Hi,
I had the bad news today to receive confirmation that my fiancee's holiday visa has been turned down, she was due to travel on the 26th May 2007, I am absolutely distraught and she is very upset, the reasons they gave were.
1. She did not have enough funds in her current bank account to suffice being able to support herself during her 10 day holiday in the U.K.
2. There was not enough contact between us to deem we have a serious relationship.

The first question was already answered when myself and my parents would fund and sponsor her holiday entirely for the ten day duration of her stay.

The second question on visa failure was there was not enough evidence of our serious relationship as she did not provide enough information about our relationship.

I am really distraught at this and have tried telephoning the British consulate for over four hours since the decision was made, I am not sure what we can do to on this now, it is going to be too late to change flights and I will not get a refund. I would dearly love some help on this or advice in answer to their second question I can provide rtelephone receipts, e-mails texts as I have kept every single call made and everything else, Nesrin did not phone me that often to show on her telephone bill as we used MSN alot. I am trying desperatly for some answers especially when they deemed we do not have a serious relationship, I live in England it is not a five minute journey away surely they can see this as why I am not with her as much as possible. My family are also upset they have never met Nesrin, please somebody offer advice my world has been torn by these consulate wreckers of lives

Pictures of the two of you together? Letters? Postcards? Printed copy of your MSN-chat? Just some ideas. I wish you luck.

I'm sorry to hear your situation. The government is mostly concern by foreigners entering into their country and not being able to finacially support themselves, if they decide not to leave. Over the years this has taken a toll & burden on the U.K. I really don't believe it has to do with providing proof of your relationship. I do understand the UK has an appeals process, however the research I found wasn't very encouraging.

Due to heavy workloads, Entry Clearance or Visa Officers tend to either issue or turn down visa applications on first sight. In other words, it is not usually a process of negotiation with applicants being asked to come back with more documentation. There is a right of appeal but, in practice, this is of very limited use.

What you need to demonstrate:
To successfully obtain a visa you will need to able to show that:
• you want to visit the UK for no more than six months
• you will leave the UK at the end of your visit / legitimate stay, and
• you have enough money / financial capacity to cover all your needs during your stay in the UK without working or needing any help from UK public funds.

Hopefully, you can talk to the right person and see if this can get rectified. I wish you the best!

I am sorry to hear this too and it appears that fairness is not a word in the Home Office language. Did you keep history of your MSN chats? If you do, and it is possible, you could print them off?

Hi everyone,
Thanks so much for your support and your replies it means alot to me and Nesrin. I have requested that we re-submit our application for a new visa and provide the information they require which is the two points on her refusal form. I have contacted them several times with very little advice or help provided and cannot understand all their refusal reasons, I also am taking this further and have contacted my local MP. for parliament we are surely being used as a scapegoat for all the illegal immigrants U.K. has let in during the years and with us being a genuine law abiding couple we get punished for all the other breakers of law illegal immigrants. I will take this as far as I can I will not give in, we are just talking a holiday here something that the consulate are not really understanding in their decision, they did not once contact me for any confirmation about these decisions, this surely shows their lack of ability in making their decision.

Sorry to hear about this It is clear that the authorities are doing what they can to keep everyone out of the country, but it is possible to beat them. Provide them with all the information you can and possibly, even, transfer some money to Nesrin's bank account. That's what we have to do every time.
I hope you will succeed soon. It is possible

Perhaps maybe you can also print off posts from here since it is obvious she has been your girlfriend for over a year? How terrible for you, hope everything works out

Does a person really have to know someone in the country that they holiday in? I have never heard of this!
never. Is this a new law?

Hi all,
I have just spoken to my fiancee Nesrin and she told me some very lax consulate interviewer for start she did not even look at her sponsorship letter and check all her documents fully, surely there is a complaints procedure about this. I also have talked to my local councillor who is now away from the bench he told me that in many cases of holiday visa's being granted they have to make contact with the sponsor yet I received no phone call or e-mail

Dear Lover Prague,

I agree with Teachship completely. I toured Turkey last summer on a teachers scholarship, and extended my stay to explore the country and sail. Long story short- I fell madly in love with my sailor, and we have spoken every day since. I also spent two weeks over Christmas with my Omer, and did the whole family thing.


