Hostage experiment

[Anthrprsn]

Hi everyone,
Just as many other people on this forum I have been trapped in this recent hostage experiment. More than 5 months since applied and 80 days after the interview. almost out of money and have absolutely no interest to invest more until the hostage situation is resolved. On the other hand, I might be forced to withdraw my application as I can not keep losing money like this and also to prevent a serious damage to my health. In my opinion, this is a serious crime. This level of stress over long period of time can cause lifetime mental health problems or even death. As withdrawl might become my only choice in few months does anyone know any UK, EU or international organisation that I can report to before withdrawal and follow it up when I am back in my country? Any input is highly appreciated.
Best of luck to all

[zimba]

This is quite dramatic. There is nothing that stops you from operating your business while you application is in process. The average time to process an application is now between 4 to 6 months. You are not forced to stay here, withdraw your application and leave the UK.

[MYA]

Try to find cash in hand job to earn money for day to day expenses, basically if our own countries are economically strong than no one would like to come and invest in this country and paying lots of fee in the form visa fee immigration health surcharge, finger print fee etc.
But this hostile situation is self created and we have to accept this.
Don't take stress or ruin your health, be happy, enjoy ur remaining life , no one came in this world for indefinite period of time or in immigration language no one in this world have (ILR).they ignore you for 5 months , you ignore them for ret if your life. Hope you understand the depths.

[awan905]

Better to relax and concentrate on business, I can understand the stress and pressure due to uncertainty however this is part of life. Even if you see in any business we dont know what the future would be however still we invest and put alot of efforts to do it based on predictions. Life and business cannt be like 2+2=4 you have to adjust your self according to situation, otherwise you can lose hope.

[marantok]

I can understand your frustration. Hope the hostage situation ends very quickly for the people who are waiting and almost reaching of the end of Hostage situation. Mentally we were not prepared for this long wait, we always thought that the application will be cleared in 5-6 weeks and max 8 weeks. People who are applying for extension should be well prepared in advance for waiting 6+ months

I think all of us are aware of doing Odd/Cash jobs, Taxi driving etc is not acceptable with T1Ent category, we should be careful about what we are doing. There were many cases where T1Entprs found Taxi Driving/Working in Stores were caught and their Visa's were curtailed.

One of friend my told that his Solicitor heard some inside HO information, that HO deliberately keep our application pending for few months and observe the company activities to understand the dubious investments behaviour like investing and deinvesting within few days after filing the application, HMRC Payments, CT etc. Again, this is just only an hearsay but it makes sense for our long waiting.

Wish and pray for all our fellow members to get the good news very soon

[Ali7770]

Hello there.

I think you should have more patience regarding this.
You know HO wants to give us pain of wait. It's true.
But if you already wait about five months, I think you will listen good news soon.
We all are on the same boat.

Hope it helps.

Regards

[hamalt66]

Hi everyone,
Just as many other people on this forum I have been trapped in this recent hostage experiment. More than 5 months since applied and 80 days after the interview. almost out of money and have absolutely no interest to invest more until the hostage situation is resolved. On the other hand, I might be forced to withdraw my application as I can not keep losing money like this and also to prevent a serious damage to my health. In my opinion, this is a serious crime. This level of stress over long period of time can cause lifetime mental health problems or even death. As withdrawl might become my only choice in few months does anyone know any UK, EU or international organisation that I can report to before withdrawal and follow it up when I am back in my country? Any input is highly appreciated.
Best of luck to all

I totally understand your frustration. I'm into my 7th month myself of a mentally excruciating pain of waiting, not able to visit my ill mother back home or take my kids on a much needed vacation; especially since we didn't have a vacation for the last 3 years as I was very busy setting up the business . But I guess there's nothing one can do but wait. I am crossing my fingers a decision will be sent out very soon, and hopefully a positive one. Good luck all.

[ishfaqsangra]

Be Optimistic I really liked MYA reply no one has ILR in this world and health is more important than anything else

[zimba]

Try to find cash in hand job to earn money for day to day expenses, ...

No, you should NOT do such thing. Cash in hand jobs are clearly illegal and could potentially get you in huge trouble.

basically if our own countries are economically strong than no one would like to come and invest in this country and paying lots of fee in the form visa fee immigration health surcharge, finger print fee etc.

Th harsh reality is that if you are unable to maintain yourself or your business, you are effectively not eligible to be here as a High Value migrant (You are an economic migrant instead) The bar for Tier 1E has been set quite low with the 50K route and HO clearly knows MANY of the applicants cannot even maintain themselves in the UK let alone generating value.

[CR001]

Any member that continues or start posting about the OP or any other member taking up illegal activities, will have their membership of the forum terminated.

If such posts continue, this thread will be locked.

@ User MYA, suggest read the forum T&Cs before you post such flawed advice.

Being employed or working cash in hand is not permitted on Tier 1 E.

+1 on what Zimba88 said.

[hamalt66]

Try to find cash in hand job to earn money for day to day expenses.

This is not permitted. Work is limited to own business only.

