Dubai: UAE residents seeking to travel to several countries have faced roadblocks with their visa applications as the sole website processing appointments has been down for some time due to “heavy traffic”.
VFS Global is the approved visa-processing agent for dozens of countries, including most of the European countries as well as Australia, New Zealand and Brazil among others.
According to many applicants, the website www.vfsglobal.com operated by the company has been unable to process appointments over the last couple of weeks.
Several applicants have taken to twitter to air their frustration with the delay, tagging respective diplomatic missions to alert them about the stalemate.
3 ,034
VFS Global application centres and operations in 146 countries on five continents“Struggling to get an appointment since yesterday, resolve your system ASAP,” tweeted Wageeh Sayegh.
Posting a screenshot of an ‘under maintenance message’ another tweep Fabian Baier tweeted: “How long are you planning to be under maintenance mode? This is blocking everyone of paying their visa appointment fees.”
Another tweep Mayar Raouf suggested through her tweet that there has been a status quo for more than a week.
Echoing the issue Ahsan Ashraf tweeted: “The who web experience from @VFSGlobal is awful. Can’t reset my password to login. The website keeps crashing.”
In a statement to Gulf News, responding to the issues raised by its customers, VPS Global attributed the delay to peak summer traffic.
“The summer peak period has started. Due to the high volume of applications, some applicants may have experienced a delay or slow response on the appointment booking modules. We are working to ensure the process continues to be seamless,” the company said in a statement.
For applicants facing this issue, the statement added, “we are advising them to contact our call centres or check with our Visa Application Centre in Wafi Mall Dubai or Shining Towers Abu Dhabi on alternatives. We regret the inconvenience faced by these applicants, and our professional staff remain on hand to extend every possible support to them.”
According to its website, VFS Global manages the administrative and ‘non-judgemental’ tasks related to visa, passport, identity management and other citizen services for its client governments, with 3,034 application centres and operations in 146 countries across 5 continents, serving the interests of 63 client governments.