I discovered from my tour guide (who has a masters, is married to a Turkish woman who works for the government, and speaks four languages, and owns a $250, 000. 00 apartment in Ankara) that a tourist visa is impossible to attain. My tour guide has been waiting 3 years for approval to go to Manhattan with his wife for two weeks.

EU countries and the USA are doing everything they can to prevent "undesireables" from entering, as they tax our economic system.

Knowing this, and how much Omer and I love each other- we sought a K-1 fiance visa. I am spending 9 weeeks in Turkey with Omer, and if we receive the visa- he will come in October to the USA. I am delighted to report, that we passed all 4 stages of the process, and have an interview date in June.

The way the K-1(fiance visa) works is that your fiance enters your home country, and you have 90 days to marry.

Another alternative for you is the K-3 visa, where you can marry your loved one, and apply for citizenship.

I'm so sorry you've had such hard luck with the visa. Please PM me- I know an awful lot about this process as OMer and I are going through it!

Chin up,
Christine

Loveprague, you're not the only one. Here in Holland there are many people having the same problems. I know there are many forums with questions similar like yours, but I'm afraid all in Dutch. Still I think you can try this one http://www.buitenlandsepartner.nl/forum/ and click on the upper right side on 'English forum'. Even it is about the Netherlands, probably - because of Schengen - many things are the same, and 'buitenlandse partner' means 'foreign partner'. There is also another site you can try: http://www.taliha-turkije-forum.com/index.php Dutch as well but I think most members speak English and maybe they can give you advice. On that last site scroll down until you reach 'toeristenvisum', I think you can post there your questions. I hope it all works well at the end for you and your fiancee.

I had the same experience (in regards to the sponsor not being contacted)....

I find it disgusting that they seem to make no effort to contact the sponsor.

How can say that they are not satisfied that the applicant has sufficient funds if they haven't even contacted the person who is providing this financial support i.e sponsor!?!!

Hi Richard,

I also am very sorry to hear your news. I too, like Christine, have opted for the K-1 visa. Yilmaz and I now only need to send the final paperwork to the US Embassy in Ankara and receive an interview date.

For Christine and I, the process seemed to move quite fast. I do know that not everyone's process goes as fast. We were both lucky to have a quick office here in the states. (some are much slower)

It would be a good idea to PM Christine as I know she has spent many a long night researching all that is necessary. I will keep you and Nersin in my prayers.

BTW - Tebrikler Christine on your June interview date. Please call or PM me.

Wendy

hi loveprague,
unfortunately i can't offer any advice.

the only thing i can do is wish you both lots and lots of luck.

I know that we, Turks, are not welcome to many EU countries.
And I also agree that they have good reasons for that.

But I really couldn't understand these;

1. She did not have enough funds in her current bank account to suffice being able to support herself during her 10 day holiday in the U.K.
2. There was not enough contact between us to deem we have a serious relationship.

Enough funds ? Enough for what ? What about his/her willing to spend his/her money there ? I can have a bank account with lots of 0's but I may not have the will of spending my money in UK. Maybe I am willing to add more 0's to my bank account.
I had the same problem when I applied for student's visa in Korea. But they asked a bank account at a Korean bank. It took some days to transfer money from my bank to a Korean bank. Money is always transferable. Then I transferred it back to my Turkish bank. Well, I had the money transfer fee loss though.
So it is a good idea to transfer some money to her account, larger the amount bigger the chance. Well, depending on the trust between you.
Most of the times people do this trick. Even they don't have 1 euro in their account, there are people becoming rich in 1 day having some ten thousands of euros in their account. And banks accept future-orders. Say, the money can be transferred back to suppliers automatically after some time passed or there is internet banking so you can transfer the money back to suppliers when you get there.

But money is important. Although it is an easy process to make your bank account look fat. Meaningless though.

If she has a lot of money in her bank account, it may be easy to pass second problem of yours. Rich people don't need serious relationships.

As the second advise; if she is employed in a company, or a student at a school, it would be nice to supply those papers to the embassy. So, they can understand that he/she will come back after some time due to his/her job, school etc...

I assume you already provided a letter of invitation and sponsorship to her.

Well, that's all I can think of now.

My best wishes and good luck,

It has been my unfortunate experience that this is very frequently the result in an era when much communication is difficult to track and prove.

