Newbie - questions about Kiev Embassy Intervew/Info Packet

[SeanAndNatalia 0]

Called the Call Center again this morning. 800 number not able to go into English. Called the "in Ukraine" number and again spoke to Thomas. He said yes, in fact our petiton was logged into the computer and we could schedule an interview. The first available date was August 19th and they had only one slot left for that day.

So, we are on for August 19th in Kiev.....

John

Congrats on the Interview, John.

Quick question - you got confirmation from the 'Call Center' that you were logged into their system, right?

So, (just to confirm) - There are 2 options for determining if Petition is logged into their system?

1. Call or email the embassy

-This is free, but harder to get through, or harder to get someone to give you an answer?

(still need to call the 'Call Center' after confirmation to actually set up interview.)

2. Call the Call Center

-Easier to get through (usually) - but need to pay for the Pin, and use the Pin to call?

(can also set up the interview right away after confirmation.)

Thanks much, Sean

[Muddy 0]

Called the Call Center again this morning. 800 number not able to go into English. Called the "in Ukraine" number and again spoke to Thomas. He said yes, in fact our petiton was logged into the computer and we could schedule an interview. The first available date was August 19th and they had only one slot left for that day.

So, we are on for August 19th in Kiev.....

John

Congrats on the Interview, John.

Quick question - you got confirmation from the 'Call Center' that you were logged into their system, right?

So, (just to confirm) - There are 2 options for determining if Petition is logged into their system?

1. Call or email the embassy

-This is free, but harder to get through, or harder to get someone to give you an answer?

(still need to call the 'Call Center' after confirmation to actually set up interview.)

2. Call the Call Center

-Easier to get through (usually) - but need to pay for the Pin, and use the Pin to call?

(can also set up the interview right away after confirmation.)

Thanks much, Sean

Option 1 (I mean calling) is easier to get through and its not harder to get someone to give you an answer. Only call the call center if you want to schedule the interview. After you confirm your case they will transfer to the call center

[johnichka 0]

Sean,

sorry for the delayed response. Had not been on this thread for a while. But, to answer your questions:

Yes, you can call or email the embassy. Calling is difficult as they in about 75% of the time, do not answer the call and it goes into a voice mail system that says that they are busy and you need to call back. I figured after five rings and they did not answer, I hung up to avoid paying for the call. However, I did get through four times to a person. The first man was very nice and told me the case was not in the system. I called the next day and a woman put me on hold and after 5 minutes, I hung up. I called the following day and a man answered, he said he would check and came back on the line and told me the case was not in the system. The next day I called and a woman answered and said that they are not allowed to give that information over the phone. She said to send an email and they would answer it in 10 business days.

So, I paid $12 for a pin and called once to the call center, response was "not in system". Then I made the mistake of asking my lady to call the call center since I was having a difficult time getting through from America. Well, she/her friend called twice and had same result - not in system. But when I went to call, they had used up about 7 of the 8 minutes. They were asking questions about when/what/ etc and burned through the minutes.

I called on July 4th, not in system. I paid another $12 on the morning of the 7th, called spoke to Thomas and the case was in the system and I scheduled an interview. So, case was received somewhere around June 20th in Kiev from the NVC and it was logged into the Embassy computer system on July 7th. I did finally get a response to my email from the Embassy on July 7th stating that the case was in the system.

So, yes in answer to your second question, you can call the call center to see if the case is in the system, but you're paying $1.50 a minute plus the cost of the call to the Ukraine phone number if the 800 number does not work.

Coincidentally, my girl received the information packet from the Embassy in the mail on Tuesday, July 15th. She is up in the Carpathian mountains in Western Ukraine in a small village, so in this case, the Ukrainian Postal service did in fact deliver the package in a relatively timely fashion - about 3 weeks from when it was recevied from the NVC into Kiev.

John

[SeanAndNatalia 0]

Sean,

sorry for the delayed response. Had not been on this thread for a while. But, to answer your questions:

Yes, you can call or email the embassy. Calling is difficult as they in about 75% of the time, do not answer the call and it goes into a voice mail system that says that they are busy and you need to call back. I figured after five rings and they did not answer, I hung up to avoid paying for the call. However, I did get through four times to a person. The first man was very nice and told me the case was not in the system. I called the next day and a woman put me on hold and after 5 minutes, I hung up. I called the following day and a man answered, he said he would check and came back on the line and told me the case was not in the system. The next day I called and a woman answered and said that they are not allowed to give that information over the phone. She said to send an email and they would answer it in 10 business days.

