VFS Global - Edinburgh Leith, Edinburgh

Reviews

1. ALIDA JOY ★☆☆☆☆

   I arrived at the visa centre at 8:00 a.m., and I was the first customer to arrive that day. My wife and I had a valid appointment, for which we paid £39.60 per person. We also made additional arrangements, including booking hotels and flights, based on this appointment. After completing all required forms, I approached a male staff member seated in the Iceland office cabin, who was responsible for assisting applicants. Unfortunately, his behavior was extremely unprofessional and unhelpful. Instead of providing proper guidance, he repeatedly instructed me to obtain new application forms. Even after I complied and brought the new forms, he continued to ask for additional documents one after another, causing unnecessary delays. Throughout the interaction, his attitude was rude, unfriendly, and dismissive. He appeared to be deliberately frustrating customers rather than assisting them. Eventually, he told me that I should leave, cancel my application, and book a new appointment for another day, despite the fact that I had arrived early and followed all instructions given. When I explained that I had travelled from far away, he stated that the visa centre was “closing soon” and that he did not have time. However, upon checking, I found that the centre was scheduled to close at 3:30 p.m., which made his statement misleading and unjustified. This experience caused significant stress, inconvenience, and financial impact. As paying customers, we expected a basic level of respect, professionalism, and assistance, which we did not receive. Due to this very poor experience, I have decided not to use the Edinburgh Visa Application Centre again, and I will not recommend it to others. I believe this matter should be taken seriously, and I request that appropriate action be taken to address the staff member’s behavior to prevent similar experiences for other applicants.

   almost 6 months ago
2. ahm albed ★☆☆☆☆

   Ms. Ponnovium Shanmugam, Deputy Manager, demonstrated an unhelpful and unprofessional attitude. The overall service was extremely poor, reflecting very weak management standards. The staff were unusually slow and inefficient. Despite having a Switzerland visa appointment scheduled for 10:15, I was forced to wait for approximately 75 minutes without any clear explanation or effective assistance. Such a level of service is unacceptable and falls well below expected professional standards. This matter requires immediate attention and corrective action.

   almost 7 months ago
3. Sanele Hlophe ★☆☆☆☆

   Awful experience with the centre. Flew over from Northern Ireland for my appointment on the 1st of December and they’d left us a note that said the centre was closed on the day. When I rang the call centre I was offered a walk through the following day. I spent nearly £200 to reschedule my flight and book overnight accommodation. Walked through the following day and waited about 5 hours and when I got to a person who was dealing with applications I was told my form was wrong and asked for extra documents which aren’t listed on the checklist list from the Swiss government. I was given 30 minutes to gather everything which I couldn’t and I was told my application would not be accepted. Staff have no courtesy or care. This was my second experience in this centre and it far surpassed my previous bad experience. Centre needs complete overhaul to provide any services as currently its awful

   almost 7 months ago

1. Binu Sekhar ★★★★★

   At the VFS Global centre in Leith, Edinburgh, long waiting times on the day of their appointment, Even when arriving on time, as only one staff member is usually available to handle a large number of people. While the staff was helpful and efficient, Appointment availability for Italy is very limited, with slots hard to secure even when trying months in advance, while external agents seem able to obtain and sell them more easily. We are asked to provide additional documents not clearly listed on the official website or checklist, which creates last-minute stress. The lack of a nearby photocopying facility (the closest being about a mile away in a library) adds further inconvenience, and using VFS Global’s in-house services for copies or printing can be costly.

   almost 9 months ago
2. Julius Blomme ★☆☆☆☆

   "Used" their services four times now, over the span of 5 years. First of all, booking an appointment on the VFS website is an awful experience: it throws random errors, requiring you to restart from the beginning. Personally, I tried to place a booking 12 times for my latest visit, after which it simply said I had already made an appointment. There is no way to call the Edinburgh site so I emailed. They then asked for information I had already provided in my email. After no response for a good while, I solved it by creating another account with a different email address. Then I was contacted again by VFS Global, where they offered an appointment for a different service. I informed them of their mistake and after a few days they contacted me again and offered another appointment for the right service with the wrong details. If they had taken 2 minutes to read the correspondence none of this would have happened. As other reviews allude to: every effort is made to make you use their additional paid services. Photocopies cost extra. Use of internet, printer or a PC costs extra. VFS Global do not inform you beforehand of any extra costs they incur, so expect to just be billed some random amount with some dodgy justification. My passport photos have been rejected twice now, but conveniently the staff member's friend is a photographer and has a shop nearby. Also, the photo booth which is actually on-site has been out of service in the 5 years I have visited. Shocker. When I visited the country's own application location, they accepted the passport photos without hesitation. There are three(!) parking spots for customers to use. Expect to park a good distance away, most likely at the Ocean Terminal. Not once did they keep to the appointment times: waiting times varied from 30 to 60 minutes after the actual appointment time. Staff turnover seems to be very high here: employees always only have several months' experience (supposedly) and it certainly shows in their knowledge about the application process. If you can avoid VFS Global Edinburgh, I would highly recommend doing so. Even if another solution costs extra because you never know how much you'll be paying this time...

