Sending back P3

[MelissaJulian 30]

My fiance has not received the P3 yet, but he hopefully will very shortly. He has all of the forms completed, his medical booked and his police certificate and long form birth certificate too. We are ready! I wanted to know if it is OK for him to send it Special Delivery? I think I have read things on here about people sending things back Special Delivery and it sitting in a mailbox for WEEKS! He could send it UPS I guess, but he would prefer to use the Royal Mail. I am really nervous about this. Can anyone tell me if we are making a big mistake sending it Royal Mail?

[krautlaus 7]

For the P3, I wouldn't be worried at all. It's perfectly okay to send via 'normal' mail. I sent it via Deutsche Post/DHL overnight and it got there, safe and sound the next day.

[Jewel-8 21]

My fiance has not received the P3 yet, but he hopefully will very shortly. He has all of the forms completed, his medical booked and his police certificate and long form birth certificate too. We are ready! I wanted to know if it is OK for him to send it Special Delivery? I think I have read things on here about people sending things back Special Delivery and it sitting in a mailbox for WEEKS! He could send it UPS I guess, but he would prefer to use the Royal Mail. I am really nervous about this. Can anyone tell me if we are making a big mistake sending it Royal Mail?

It doesn't matter how it is sent back. The London embassy will sign for it and then it will take them 1-3 weeks to log it into the system. Then it might take another 1-3 weeks for them to assign an interview date.

At least you are prepared! Just don't think anything is going to happen quickly at this point.

[Y&E 12]

I used special delivery and there were no problems. It is going straight to a person, not to a PO Box and has to be signed for.

[Gemmie 142]

Ditto, I used normal Royal Mail delivery.

It took them 5 weeks to get back with an interview date, but they did receive it quickly.

[MelissaJulian 30]

Thanks everyone. He is adamant about using Royal Mail, and he is only agreeing to do Special Delivery because I have said I can at least track it. He doesn't see why First Class would be riskier. Since he lives in London, can he just deliver it by hand? His flat is not that far from the Embassy.

[Rob and Jill 82]

Rob sent it regular mail and they confirmed they had it in less than 5 business days.

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

Thanks everyone. He is adamant about using Royal Mail, and he is only agreeing to do Special Delivery because I have said I can at least track it. He doesn't see why First Class would be riskier. Since he lives in London, can he just deliver it by hand? His flat is not that far from the Embassy.

That's the kind of delivery (by hand or bicycle courier) that isn't allowed. I believe it's about security measures is why they don't accept mail at the Immigrant Visa Branch. You can't just pop in the door and say "I'm dropping this off." I believe all mail is routed through an offsite location and sorted for internal delivery to the various offices of the embassy. Royal Mail has some kind of delivery confirmation/signed for option because that's how ours went. I don't know the common UK name for it. It will give you great peace of mind. Then you know it reached them and you won't have to come back and post "What if it didn't arrive? I'm worried it might not be there." Cross that worry off your list by getting a confirmation.

[Dodi 69]

We sent it by Special Delivery, have confirmation that it was delivered on 7/29, but it's still not logged in as received yet. I don't know if that made a difference or not, but we were able to track it. Peter said that Royal Mail is notoriously unreliable (don't know if that's true or not), so he wanted a tracking number. (Also better for my sanity.)

Edited August 12, 2010 by Dodi

[Darren + Heather 0]

Darren sent our Packet 3 in using Royal Mail. Within 5 days it was received and logged by the Embassy. It only took another week to 10 days to get the interview letter.

[Justine+David 218]

Remember that you don't need to wait for the actual Packet 3 to arrive in the mail. As long as DOS has said that the Embassy has mailed it, you can mail out your Packet 3. There have been quite a few cases of members here (yorkshirerose comes to mind) that never got their P3 even though the Embassy said they mailed it out.

[*julez* 124]

Fed EX!!!!

Kidding. Regualr mail does work!!

[Rob and Jill 82]

Darren sent our Packet 3 in using Royal Mail. Within 5 days it was received and logged by the Embassy. It only took another week to 10 days to get the interview letter.

03-03-10 Mailed I-129 F (Vermont) And so it begins...

03-04-10 I-129 F received

03-05-10 NOA1

05-21-10 Touched

05-26-10 Received RFE dated 05-21-10 (I forgot to answer a question, grr)

05-26-10 Replied to RFE

06-08-10 NOA2

06-12-10 London Embassy received file

07-14-10 Mailed packet 3 to Embassy

07-19-10 Medical

07-22-10 Embassy received Packet 3

07-29-10 Received Packet 4

09-08-10 Interview (187 days from NOA1)

Comparing timelines here...

They received it the same week, yet you got your interview letter a week later and Rob got ours today.

But...

Our interview dates are 6 days apart.

Kind of makes you want to beat your head into a wall.

[Nik+Heather 121]

Comparing timelines here...

They received it the same week, yet you got your interview letter a week later and Rob got ours today.

But...

Our interview dates are 6 days apart.

Kind of makes you want to beat your head into a wall.

I remember those days...so many hours spent trying to comprehend the chaotic randomness (I think it's the second definition of insanity)...estimating postal times and trying to do statistics on timelines data...Boy I wish I had read some of Nich's cool tricks about advanced searching on the timelines! I could have killed another couple of days waiting for NOA 2 playing with those!! I had found out how to get to the raw tables, but they are a bit unwieldy.

[Rob and Jill 82]

I remember those days...so many hours spent trying to comprehend the chaotic randomness (I think it's the second definition of insanity)...estimating postal times and trying to do statistics on timelines data...Boy I wish I had read some of Nich's cool tricks about advanced searching on the timelines! I could have killed another couple of days waiting for NOA 2 playing with those!! I had found out how to get to the raw tables, but they are a bit unwieldy.

I JUST discovered this morning there is a place that allows you to put in for receiving your P3 paperwork and such. I didn't think there was because it doesn't show if you look at your generic timeline. Yeah, it would be a time killer for certain to play on there!