So, I paid $12 for a pin and called once to the call center, response was "not in system". Then I made the mistake of asking my lady to call the call center since I was having a difficult time getting through from America. Well, she/her friend called twice and had same result - not in system. But when I went to call, they had used up about 7 of the 8 minutes. They were asking questions about when/what/ etc and burned through the minutes.

I called on July 4th, not in system. I paid another $12 on the morning of the 7th, called spoke to Thomas and the case was in the system and I scheduled an interview. So, case was received somewhere around June 20th in Kiev from the NVC and it was logged into the Embassy computer system on July 7th. I did finally get a response to my email from the Embassy on July 7th stating that the case was in the system.

So, yes in answer to your second question, you can call the call center to see if the case is in the system, but you're paying $1.50 a minute plus the cost of the call to the Ukraine phone number if the 800 number does not work.

Coincidentally, my girl received the information packet from the Embassy in the mail on Tuesday, July 15th. She is up in the Carpathian mountains in Western Ukraine in a small village, so in this case, the Ukrainian Postal service did in fact deliver the package in a relatively timely fashion - about 3 weeks from when it was recevied from the NVC into Kiev.

John

Hey John, no problem on delayed response - I'm still a couple of months away from this step anyway.

Thanks much for the info - it will help when I am at this step.

Sean

[johnichka 0]

Scott,

Any update on your girl's interview? I remember that she had scheduled it for today - july 18. Hope everything went well.

John

[Scott and Iryna 2]

Scott,

Any update on your girl's interview? I remember that she had scheduled it for today - july 18. Hope everything went well.

John

Hi John, I just got off the phone with her. All went well. She said the interview went very quickly, and she left the Embassy by noon. Woo-hoo! So, I leave in less than 2 weeks, and I will bring her back with me on August 5th! Sweet!!

- Scott

[johnichka 0]

Awesome, Congratulations! You both must be very excited.

John

[jbmail 0]

Scott,

Good to hear that you got the interview scheduled. I have another question. How did you determine when the Embassy had your petition "logged" into thier system so you could schedule the interview?

I called NVC last night and they said the petition was sent out to Kiev yesterday. If in fact it did go out yesterday, it was hopefully on the DHL shipment that was sent yesterday. The packet weighed 3lbs, so hopefully our petition was in there. Based on transit, I would assume our petition would hit the embassy tomorrow, the 18th. How many days did you wait until you knew the petition arrived until you could schedule the interview?

Thanks, also, I am confused as to the comments about paying a $12 fee to be able to schedule the interview - can you explain how you set up your interview? Many thanks in advance.

John

The embassy gives themselves 10 days to go through the mail to put into the system... Once in the system the call center in Poland sees your file. The $12 fee (for up to an 8 minute phone call) is paid when you call the call center to make the appointment.

I was reading this post and thought I would mention something interesting about the Call center in Poland. It has been 9 days ( depending on who you believe) days since Embassy received package, so i would think it would be in system and I call EVERY day, so YES, I have pissed thru 3 Pin Numbers, as we wanted to get in for February appt and a recent post on another forum told me she got February 17th recently and she could have had earlier???Some interesting notes for those who call, all you have to say is ...CHECKING CASE STATUS, and when they say CASE #, give them KEV# and they will say YES or NO, and then hang up. Total Time...ONE minute. so you could get EIGHT calls on one 12 minute PIN card, but I was only getting THREE, because I hear the same story every day, i.e, let me check another file, etc, ect, and before you know it, the NEXT time you call, it says 3 minutes left. I think they are told to keep you asking questions to eat up the PIN?

Yesterday AFTER they said, SORRY, nothing on computer, I said..OK, call you tomorrow, and the girl told me, you know, we only get UPDATES from the Embassy every Friday, so you are wasting money if you call every day after we say NO!!!

I honestly can't say I belive this as IF they update the computer, Poland should be able to see it as they told me the KEV number is there, but no info attached, and of course, the usual story about until info is posted, they cannot schedule.

Just thought I'd mention this for those of you who hope and pray like I do, to finally get a Date in Kiev and get out of this Black Hole we've been in for so long...cheers

[overlap 0]

Scott,

Good to hear that you got the interview scheduled. I have another question. How did you determine when the Embassy had your petition "logged" into thier system so you could schedule the interview?

