scheduling a k-1 visa interview in manila

[DAAG 1]

lastnight, at 1 am,I called the immigrant visa call center at 1-888-877-9888, and listened to no less than 9 tagalog messages, and one message in English that said to continue in english press 3. as you may have guessed by now, pressing 3 resulted in continuing in tagalog. naturally i thought i may have made an error, so i tried it again over and over. on about the 5th try, after i'd tried to translate the tagalog instructions, and even entered my credit card number when told in tagalog to do so, but couldn't understnd the response, and i was trying to pick out enough tagalog words, that i understood, to attempt to go on if they werent going to give me any english instructions. in tagalog they said to press 1 to continue in tagalog. i did and that selection also continued in tagalog. the third option was to press 2 for US Citizen services, which did, in despiration, and was told in english there is no US Citizen services available at that number, so call another number.

The bottom line is that lastnight atleast, there was no way to reach the call center and recived useful information or schedule anything. has anyone experienced this, and did i call the wrong number? i hope it may have been due to the day before being veterans day in the USA. but wahtever caused it we are now into another weelend with no interview scheduled, and november is half gone.

My fiancee passed her medical exam with flying colors, wedensday, but is running out of money on the manila economy, while im struggling with reaching a site that naturally speaks tagalog, and trying to get them to speak english, by pressing buttons on my phone in a blind menu, and cannot simply ask for instructions in english, and my fiancee cannot possibly call, because she, like 80% of filipinas, has a prepaid cellphone instead of the landline required to call the embassy and have it charged to that landline, and she doesn't speak tagalog either. her native dialect is visaya.

i understand its good to have the option on luzon, where most filipinas calling in,locally, will speak tagalog, of talking to a tagalog speaking call center, but surely there is some option for the entire rest of the philippines and US citizens who speak English and not tagalog.

weve worked on this for a year, and i just dont want to lose it all by papers expireing as we try to schedule the interview in the last moment, as our finances are in danger of disolving. i read on the embassy website that some sort of change is comming in the scheduling process in december, but no indication of what sort of change. my fiancee went to manila ahead of time with her cousin as a guide, now the cousin is in the hospital and shes watching the cousins baby, it just gets more fun by the day. if im able to break through the instructiuons in languages i dont completely understand, and get an interview scheduled i'll feel better. i guess one reason its soo frustraiting is that were soo close to success and now seem at an impass, while time keeps ticking on.

[chinky_amanda 1]

lastnight, at 1 am,I called the immigrant visa call center at 1-888-877-9888, and listened to no less than 9 tagalog messages, and one message in English that said to continue in english press 3. as you may have guessed by now, pressing 3 resulted in continuing in tagalog. naturally i thought i may have made an error, so i tried it again over and over. on about the 5th try, after i'd tried to translate the tagalog instructions, and even entered my credit card number when told in tagalog to do so, but couldn't understnd the response, and i was trying to pick out enough tagalog words, that i understood, to attempt to go on if they werent going to give me any english instructions. in tagalog they said to press 1 to continue in tagalog. i did and that selection also continued in tagalog. the third option was to press 2 for US Citizen services, which did, in despiration, and was told in english there is no US Citizen services available at that number, so call another number.

The bottom line is that lastnight atleast, there was no way to reach the call center and recived useful information or schedule anything. has anyone experienced this, and did i call the wrong number? i hope it may have been due to the day before being veterans day in the USA. but wahtever caused it we are now into another weelend with no interview scheduled, and november is half gone.

My fiancee passed her medical exam with flying colors, wedensday, but is running out of money on the manila economy, while im struggling with reaching a site that naturally speaks tagalog, and trying to get them to speak english, by pressing buttons on my phone in a blind menu, and cannot simply ask for instructions in english, and my fiancee cannot possibly call, because she, like 80% of filipinas, has a prepaid cellphone instead of the landline required to call the embassy and have it charged to that landline, and she doesn't speak tagalog either. her native dialect is visaya.

i understand its good to have the option on luzon, where most filipinas calling in,locally, will speak tagalog, of talking to a tagalog speaking call center, but surely there is some option for the entire rest of the philippines and US citizens who speak English and not tagalog.

weve worked on this for a year, and i just dont want to lose it all by papers expireing as we try to schedule the interview in the last moment, as our finances are in danger of disolving. i read on the embassy website that some sort of change is comming in the scheduling process in december, but no indication of what sort of change. my fiancee went to manila ahead of time with her cousin as a guide, now the cousin is in the hospital and shes watching the cousins baby, it just gets more fun by the day. if im able to break through the instructiuons in languages i dont completely understand, and get an interview scheduled i'll feel better. i guess one reason its soo frustraiting is that were soo close to success and now seem at an impass, while time keeps ticking on.

