# UKBA mistake



## Depardieu (Jun 25, 2012)

Well it seems my celebration of my wife's visa approval was short lived. Whilst her passport was returned on Friday, with the spouse visa in there, the genius at the UKBA had spelled my name wrong despite the hundred or more examples they had in their possession.

We want to get this rectified before she travels and as such contacted Worldbridge, in their inimitable style they simply said "send it back to the consulate with a cover letter". They have not given a contact to return it to, any idea how long this will take to resolve, how to ensure that it won't sit at the bottom of a pile for another 3 months, how to send it or who will pay for its return and of course there was no hint of an apology.

Joppa and Co do you have any thoughts on how to ensure this gets resolved quickly and any idea how long this will take?


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## nick965 (Jan 2, 2013)

The UKBA are lazy *******s,

I would recommend your wife travels to the UK with some of the documents with your name spelled correctly and just play dumb, they will not send her back because of their own mistakes.

But it maybe easier to just change your name to the new spelling than send the passport back to the
UKBA


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## Leanna (Oct 22, 2012)

Depardieu said:


> Well it seems my celebration of my wife's visa approval was short lived. Whilst her passport was returned on Friday, with the spouse visa in there, the genius at the UKBA had spelled my name wrong despite the hundred or more examples they had in their possession.
> 
> We want to get this rectified before she travels and as such contacted Worldbridge, in their inimitable style they simply said "send it back to the consulate with a cover letter". They have not given a contact to return it to, any idea how long this will take to resolve, how to ensure that it won't sit at the bottom of a pile for another 3 months, how to send it or who will pay for its return and of course there was no hint of an apology.
> 
> Joppa and Co do you have any thoughts on how to ensure this gets resolved quickly and any idea how long this will take?


Is there any documentation/letter in your returned package that gives you any idea of who to contact in case of a mis-spelling? I doubt it, as mine didn't, but its worth checking.


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## Depardieu (Jun 25, 2012)

No it was just stuffed in an envelope with a few documents they didn't want.


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## fsog23 (Aug 20, 2012)

I had a major mistake on my visa when it was issued - instead if just putting "No recourse to public funds" they also put "No Work".

Initially, I did as you did, contacted Worldbridge and was given the same useless answer. I wasn't willing to randomly send off my passport so instead I wrote an email via the complaints email address listed on the UKBA NY website. I didn't have any response within the 21 days stipulated so I sent another email this time also complaining that they didn't reply within their specified timeframe. Finally, nearly two and a half months after my initial complaint email, I received a reply from an ECO in New York. He apologised for the error and explained that the visa will be corrected at no charge. This is the process:

1. With his email the ECO attached an official letter from the NY office acknowledging the error and the fact that it needs to be fixed.

2. I need to send my passport along with that letter off to the Croydon UKBA office and they will replace the visa free of charge.

I haven't yet done this because I've been told the process to get it fixed can takes weeks - if not months - so you need to make sure you won't need the passport during that time.

For what it's worth I've been told that misspelled names aren't a big deal so you may not want to go through the hassle of fixing it, but if you do then you will need to be persistent about contacting he UKBA so they can send you an official letter to have it replaced. 

Good luck!


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## Depardieu (Jun 25, 2012)

My wife is still in Canada and made her application to the New York office. Our concern is that upon entering the UK the misspelled name could potentially cause a problem and there is no way i want her to be detained for any length of time.

As i'm sure our's isn't the first visa they have made an error on does anyone have any experience of how long it should take them to reprint the visa if you send the passport to New York?


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## fsog23 (Aug 20, 2012)

The NY office is no longer processing settlement applications and instead transfers them to Sheffield for processing and issue of visas. Personally, I think you run a risk of the passport getting misplaced if you just randomly send it to NY without having acknowledgement from the ECO. That, or you'll probably have a very long and frustrating wait wondering what is going on with no one to contact for a status update. At least if you contact the ECO you'll have the name and email address of a real person that you can follow up with. Once I got in touch with an ECO they were actually quite helpful and replied to my questions promptly.

I think the better question to ask is whether anyone has had issues entering the UK on a misspelled visa. From what I've read here and on the UKBA NY Facebook page it hasn't been a problem. At most, it might be an inconvenience for your wife while the immigration officer at the UK border checks their system to confirm that it's a mistake on their end. Assuming you took a copy of your original application I would suggest she carry that and her supporting docs with her just in case she needs to show the officer, but really, I've never heard of anyone being turned away at the border due to a legitimate UKBA mistake and/or a misspelled name.


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