not to mention the additional £1,657.81 fee for the UKVI and £2017.72 for the IHS. The reason we have had to pay this additional fee is because of the delay, my wife is now homeless. Her daughter is luckily staying with her biological father. This avoidable delay had no way of contacting UKVI for support. I spent over £60 on calls to the UKVI helpline, only for them to reject any notion of support. The fees alone that we had to pay for another application due to inaction and lack of ability to support from UKVI is: £5,456.38 This entire ordeal has left me requiring to take money out of my ISA, as well as leaving me in debt to friends and family as the UKVI refund will take a significant amount of time. Our solicitors have advised me to lodge a complaint before taking this matter to the courts. I am now requesting to be reimbursed the fees caused by this delay. (£1,780.85) This does not include the additional hours of work required by myself, or our solicitors, nor the loss to my savings, overdrafts, exchange rates or other expenditures required to get this application through, which if taken to court, I will also be claiming towards. As it currently stands, we have no update, or support from any of the “official” teams that are meant to be dealing with this. I am now lodging a formal complaint before this gets taken along legal proceedings. My local MP - Taiwo Owatemi is aware of this situation and is supporting me to progress. Kind regards, [X]

Am I entitled to any aid, legal grounds to claim this back or complaints procedure?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I'm at my wits end with this.

Kind regards,

JDV10

user1977

Some paragraphs would be helpful, but in general I doubt that "consumer rights" apply to anything the government does in the sphere of immigration.

Given you've already engaged a solicitor, aren't they able to give you advice on this?

JDV10

user1977 said:

Some paragraphs would be helpful, but in general I doubt that "consumer rights" apply to anything the government does in the sphere of immigration.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure where else I could have posted this I'm afraid, and I'm also not sure why. It's a product/service that I did not recieve at an expected level of service or competency and have incured additional significant cost due to the liability of the service provider.
It's *technically* not the gov, as it's their sub-contractor that is at fault.
I'd have intuitively thought that I would raise a claim againt them, and then they would raise it against VFS?

ArbitraryRandom

JDV10 said:

applied for a spouse visa on 24/05/23.

Our solicitors have no doubts that this visa will be accepted as we meet all eligible criteria. We have already paid all VISA fees. We then went to book for the biometrics appointment immediately, however, there is an error with the VFS booking system, where we keep encountering the same error that prevents us from booking.

Out solicitor, my wife and myself have all been contacting VFS since then with no significantly supportive or helpful replies. We were told to wait, to change aspects of browser, cookies, etc. all of which we have done, and have failed to provide a result.

The only solution they advised is to request a refund and re-apply for the VISA, which would cost thousands of pounds, and take yet additional time. We can request a refund for the initial application, but that can take months.

we have had to apply for another visa application from UKVI and VFS, and due to the delay, we have had to pay an additional £1,780.85 for a priority service to make up for the poor customer service from VFS. This application was submitted (23/06/23) This is not to mention the additional £1,657.81 fee for the UKVI and £2017.72 for the IHS. The reason we have had to pay this additional fee is because of the delay, my wife is now homeless. Her daughter is luckily staying with her biological father.

This does not include the additional hours of work required by myself, or our solicitors, nor the loss to my savings, overdrafts, exchange rates or other expenditures required to get this application through, which if taken to court, I will also be claiming towards. 

I agree this is a tricky one. The reason you can't find a 'better' section is because MSE isn't a legal advice forum, so questions are limited to things like how to avoid extra costs for holiday visa applications etc. 

I believe the above to be the relevant sections of the OP. 

Consumer rights for services are related to contractual terms - and are dependent on the arm of the company you are dealing with being UK registered - the issue (if I'm not mistaken) is you not being able to book the biometric appointment due to technical problems and being frustrated by the lack of technical support to use the booking portal/resolve the issue?

Edit: Can I quickly check if you had this problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukvisa/comments/vsu7yb/error_when_booking_biometrics_appt_from_usa/  

It might sound harsh, but your spouse being homeless is probably irrelevant - from what I can tell, uncomplicated/no problem visa applications are said to take 90 working days (nearly 5 months); we're at the not quite 6 month mark, and given you knew there was a problem booking the biometric appointment 'right away', you probably had a responsibility to mitigate your losses by planning for onward accommodation when you knew there was going to be a delay. 

I also don't think you have a claim for the cost of the fast track service... again because there's no guarantee your application would be approved and no fixed timescale for that approval to have been granted. 