Callers can speak with an English or Tagalog speaking operator. The service is available to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, Manila local time.

Last nyt here for was Saturday am/pm in Manila.. try to call Sunday night and its Monday morning there.

[John+Lourdelie 28]

That look like the correct number to call. As previous poster stated you may have called on Saturday in the Philippines.

Also, I could not find on the US Embassy - Manila website where it states that a change is coming in December for scheduling. Can you point me to this statement?

John

[DAAG 1]

i am sorry i didnt get back to this forum for a while i jane and i have been struggling with the process soo hard to try to get it completed but each day it seems to get harder. when i went bsack to look for the link that said the process is changing 1 dec, i couldnt find it, but the process did change, unfortunately for us it changed catching us in the swinging door. today is 1dec esrly mortning here evening there. janes visa is scheduled for friday 7 am with a show time 1 hour earlier at 6 am. i dont get paid till this morning so she borrowed money and i spent my coin collection tio get her the money sooner so shed have a chance to pay 24 hours before the interview, but today BDO refused to accept payment, saying thge embassy sent them a letter saying they were no longer allowed to accept payment. jane went by taxi to 7 BDOs and was told the same thing paying 4200p for the rides all to no avail. the 7th one finally told her no bdo casn accept payment anymore. we both cslled the embassy and werte told it was closed but the operator was nice enough to give us a link on the web to find how to pay na. i went to the link and found nothing helpful. i called ehr back and told her and she looked it up and told me BPI is not the cotrrect bank, but BPI and BDO both refused to accept payment saying it has been transfered to the other. some moneygram places are still open bvut jane was unsafe in the streets of manila at 10pm, so she retyurend to the hotel short 4200p, and with no way to pay for ehr application fee, kasi no one will accept it. plus shye had to spend part of uit seaqrvhing for someone who would accept payment, only to find no one would. i sued all my phone load and so did she tyrying to cooordinate all this over nightr here and all day there, and my head never touched my bed. its 8 am na here and were both bvery worried. i doubt my poor sweet baby jane can sleep when i told her we must pay today and she wasnt allowed to. the new system seems to be to pay at some unknown bank and then schedule the interview, but it leaves those of us whove already scheduled an interview stuch in the crack caysued by the change that weas only paryially completed. the embassy stopped one bank from accepting payment and failed to tell the other to start, so both banks say they cannot accdept payment and send us to the other. with the result that she cannot attend ehtr interview, kasi she cannot pay, since there is no one accepting payment. its horribly frustraiting. jane was crying tonite after all this time and work and we do our best to follow directions as they were given to us only to be repeatedly turend away when we try to pay so she can attend her interview. Does anyone know a way to get around the what bank we must pay at now flailex? so that we can simply pay to become elegible to attend the already scheduled interview. it will be the end of my day again when the embassy is open again tomorrow there, and within 24 hrs of the interview time. i hope someone will accept our payment tomorrow, later today us time. there is no time left for them to keep stonewalling us. theyre going to have to figure out who accepts payment and tell them in no uncertain yterms which bank is to do it and let us know also. most places on the embassy website say completely different things some still have pre june 2010 application fees. miost still say BDO accepts payment. the operator in embassy said one webpage says BPI accepts payment na, but i cant find any page saying that and both banks denie they are the one. so were unable to complete the process. since the embassy stopped bdo from accepting payment it would be nice if the embassy would accept the payment, or tell us someone who really will accept it.

[Tahoma 2,291]

Maybe your fiancée can print out the information she needs from the Embassy website and show it to the supervisor at BPI: link to USEM website.

The USEM website also links you to more information about BPI here.

I hope this helps.

Good luck with the interview!

[Tahoma 2,291]

Also, Jane will need a copy of the bio page from her passport when she pays the visa fee at BPI.

[Tahoma 2,291]

Jane may want to print out this brand new Packet 3 letter from the Embassy: click here.