I called NVC last night and they said the petition was sent out to Kiev yesterday. If in fact it did go out yesterday, it was hopefully on the DHL shipment that was sent yesterday. The packet weighed 3lbs, so hopefully our petition was in there. Based on transit, I would assume our petition would hit the embassy tomorrow, the 18th. How many days did you wait until you knew the petition arrived until you could schedule the interview?

Thanks, also, I am confused as to the comments about paying a $12 fee to be able to schedule the interview - can you explain how you set up your interview? Many thanks in advance.

John

The embassy gives themselves 10 days to go through the mail to put into the system... Once in the system the call center in Poland sees your file. The $12 fee (for up to an 8 minute phone call) is paid when you call the call center to make the appointment.

I was reading this post and thought I would mention something interesting about the Call center in Poland. It has been 9 days ( depending on who you believe) days since Embassy received package, so i would think it would be in system and I call EVERY day, so YES, I have pissed thru 3 Pin Numbers, as we wanted to get in for February appt and a recent post on another forum told me she got February 17th recently and she could have had earlier???Some interesting notes for those who call, all you have to say is ...CHECKING CASE STATUS, and when they say CASE #, give them KEV# and they will say YES or NO, and then hang up. Total Time...ONE minute. so you could get EIGHT calls on one 12 minute PIN card, but I was only getting THREE, because I hear the same story every day, i.e, let me check another file, etc, ect, and before you know it, the NEXT time you call, it says 3 minutes left. I think they are told to keep you asking questions to eat up the PIN?

Yesterday AFTER they said, SORRY, nothing on computer, I said..OK, call you tomorrow, and the girl told me, you know, we only get UPDATES from the Embassy every Friday, so you are wasting money if you call every day after we say NO!!!

I honestly can't say I belive this as IF they update the computer, Poland should be able to see it as they told me the KEV number is there, but no info attached, and of course, the usual story about until info is posted, they cannot schedule.

Just thought I'd mention this for those of you who hope and pray like I do, to finally get a Date in Kiev and get out of this Black Hole we've been in for so long...cheers

FYI, You can email the embassy and ask them if they sent out the packet and if it is in the system. When we did that, they emailed us the packet and told us we can call and schedule an interview. BTW, we called today and will have out interview February 4.

[dispozo 0]

Good luck with the interview overlap!!!

[jbmail 0]

Scott,

Good to hear that you got the interview scheduled. I have another question. How did you determine when the Embassy had your petition "logged" into thier system so you could schedule the interview?

I called NVC last night and they said the petition was sent out to Kiev yesterday. If in fact it did go out yesterday, it was hopefully on the DHL shipment that was sent yesterday. The packet weighed 3lbs, so hopefully our petition was in there. Based on transit, I would assume our petition would hit the embassy tomorrow, the 18th. How many days did you wait until you knew the petition arrived until you could schedule the interview?

Thanks, also, I am confused as to the comments about paying a $12 fee to be able to schedule the interview - can you explain how you set up your interview? Many thanks in advance.

John

The embassy gives themselves 10 days to go through the mail to put into the system... Once in the system the call center in Poland sees your file. The $12 fee (for up to an 8 minute phone call) is paid when you call the call center to make the appointment.

I was reading this post and thought I would mention something interesting about the Call center in Poland. It has been 9 days ( depending on who you believe) days since Embassy received package, so i would think it would be in system and I call EVERY day, so YES, I have pissed thru 3 Pin Numbers, as we wanted to get in for February appt and a recent post on another forum told me she got February 17th recently and she could have had earlier???Some interesting notes for those who call, all you have to say is ...CHECKING CASE STATUS, and when they say CASE #, give them KEV# and they will say YES or NO, and then hang up. Total Time...ONE minute. so you could get EIGHT calls on one 12 minute PIN card, but I was only getting THREE, because I hear the same story every day, i.e, let me check another file, etc, ect, and before you know it, the NEXT time you call, it says 3 minutes left. I think they are told to keep you asking questions to eat up the PIN?

Yesterday AFTER they said, SORRY, nothing on computer, I said..OK, call you tomorrow, and the girl told me, you know, we only get UPDATES from the Embassy every Friday, so you are wasting money if you call every day after we say NO!!!

I honestly can't say I belive this as IF they update the computer, Poland should be able to see it as they told me the KEV number is there, but no info attached, and of course, the usual story about until info is posted, they cannot schedule.

