Tip for people who have been waiting long (more than 6 weeks) and still unable to schedule interview appointment

[Laurana 3]

Hi guys,

I just wanted to share our experience regarding the wait to be able to schedule the interview at the US embassy in London, and how we were able to resolve our issue (I thought this might help people in a similar situation)

The embassy had received our packet from the NVC around mid-april 2016. It took my fiance about 3-4 weeks to complete all paperwork and his medical, and he was able to submit his online readiness form on May 14.

We had checked online for the typical wait time between submitting the readiness form and being able to schedule our interview online: the typical wait time reported by Visajourney members of the UK for K1 visa and also on the US embassy in the UK website is about 6 weeks. About 4-5 weeks into the waiting period, my fiance called the embassy to ask about the status of our application; they told him he had to wait and there is nothing more to say. However, by mid-July we were still unable to schedule the interview online (it kept saying "not ready" online. it had been a little more than 8 weeks of waiting by then).

I was starting to get impatient and asked my fiance to call the embassy again to check for the status. He called and explained that we had been waiting a long time and were worried there was an issue with our application or with the online scheduling system. This time, the guy on the phone told us to complete the form found here: https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/visa-information-services/contact-us-immigrant-visas/u-s-embassy-london-visa-unit-contact-form/, to write "reschedule appointment" in the form, and explain the situation. He also asked my fiance to send an email to weeac_contactus+gb+ivcasenumber+en@visaops.net, to put in the subject line "Case number not ready to schedule" and in the body of the email add your full name, case number and date of birth, then you explain the problem.

Within an hour we were able to schedule the interview appointment (the closest openings were 4 weeks out. Interview scheduled for August 23rd, YEY!). Apparently our file had been ready for a while but there seemed to be a glitch on the scheduling website.

PS: I found on the uk.usembassy.gov website that you can send the "contact us" form if it has been more than 6 WEEKS since you submitted all documents and still have not been able to schedule. So obviously it would be useless to try this before the 6 weeks have passed.

Hope this helps people who are in a similar situation and have been waiting longer than the usual 6 weeks!

Cheers!

Laura

Edited August 10, 2016 by Laurana

[tennster 0]

Thanks for posting this. It seems a bunch of people (myself included!) have recently had this problem. I don't think you'd usually have to wait this long to sort it out though. As soon as you've made a medical appointment and submitted the readiness form you *should* be able to book an interview date...and the error message I kept getting at that point saying the our number wasn't ready came with exactly the same instructions to email the address that your fiance got from over the phone. And, like you, once we emailed that address the issue was fixed within a few hours. What's interesting to hear about your experience is that the issue doesn't appear to resolve by itself over time -- if you don't email them at that point it won't get fixed.