Friday, 11 February, 2005

ridiculous extortion

I quote the email i received today:

"International Office wrote:

Dear International Student
Despite our campaign to resist the proposals under the Home Office review of charges for immigration applications it has just been announced that charges to be introduced from 1 April 2005 are as follows:

?250 for postal applications (up from ?155) and
?500 for the 'premium service'(up from ?250)

Non-student visas (including Visitors) will be ?335

If your current leave expires this year and you need to extend this to complete your studies, you may wish to consider whether it is appropriate to make an early application. Contact our Immigration Adviser for advice, email: [-------------] or come along to the Immigration Clinic, available on a first-come, first served basis, from 10-12 Monday-Friday.

*I am aware that this email may not be relevant to all our international students so please disregard this information if it does not affect you.


[Immigration Adviser]

********************
International Office
University of Edinburgh"


i am just wondering what's the point of being part of the commonwealth... ?!??! apart from having the right to screw up their vote-counts ?!

posted by ~overacuppa~ on Friday, 11 February, 2005 at 12:02 hrs
Comments

Sounds like any other government agency....but the cost of the visa is ridiculous....are you affected, they did say immigration.....

Posted by: Gor on Friday, 11 February, 2005 at 19:19 hrs

ridiculous is an understatement... it's inane.

fortunately, i am not terribly affected at the moment partly because i re-entered the country before all that crap started but you never know what one's circumstance would be sometimes... so i am keeping my fingers crossed for the best.

BTW a new immigration rule was introduced in Nov. 2003 such that if you are plannng to stay longer than 6 months you need to have a residence permit and you need to apply before entering the country.

the worst thing is they do not appear to be clean about it... quite a lot of people probably end up with errors in their documents only to have to get it fixed later at the cost of an additional fee... BTW they still haven't reimburse me for the extra train journey i had to make to get them to correct their errors; they didn't even realise their mistakes! i am telling you such exorbitant fees are not worth such unprofessional service. this, to me, is akin to official corruption... and those who pat their backs for thinking that this is a brilliant idea will be the last to admit.

Posted by: hrm on Saturday, 12 February, 2005 at 02:01 hrs

That's daylight robbery!!! A jump of 50%???? Not like it was cheap to begin with.

Posted by: dsd on Sunday, 13 February, 2005 at 01:09 hrs

*Note: in case you were thinking of leaving a comment and the option isn't here anymore... it is because the comment section of each entry is closed after sometime to prevent malicious comments... if you are looking for the actual entry, type in the keyword(s) in the little box on the main page http://overacuppa.com where it says "fossicking pebbles & seashells" and press *search*... thank you for popping by and happy browsing!