[Anthrprsn]

Thanks everyone for kind messages.
I understand that they are not supposed to support my business but i didn't expect them to become the biggest risk to my business. One urgent need of travel for any reason can dispose all the money I spent + the business. I have done all I supposed to do as we agreed 3 years ago even though I had so many problems and most people know that to prepare the paperwork for this visa is no less than another full time job on top of all the typical business problems I truly don't understand what they are trying to achieve by treating people like this.
Thanks again and all the best

[Anna2016]

Dear friend, please be patient, good luck. We have same situation at the moment, I canceled several business plans and missed very good opportunity to cooperation. But we can do nothing only waiting. We should be fine at last. Fingers crossed!

[seasky]

This is quite dramatic. There is nothing that stops you from operating your business while you application is in process. The average time to process an application is now between 4 to 6 months. You are not forced to stay here, withdraw your application and leave the UK.

This is not the case for international entrepreneurs. My company is well based in the UK with partners/customers/suppliers in many countries and I need to travel often. If I had any idea that I might have travel limits (I really had no idea, my initial application, out of country tool 2 weeks. No where do they say they want you to start businesses the are local only) I would not have formed my international business in the UK.

some comments:

1. this is again another case where serious entrepreneurs are penalised by the many bogus ones
2. Except for the need to travel for business I don't see where the long response time affects your economic situation if you are running your business
3. this can easily be solved. Apply, photocopy the passport and let us travel while HO takes as much time as needed to go over the passport OR open premium service to entrepreneurs

[seasky]

Try to find cash in hand job to earn money for day to day expenses, basically if our own countries are economically strong than no one would like to come and invest in this country and paying lots of fee in the form visa fee immigration health surcharge, finger print fee etc.
But this hostile situation is self created and we have to accept this.
Don't take stress or ruin your health, be happy, enjoy ur remaining life , no one came in this world for indefinite period of time or in immigration language no one in this world have (ILR).they ignore you for 5 months , you ignore them for ret if your life. Hope you understand the depths.

I come from an economically strong home country. I decided my business is best to be formed in the UK (because there is a lot of expertise in my specific sector). That overall was the intention of this visa, to attract high value migrants (from any country...) not to be a backdoor visa to those who can't seem to fit any other visa and go on to do the absolute minimum for the visa and complain how long it takes.

I think some of the barriers should be higher, especially the salaries of employees. Needs to be double the minimum wage at least. The UK does not need immigrants to generate min wage jobs, there are enough of those already. Every min wage job generated is a negative to the economy.

If the barriers are high there could be more discretion as well to serious entrepreneurs

[zimba]

I certainly understand the requirements of free travel but for an international business owner and a pragmatic entrepreneur, you should be able to assign most of your duties to your employees to avoid a total failure during such an unexpected event. Many scenarios like illness, family problems, accidents, etc could potentially put you in a situation where travel is impossible (this is not only visa related). I guess a good business owner should be well prepared to delegate the key duties of the business effectively to others when he/she is not capable fulfilling them personally.

I personally would be delighted to hear the premium services to be open to Tier 1E as many prefer to pay higher costs to save time and avoid long waiting times (me included) but I guess massive abuse of the route has made this almost impossible.

[seasky]

I certainly understand the requirements of free travel but for an international business owner and a pragmatic entrepreneur, you should be able to assign most of your duties to your employees to avoid a total failure during such an unexpected event. Many scenarios like illness, family problems, accidents, etc could potentially put you in a situation where travel is impossible (this is not only visa related). I guess a good business owner should be well prepared to delegate the key duties of the business effectively to others when he/she is not capable fulfilling them personally.

I personally would be delighted to hear the premium services to be open to Tier 1E as many prefer to pay higher costs to save time and avoid long waiting times (me included) but I guess massive abuse of the route has made this almost impossible.

That is not the case in small venture backed technology companies. The other parties (e.g. we are working a a multi £m investment from a foreign entity) want to work/meet with the CEO.

This is one of the types of entrepreneurs the UK wanted to attract, those that bring in core technology and base it in the UK (not silicon valley, Berlin, Israel etc....)

1. I don't see why they can't just take the passport have a look at it and return it (or ask for it when they actually get to the case after 4-6 months)

2. I don't see where the complexity of entrepreneur cases affects the availability of premium. At the end of the day the case worker spends 0.5-2 days per entrepreneur case (total guess...). Pay a premium to bring that case forward.

[hamalt66]

1. I don't see why they can't just take the passport have a look at it and return it (or ask for it when they actually get to the case after 4-6 months)

This ^^

[seasky]

Hi everyone,
Just as many other people on this forum I have been trapped in this recent hostage experiment. More than 5 months since applied and 80 days after the interview. almost out of money and have absolutely no interest to invest more until the hostage situation is resolved. On the other hand, I might be forced to withdraw my application as I can not keep losing money like this and also to prevent a serious damage to my health. In my opinion, this is a serious crime. This level of stress over long period of time can cause lifetime mental health problems or even death. As withdrawl might become my only choice in few months does anyone know any UK, EU or international organisation that I can report to before withdrawal and follow it up when I am back in my country? Any input is highly appreciated.
Best of luck to all

I totally understand your frustration. I'm into my 7th month myself of a mentally excruciating pain of waiting, not able to visit my ill mother back home or take my kids on a much needed vacation; especially since we didn't have a vacation for the last 3 years as I was very busy setting up the business . But I guess there's nothing one can do but wait. I am crossing my fingers a decision will be sent out very soon, and hopefully a positive one. Good luck all.