   almost 3 years ago
3. Alex Smith ★☆☆☆☆

   Visited in late August. Whole place is just a printing scam. Entire service is designed so you 100% need to use their overpriced printer. Think you've printed everything? They'll ask for additional info not mentioned in any of their prep advice. They refuse emails or showing confirmations etc on phone screens. If they accepted this then their scam wouldn't work! I took my partner here for her Schengen Visa. We printed everything in advance, or so we thought. I'm a Brit, she's not. You can either book everything at risk for the visa application or there are services to plan itineraries for ~£100. We'd already started booking flights when we found out about the latter so we just pressed on. We had booked 4 weeks from the application date which was a Friday, and they "guaranteed" a turnaround within 21 days, but THEY FAILED TO TURN IT AROUND IN THIS TIME. Calling them, I discovered they only sent it to the embassy on the Monday. Their website still says they guarantee to pass it on within 24 hours, so BOTH THESE GUARANTEES ARE LIES. It took them 6 weeks to do the schengen visa in the end. We had 3 trips planned. 2 hotels were booked under my name, not hers, so they made her amend them. Then reprint the booking confirmation. They would not accept her showing them the amendments on her phone. Everything had to be printed, a complete waste of time, effort, money, and paper. The on-site printer computer costs £3 per 15 minutes to use, plus 50p per page of A4. Black and white only. There is a big copier with signage but this is NOT the printer: the small printer is behind this copier. Anyway, printing: You top up £3 a time, no change or refunds. Top up by card, and yes the clock keeps counting down while you enter your card info. Whwn we went, there was only 1 working computer, of 2. I queued for 30 mins to print for her. Someone added too much and accidentally paid for everyone else's printing. They received no refund. You print from your email. There is no print preview: you must hope it comes out okay. No refunds. There is an alternative: 8 min walk, in a shopping mall, is a Kodak Express. I paid £5 for 20 pages of A4. Far cheaper. At vfs, expect to pay £10 for maybe only 2 or 3 pages, depending on how quick you are with the printing from emails. Note: the computers are also very slow to load. They made her print a photo of her with the person she was staying with on 1 trip, as part of her application. This was not required in any of the prep advice given, and was obviously only requested to bleed more cash from us. This was when I went to Kodak instead. Other services were okay on the day: when my partner's booking info needed amending etc, they gave her an hour to do so. They didnt just reject her and make her book a new appt, at least. Still, they didn't initally let me enter the building, they don't allow use of phones or laptops inside, there is nothing in the area (built on part of an outer harbour, nothing nearby except the mall 8 mins walk away). They let me stay indoors when I volunteered to help others on the PCs when none of the staff would. All staff seemed stressed out or indifferent. There are no smiles in this place. As above, they were late turning the application around, meaning we had to push our flights back by 3 weeks. They gave no update AT ALL as to when it would arrive. One day her passport was just returned through the post out of the blue. They couldn't tell us anything. Their customer service line is a premium phone number which cost me about £11 to call as well. Every facet of this business is basically a scam and it doesn't need to be this way at all. If you cannot avoid it: Start applying as early as possible, print anything and everything you might need and separate it from the must-haves, including scans of IDs of anyone you plan to visit, photos of you with them. Maybe you can get through and avoid the printer this way. Don't bother trying to get an update from them when they're later, they don't have a clue.

   almost 3 years ago

1. Manjinder Sahota ★★★★★

   Today, I visited for the second time for my kids passport submission. I really like Edinburgh VFS staff. Very nice, polite and friendly staff. They also help us and guid us.

   almost 3 years ago
2. Subin Raju ★★★★★

   The staff are extremely helpful. Never met so helpful staff in Indian embassy. I had a return flight to catch and the staff helped me with the paperwork for surrender of Indian passport and not just me but the staff were helping everyone with uncompleted or missing information. I would like to mention the 3 ladies who were at the counter helping with the documentation process, unfortunately I do not know their names. I hope their service is acknowledged by their employer. Great work team Edinburgh. Keep up the good work. Thanks VFSglobal Edinburgh team.

   almost 3 years ago
3. Susanne Craik ★★★★★

   Having read some really bad reviews prior to attending our appointment, we weren't expecting much and were prepared for delays. Our experience was far better than expected. We arrived early for our 11.45am appointment, around 11.15am. Got our ticket from reception and made our way into the India Visa waiting room. There were a few people ahead of us but both booths that were serving made there way through those in front of us relatively quickly. When we were called the gentleman serving us was swift and accurate and clearly knew what he was doing. He was also very pleasant to deal with. We were out the door by 11.45am. Also, I had read reviews about there being no toilets available which worried me if we were going to be the for hours! There were toilets available so nothing for anyone to worry about there. I can see how a backlog can happen if people don't come prepared with the right paperwork which we witnessed. This isn't a fault of those serving but of Customers. Be diligent, know what's expected and have it ready. Hopefully we receive our tourist visas within the next week.

   almost 3 years ago

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