FYI, if this ends up as a small claims (likely given the cost of the service) you won't be able to charge for your time, loss of interest, or solicitor fees. 

Here's the legal aid eligibility checker: https://www.gov.uk/check-legal-aid

DullGreyGuy

Its not 100% clear over what timescale you say you have sent 558 emails but even if its the full 5 months I would certainly consider omitting the number as that is still 3 emails a day type territory which is not a reasonable number and could even be part of the cause.

Your complaint is to who you are ultimately dealing with, if an organisation decides to outsource that's their right but they remain on the hook for it. Don't fall for thinking of things as separated. 

JDV10

ArbitraryRandom said:

JDV10 said:

applied for a spouse visa on 24/05/23.

Our solicitors have no doubts that this visa will be accepted as we meet all eligible criteria. We have already paid all VISA fees. We then went to book for the biometrics appointment immediately, however, there is an error with the VFS booking system, where we keep encountering the same error that prevents us from booking.

Out solicitor, my wife and myself have all been contacting VFS since then with no significantly supportive or helpful replies. We were told to wait, to change aspects of browser, cookies, etc. all of which we have done, and have failed to provide a result.

The only solution they advised is to request a refund and re-apply for the VISA, which would cost thousands of pounds, and take yet additional time. We can request a refund for the initial application, but that can take months.

we have had to apply for another visa application from UKVI and VFS, and due to the delay, we have had to pay an additional £1,780.85 for a priority service to make up for the poor customer service from VFS. This application was submitted (23/06/23) This is not to mention the additional £1,657.81 fee for the UKVI and £2017.72 for the IHS. The reason we have had to pay this additional fee is because of the delay, my wife is now homeless. Her daughter is luckily staying with her biological father.

This does not include the additional hours of work required by myself, or our solicitors, nor the loss to my savings, overdrafts, exchange rates or other expenditures required to get this application through, which if taken to court, I will also be claiming towards. 

I agree this is a tricky one. The reason you can't find a 'better' section is because MSE isn't a legal advice forum, so questions are limited to things like how to avoid extra costs for holiday visa applications etc. 

I believe the above to be the relevant sections of the OP. 

Consumer rights for services are related to contractual terms - and are dependent on the arm of the company you are dealing with being UK registered - the issue (if I'm not mistaken) is you not being able to book the biometric appointment due to technical problems and being frustrated by the lack of technical support to use the booking portal/resolve the issue?

Edit: Can I quickly check if you had this problem:

It might sound harsh, but your spouse being homeless is probably irrelevant - from what I can tell, uncomplicated/no problem visa applications are said to take 90 working days (nearly 5 months); we're at the not quite 6 month mark, and given you knew there was a problem booking the biometric appointment 'right away', you probably had a responsibility to mitigate your losses by planning for onward accommodation when you knew there was going to be a delay. 

I also don't think you have a claim for the cost of the fast track service... again because there's no guarantee your application would be approved and no fixed timescale for that approval to have been granted. 

FYI, if this ends up as a small claims (likely given the cost of the service) you won't be able to charge for your time, loss of interest, or solicitor fees. 

Here's the legal aid eligibility checker: 

That's really helpful advice, thanks.
I suspect as much from the timescale nature of things, but considering we first applied in April, I don't think the timescales were so unreasonable, but that would be for a court to decide.

Similar story to the one you linked. Many such cases that have cost many people thousands.

Something that does pertain to the case would be the fact that the ticket is still open on the 3rd party. They still haven't resolved the issue.

I expect that they have a customer service and issues clause with their service agreement with the gov. Which I have requested to see, but yet, have zero response from. Given it's an issue with their website API that could be fixed by any competent developer (Which I outlined and even told them how to do) I suspect they are just incompetent, and don't care as they're raking in government contract money.

JDV10

DullGreyGuy said:

Its not 100% clear over what timescale you say you have sent 558 emails but even if its the full 5 months I would certainly consider omitting the number as that is still 3 emails a day type territory which is not a reasonable number and could even be part of the cause.

Your complaint is to who you are ultimately dealing with, if an organisation decides to outsource that's their right but they remain on the hook for it. Don't fall for thinking of things as separated. 

It was about 8 weeks with no response from their customer service, the only way I got any reply is when I was sending an email every hour.

I spoke to the home office, they said "We don't have anything to do with the VISA process, we have no contacts for VFS and don't deal with them at all".