I would appeal the decision in person but you will NEED to have family members, parents are especially good, that will reinforce your intent and their agreement to fund the stay.

That is about the best I can offer. You may wish to contact the airline or booking agent as a written refusal to authorize travel will often allow the processing of a modified itinerary or refund. It has been my experience that organizations that provide travel are not so inhumane.

Hi again,
Although I have never traveled to England, I saw quite a lot countries.

Maybe the clerk/employee/officer at the embassy was not in his/her mood that day. Try another embassy in another city, if she can ? Don't know if that can be done though.

Well, another idea. But you need some time for that, and I guess that you don't have enough time for it. But I want to share my idea.
Travel to another country for a few days and apply for UK visa from that country. Especially the one that UK welcomes their citizens. That requires some time and money though. And I don't know how long the procedure will take.

I think you can also re-apply situating that you were not treated rightfully at the embassy. But that procedure can take a long time, and most possibly fail, since you are applying the same person (?) or place for it.

I can't figure out the reason of refusal while you have supplied enough information to them. There should be a misunderstanding. Talk to them kindly, those people tend to feel like they are the king and want to be treated so.

Another idea is to set-up a tour with a tourism company. They usually can get visa easily for their customers. I don't know which companies offer help on getting visa. Some of them were doing that(visa application) instead of the customer. I don't know if they still do it or not.

best wishes,

hi i wish you both luck and i hope it gets sorted soon , i live in england myself and i know that the goverment has made things alot harder for people to get visas to come here, but keep trying just provide them what everyone else has said and also call the embassy to proove of the sponsership, in my oppinion our goverment is getting very petty over the slightest things. my friend has been trying to get a visa to come over for a while now and keeps getting turned down .

anyway best of luck to both of you

Hi Richard,

I have another idea. It is clear your visa application was not clearly assessed. I would definitely contact as your local and regional elected representatives. They can make things happen, and put pressure on the powers that be.

I belong to a site : Visajourney.com and have received so much helpful information. They don't address tourist visas per se, but accross the board, whenever a visa is stalled, or rejected, contacting congressional reps almost always seems to have an impact.

I continue to wish you good luck!

Christine

Hi Loveprague,

All of us know what you are talking about. I always feel a sadness when buying a 10 euro visa to Turkey, thinking of the pain and emberassment Turkish people have to go through to, in 9 out of 10 cases, get a rejection!

Papers of a job or a student at a university or the proof that she owns a house in Turkey might help too. These are 2 factors for her to turn back to Turkey, and such reasons help.

When we applied for Kadir, on behalf of my father who was going to be the sponsor, I also sent his payslips from his job, 3 in total, to show that we too are financially stable.

I also advice you to contact Lyndie from this website. She is rather busy lately, but I hope she can find time to reply you. She knows an awful lot about visas, and managed to win a visa appeal for her Turkish friend, who is now studying for a year in England.

Oh and now i come to think of it.. You two are engaged right? Pictures of that ceremony (if you had one) might come in helpful, and a receipt of the engagement ring. That should at least take away the problem about having a serious relationship or not!

ps - As mentioned by someone else, travelling with a tourist agency indeed makes all easier, but in this case would not win your ticket back and cost a hell lot of money too.

Hi,
Firstly I would like to thank all members on this forum for all the help and advice they gave to me and Nesrin it does mean such alot, I feel like this forum is the place to be when of course questions and advice on this very subject might just help someone else who may be going through the same scenario. I have an update today on this subject and hope that we can succeed this time. I have had good feedback off my local M.P. who I contacted last week with regard to their help and advice, they are now processing a letter for us and we also have enough other documents to prove our relationship should they need this. Thanks to Christine and Deli_kizin for the M.P. advice and cpupilot a very good idea about the flight I have looked into this aswell. Thanks SunFlowerSeed and ahalliwell each post I read and it is good to get your support. I hope that I missed nobody out here, we will just make sure now this week that we get everything correct and I told Nesrin to make sure her account status was properley accounted this is very important and I do pray we will succeed this time, we have new date for her trip so we just hope her interview goes without a hitch. I will keep you posted thanks all
Is that enough flowers?

What good news Richard!!! I will continue to pray for a successful interview for Nesrin!!!

All my best wishes for the both of you.

Wendy

I will hope for the best for you, inşallah you will be able to get the visa soon. Quick question - what is a an MP?