Just thought I'd mention this for those of you who hope and pray like I do, to finally get a Date in Kiev and get out of this Black Hole we've been in for so long...cheers

FYI, You can email the embassy and ask them if they sent out the packet and if it is in the system. When we did that, they emailed us the packet and told us we can call and schedule an interview. BTW, we called today and will have out interview February 4.

Thanks for that GREAT Post. February 4th is NICE and I always thought we would have to wait until March , at this point, as all summer long, it was a 3-4 week wait, so maybe something good will come of all of this waiting. Maybe our Valentines Day arrival can still be met??? I can't get too excited as every step of the way, something has dropped us BACK into the Black Hole, but I appreciate your post and help. BTW, I found a DECENT person at the Consular Email who sent me, ON THEIR OWN, a notice when our KEV file was finally in the system, as they had seen my PLEADING NOTES in 3-4 emails for the 5 weeks i was stuck in AP and thought it had been mailed (Thats what the letters said???) So he just emailed me again and said, NOT YET, so its nice to know that some people still do a little extra in their Gov't jobs too. Be well,& thanks..J

[overlap 0]

Scott,

Good to hear that you got the interview scheduled. I have another question. How did you determine when the Embassy had your petition "logged" into thier system so you could schedule the interview?

I called NVC last night and they said the petition was sent out to Kiev yesterday. If in fact it did go out yesterday, it was hopefully on the DHL shipment that was sent yesterday. The packet weighed 3lbs, so hopefully our petition was in there. Based on transit, I would assume our petition would hit the embassy tomorrow, the 18th. How many days did you wait until you knew the petition arrived until you could schedule the interview?

Thanks, also, I am confused as to the comments about paying a $12 fee to be able to schedule the interview - can you explain how you set up your interview? Many thanks in advance.

John

The embassy gives themselves 10 days to go through the mail to put into the system... Once in the system the call center in Poland sees your file. The $12 fee (for up to an 8 minute phone call) is paid when you call the call center to make the appointment.

I was reading this post and thought I would mention something interesting about the Call center in Poland. It has been 9 days ( depending on who you believe) days since Embassy received package, so i would think it would be in system and I call EVERY day, so YES, I have pissed thru 3 Pin Numbers, as we wanted to get in for February appt and a recent post on another forum told me she got February 17th recently and she could have had earlier???Some interesting notes for those who call, all you have to say is ...CHECKING CASE STATUS, and when they say CASE #, give them KEV# and they will say YES or NO, and then hang up. Total Time...ONE minute. so you could get EIGHT calls on one 12 minute PIN card, but I was only getting THREE, because I hear the same story every day, i.e, let me check another file, etc, ect, and before you know it, the NEXT time you call, it says 3 minutes left. I think they are told to keep you asking questions to eat up the PIN?

Yesterday AFTER they said, SORRY, nothing on computer, I said..OK, call you tomorrow, and the girl told me, you know, we only get UPDATES from the Embassy every Friday, so you are wasting money if you call every day after we say NO!!!

I honestly can't say I belive this as IF they update the computer, Poland should be able to see it as they told me the KEV number is there, but no info attached, and of course, the usual story about until info is posted, they cannot schedule.

Just thought I'd mention this for those of you who hope and pray like I do, to finally get a Date in Kiev and get out of this Black Hole we've been in for so long...cheers

FYI, You can email the embassy and ask them if they sent out the packet and if it is in the system. When we did that, they emailed us the packet and told us we can call and schedule an interview. BTW, we called today and will have out interview February 4.

Thanks for that GREAT Post. February 4th is NICE and I always thought we would have to wait until March , at this point, as all summer long, it was a 3-4 week wait, so maybe something good will come of all of this waiting. Maybe our Valentines Day arrival can still be met??? I can't get too excited as every step of the way, something has dropped us BACK into the Black Hole, but I appreciate your post and help. BTW, I found a DECENT person at the Consular Email who sent me, ON THEIR OWN, a notice when our KEV file was finally in the system, as they had seen my PLEADING NOTES in 3-4 emails for the 5 weeks i was stuck in AP and thought it had been mailed (Thats what the letters said???) So he just emailed me again and said, NOT YET, so its nice to know that some people still do a little extra in their Gov't jobs too. Be well,& thanks..J

We called last week of January and they still had spots open for January 28/29. Today they told us we can have February 4th through 20th, so looks like no 3-4 week waiting! It also took only 5 days from when NVC sent out the packet to get into the system in Kiev for us. I would not wait for the packet to come in the mail as well, just download from the website. Good luck to all!