Beyond bizarre. I asked for a copy of the contract between VFS and the home office and was told it doesn't exist. I refuse to believe that, and just handed it down to pure incompetence on their part. I removed the names of whom I was dealing with at the home office.

ArbitraryRandom

JDV10 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Its not 100% clear over what timescale you say you have sent 558 emails but even if its the full 5 months I would certainly consider omitting the number as that is still 3 emails a day type territory which is not a reasonable number and could even be part of the cause.

Your complaint is to who you are ultimately dealing with, if an organisation decides to outsource that's their right but they remain on the hook for it. Don't fall for thinking of things as separated. 

It was about 8 weeks with no response from their customer service, the only way I got any reply is when I was sending an email every hour.

I spoke to the home office, they said "We don't have anything to do with the VISA process, we have no contacts for VFS and don't deal with them at all".

Beyond bizarre. I asked for a copy of the contract between VFS and the home office and was told it doesn't exist. I refuse to believe that, and just handed it down to pure incompetence on their part. I removed the names of whom I was dealing with at the home office.

It's possible you're talking to the wrong department - UKVI awarded the contract.  

https://newlandchase.com/ukvi-united-kingdom-visas-immigration-awards-new-contracts-visa/ 

Either way, they wouldn't share it with you as it's commercially sensitive information (and not relevant as the issue would be the service contract between you and VFS, not if VFS are in breach of their contract with UK Gov). 

JDV10

ArbitraryRandom said:

JDV10 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Its not 100% clear over what timescale you say you have sent 558 emails but even if its the full 5 months I would certainly consider omitting the number as that is still 3 emails a day type territory which is not a reasonable number and could even be part of the cause.

Your complaint is to who you are ultimately dealing with, if an organisation decides to outsource that's their right but they remain on the hook for it. Don't fall for thinking of things as separated. 

It was about 8 weeks with no response from their customer service, the only way I got any reply is when I was sending an email every hour.

I spoke to the home office, they said "We don't have anything to do with the VISA process, we have no contacts for VFS and don't deal with them at all".

Beyond bizarre. I asked for a copy of the contract between VFS and the home office and was told it doesn't exist. I refuse to believe that, and just handed it down to pure incompetence on their part. I removed the names of whom I was dealing with at the home office.

It's possible you're talking to the wrong department - UKVI awarded the contract.  


Either way, they wouldn't share it with you as it's commercially sensitive information (and not relevant as the issue would be the service contract between you and VFS, not if VFS are in breach of their contract with UK Gov). 

There is no contract between myself and VFS, it's all between UKVI and myself, as UKVI direct the service towards VFS with no alternative option (Or support when there are issues like this).

rbn

Redacted versions of government contracts are published on https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder.

This one may be a more recent version of the contract: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/f37694da-199c-4951-8a04-f9470b1aaee4 (link to the PDF: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/0a391882-d20d-42e3-92a3-391a6e5a55f2)

DullGreyGuy

JDV10 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Its not 100% clear over what timescale you say you have sent 558 emails but even if its the full 5 months I would certainly consider omitting the number as that is still 3 emails a day type territory which is not a reasonable number and could even be part of the cause.

Your complaint is to who you are ultimately dealing with, if an organisation decides to outsource that's their right but they remain on the hook for it. Don't fall for thinking of things as separated. 

It was about 8 weeks with no response from their customer service, the only way I got any reply is when I was sending an email every hour.

I spoke to the home office, they said "We don't have anything to do with the VISA process, we have no contacts for VFS and don't deal with them at all".

Beyond bizarre. I asked for a copy of the contract between VFS and the home office and was told it doesn't exist. I refuse to believe that, and just handed it down to pure incompetence on their part. I removed the names of whom I was dealing with at the home office.

I stand by the comment that saying you've been sending 70 emails a week to the organisation is not going to help your case at all. 

The home office (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Office) is made up of a wide range of divisions, departments and bodies. In a utopian world each would have full knowledge and access to each others staff etc but that's not the real world. Just the same way you cannot turn up to the GE Hydro Electric damn in Scotland and ask them to fix your Hotpoint washing machine because they're both ultimately General Electric 

UKVI deals with visas and its them that will hold the contract with VFS. You could do a freedom of information request for a copy of the contract if you are that interested but at best expect a heavily redacted document and more likely expect it to be refused on the grounds of commerciality. It also wouldn't help with your complaint as it will outline the duties and obligations of UKVI and VFS and have nothing to do with either of their duties to you.