Sorry about your ill mom and hope she gets better. But in regards to vacation. You can have great vacations within the UK. Scotland is just so special, as is Cornwall. I also thoroughly enjoyed the lake district and north Wales. Peak district OK too. Can't go wrong on south coast or Devon. Vacations can be done here very cost effectively as well (airbnb!)

Didn't mention London but that of course as well (not greatly fond of big cities， myself but been surprised for the good e.g. Liverpool, Chester, Bath)

(not worth the risk as I don't know the ruled but Jersey is incredible and there is NO passport control between Jersey and UK)

[hamalt66]

Hi everyone,
Just as many other people on this forum I have been trapped in this recent hostage experiment. More than 5 months since applied and 80 days after the interview. almost out of money and have absolutely no interest to invest more until the hostage situation is resolved. On the other hand, I might be forced to withdraw my application as I can not keep losing money like this and also to prevent a serious damage to my health. In my opinion, this is a serious crime. This level of stress over long period of time can cause lifetime mental health problems or even death. As withdrawl might become my only choice in few months does anyone know any UK, EU or international organisation that I can report to before withdrawal and follow it up when I am back in my country? Any input is highly appreciated.
Best of luck to all

I totally understand your frustration. I'm into my 7th month myself of a mentally excruciating pain of waiting, not able to visit my ill mother back home or take my kids on a much needed vacation; especially since we didn't have a vacation for the last 3 years as I was very busy setting up the business . But I guess there's nothing one can do but wait. I am crossing my fingers a decision will be sent out very soon, and hopefully a positive one. Good luck all.

Sorry about your ill mom and hope she gets better. But in regards to vacation. You can have great vacations within the UK. Scotland is just so special, as is Cornwall. I also thoroughly enjoyed the lake district and north Wales. Peak district OK too. Can't go wrong on south coast or Devon. Vacations can be done here very cost effectively as well (airbnb!)

Didn't mention London but that of course as well (not greatly fond of big cities， myself but been surprised for the good e.g. Liverpool, Chester, Bath)

(not worth the risk as I don't know the ruled but Jersey is incredible and there is NO passport control between Jersey and UK)

Thanks Seasky, yes I agree, there are lots of nice places to visit here in the uk and we did that every school holiday in the last 3 years since we arrived here; however, what I meant by our needed vacation (perhaps I should've made it clearer) is visiting home for our kids to see their grandparents, their cousins and other relatives (Aunts & Uncles etc).

We applied for our visa extension in April 2016, and I thought (as the HO website says) it won't take more than 8 weeks before we got our passports back to go on a much needed holiday as I worked hard for 3 years to set up the business and have it running, which I am glad to say it is now running nicely and started making profit already.

We come from a beautiful sunny country with lovely beaches and nice summer time weather. So we aimed at the school's summer holiday (July - August) to do that, but unfortunately we kept waiting and waiting. The month of May has passed, June, July and August also have passed, and of course school started in September so you can imagine all the disappointment the kids had. In addition to have a break, we also wanted to renew our passports back home, although when we applied they were fine with more than 6 or 7 months validity on them, but now we'll be thinking of going home missing school as it would take up to two weeks to get new passports done.

Anyways, bottom line, it's not just business trips (which are needed by some businesses) or vacations that are disrupted by this unnecessary delays, but also important family needs and other important stuff that people need to take care of. Therefore I totally understand the frustrations of other entrepreneurs here in the forum and do believe that this horrible delay is unjustified. In my opinion, the whole thing shouldn't take more than 2-4 weeks... sorry for the long reply.

[sameerb]

you said it my friend anthrprs. Waking up every morning with hope and going to bed every night with disappointment. Doing this everyday for months and months can break anyone down.

besides that I have noticed even after the interviews HO rejecting application for missing documents. we all used to believe that getting an interview call is a positive sign in a sense that they didn't find any faults in paperwork. even that belief is now false.

i was listening to news and there is this charity citizen watch or something that is working for people living in Calais jungle and they press HO to process their applications faster. that charity thinks making those calais camp people wait more than 3 months is inhuman!! so what about us?? are we in worse position then people living in calais jungle?

[seasky]

c'mon we are in the UK running our businesses... nothing like the Calais jungle

(saying that, I am quite naive here, why do they want to come to UK and not stay in France??)

[noajthan]

There is no need to go into the jungle.

In the words of the immortal Gandalf:

You must stay on the path, do not leave it. If you do, you’ll never find it again.

[hamalt66]

There is no need to go into the jungle.

In the words of the immortal Gandalf:

You must stay on the path, do not leave it. If you do, you’ll never find it again.

LOL