Wanna go visit Australia? Think again…
Today I visited the Australian Embassy here in Bangkok, and when I got off at the Lumphini MRT station I mistakenly decided to climb the stairs as opposed to taking the escalator. Little did I know that this is one of MRT’s deepest stations and I arrived at the top short of having a heart attack.
Anyway, the purpose of my visit was to find out what all the hoo haa is about with the student visas…
Since the end of January the Australian Embassy decided to outsource their visa processing to a new company called VSF. It’s been a disaster, after just two weeks of training the staff were clearly not ready for the inundation of visa requests. Both the travel industry and the education industry have gone ballistic.
One of the biggest gripes is how they close early on days they can’t cope, so if you’ve been waiting all morning, it’s just tough shit. And for the priviledge of using their rather dubious service you also get charged for it. Not to mention that now you’ve got to photocopy your own copy of the 12 page visa forms.
So, would that put you off visiting Australia? Apparently it is. Of course measures are being taken to address these issues now that the Australian Embassy is getting this bad image that they don’t want Thais visiting Australia. I hope so, because the whole thing just gives me one big headache.
It sounds like the typical Australian solution to lowering costs – outsourcing. Outsourcing sounds as if it has again lowered the already low standard of service provided by the Australian Embassy. I’ve been there twice with Oui and I dread the day that I’ll have to go there again (thank GOD I’m Australian!).
Actually the reason they gave was because of ‘security’.
Ahem.
I just had that experience Baba…
Applied for the Visitor visa and took forever to get it, I remember last time it took me like 2 hours only, and before that … for my student visas…few hours as well. I just don’t understand what’s going on with the new system,I find it useless and even annoying….. I talked to several Aussie friends of mine..and they also find the VSF thing rediculous too.