Awful Experience with Pakistan Embassy in Washington

[evilmonkey 2]

Hi guys,

I just wanted to share with you the continuously awful experience that I am going through with PK embassy. I will try and keep this short and sweet

Situation:

(1) Renunciated PK citizenship in June 2009 (surrendered PK passport, ID card etc.)

(2) Received Renunciation certificate in May 2010 (all good uptil here)

(3) Received a letter in the mail in Dec 2010 indicating I need to pay $100 to cancel my ID card

a. The ID card was already cancelled, otherwise renunciation certificate would not have been provided

b. When I called PK embassy in Washington, I tried to tell them my case was already completed before this fee went into effect. Their reply, WE DO NOT care, you must pay the fee to NADRA (the people who make ID cards in PK) - they had some guts to tell me that. I asked them, has my ID card been cancelled? they said yes. Am I currently a citizen of PK? No (their response). What happens if I do not pay the fee? We do not know. So I was like okay, then I do not have a good reason to pay the fee.

(4) Recently in Jun 2011, I applied for a POC card - guess what, they were smart enough to figure out I have not yet paid the cancellation fee. So they asked for it. So I send it to them with the POC application.

(5) They issue me a receipt for receiving all the documents required for POC but return my fee for the old id card.

(6) 3 months later, I find out, NADRA still wants the fee, so I sent it again to the PK embassy.

(7) This time they returned it to me with a rejection letter telling me to submit a POC application, support docs and etc - which is completely retarded because I have already done so and all what I need is them to take my $100 and issue me a receipt so I can give this to NADRA and they can mail me my new card

(8) Now, I have sent them the receipt of the application which indicates all of the items which were on the rejection letter had already been received by them as indicated by the receipt they issued me.

So now I am just waiting to see what happens. I tried depositing the fee directly to NADRA through a friend in PK but they refuse to take it.

I am seriously dumbfounded here and could not be more glad that I have moved away from a country who does not give a **** about its past or present citizens and hire office workers completely based on who has the most strongest connection or can pay the most. Shame on you PK Embassy!

[hikergirl 277]

Sounds like bureaucracy at its finest.

Just be glad you don't have to put up with that on a regular basis.

[sergnavi 3]

This country takes 3 steps backwards and 1 forward so that's how things are ! I was born there and its sad but... God Bless You and everyone.!

[Erik And Anum 1]

I despise their service on how they told me that my visa would be ready in 8 days and it wasn`t ready. I was told to come back yesterday but I wont be able to until Thursday. Their communication is terrible they rarely pick up the phone and they have never answered to any of my emails. The unfortunate part is that they also have my mother`s passport and her`s was submitted last Thursday. I just hope we receive it before our Nov 12 flight :-/

Edited November 2, 2011 by Erik And Anum

[ohitzjah 0]

Their Embassy services is run by bunch of morons. My mother's Pakistani passport was expired so we went to get new one made here in Houston consulate. They told us they can't make the new electronic passport here and only New York and Los Angeles consulates are able to make the electronic one. I asked if we can or they can mail it in but no they want you to come to their office just so they can take your picture and ask you bio data question. I had to shell out $1400 for me and her to travel to New York urgently and get her the electronic passport so we could travel to Dubai. She always thought she could never pass the U.S. naturalization test because her english is not that good but after we came back from our trip she finally decided it's time to apply. Masallah she passed and became a citizen last Novemeber.

[worth_the_wait 12]

I came across this thread just now and I was actually very surprised to read about your bad experiences. I have actually gone to the Embassy here in DC in person and never once did I have a problem. Their Visitor's Visa's take approximately 6 weeks to process and issue. They require an invitation from the person you will be visiting and a copy of thier ID card (or atleast that is what I have provided them) as well as the Visa application, 2 passport sized photos, your passport and the Visa fee. Both times I have gone there I haven't had any issue with communication or anything. The first time I recieved my Visa almost exactly 6 weeks later and the second time I recieved it about 5 weeks later. Both times, I recieved a call telling me that it was ready to be picked up.

Edited February 29, 2012 by worth_the_wait

[Nevin 12]

what reason did you provide in order to renunciate your citizenship? (for my cousin they asked for a reason for renunciation)

[fellaamazing 72]

It's NADRA's beaurocracy! Not the embassy's.

I applied for Name Change, along with religion change. I wanted to make it Atheist, but there was no section for Atheist or None. So I chose other.

The application was accepted by Consulate in NYC. But rejected by NADRA. Consulate asked me to fill out the form again, this time not checking anything at all in religion field.

NADRA didn't even recognize they have my newer form. It's been over 2 years. And they ate my original NICOP as well, without returning.

[pm5k 129]

Has anybody gone through the renunciation process recently?  Some if my family members plan to do this soon, and it would be nice to get some additional insight. 

[pm5k 129]

On 10/23/2011 at 6:36 PM, evilmonkey said:

Hi guys,

I just wanted to share with you the continuously awful experience that I am going through with PK embassy. I will try and keep this short and sweet

Situation:

(1) Renunciated PK citizenship in June 2009 (surrendered PK passport, ID card etc.)

(2) Received Renunciation certificate in May 2010 (all good uptil here)

(3) Received a letter in the mail in Dec 2010 indicating I need to pay $100 to cancel my ID card

a. The ID card was already cancelled, otherwise renunciation certificate would not have been provided

b. When I called PK embassy in Washington, I tried to tell them my case was already completed before this fee went into effect. Their reply, WE DO NOT care, you must pay the fee to NADRA (the people who make ID cards in PK) - they had some guts to tell me that. I asked them, has my ID card been cancelled? they said yes. Am I currently a citizen of PK? No (their response). What happens if I do not pay the fee? We do not know. So I was like okay, then I do not have a good reason to pay the fee.

(4) Recently in Jun 2011, I applied for a POC card - guess what, they were smart enough to figure out I have not yet paid the cancellation fee. So they asked for it. So I send it to them with the POC application.

(5) They issue me a receipt for receiving all the documents required for POC but return my fee for the old id card.

(6) 3 months later, I find out, NADRA still wants the fee, so I sent it again to the PK embassy.

(7) This time they returned it to me with a rejection letter telling me to submit a POC application, support docs and etc - which is completely retarded because I have already done so and all what I need is them to take my $100 and issue me a receipt so I can give this to NADRA and they can mail me my new card

(8) Now, I have sent them the receipt of the application which indicates all of the items which were on the rejection letter had already been received by them as indicated by the receipt they issued me.

So now I am just waiting to see what happens. I tried depositing the fee directly to NADRA through a friend in PK but they refuse to take it.

I am seriously dumbfounded here and could not be more glad that I have moved away from a country who does not give a **** about its past or present citizens and hire office workers completely based on who has the most strongest connection or can pay the most. Shame on you PK Embassy!

Old post, but I writing this in case anyone else is ever in this predicament.  NADRA now allows one to cancel their CNICs online.  There is an option for "Cancel ID" on the NADRA website.  

[TBoneTX 45,292]

Thanks for the updated information.

Thread from 2011 is now closed to further comment.