canadianwoman said:
Bangcockcanuck: when you filed a formal complaint and appealed the decision, what exactly did you do? Did you insist on seeing someone higher up, and they actually let you do so? Or did you write a letter to the embassy? I heard of one case where a person refused a visitor visa applied for a jedicial review of the decision. He won, but it took a year or so before the case was heard, and he needed a lawyer.
It seems just assuming all visitor visa applicants are lying is the rule in the USA as well. I found this quote from the website of the US embassy in Malaysia: "The presumption in the law is that every visitor visa applicant is an intending immigrant."
I actually had to file out a form for the formal complaint and did that right on the spot with the girl behind the reception counter.
For the appeal they gave us a checklist of things we needed to prove that showed we were established in Bangkok and intended to return. The common stuff, business ownership, house ownership, car etc..etc... we of course met all the criteria. We had an email address on the checklist paper we were supposed to send the info to. I did so that night, the next day someone from the Embassy called me to talk about the interview and the appeal. They asked me if we could provide paper proof of everything we claimed we had on the checklist.. I dropped off 400 page of documents, they gave us the Visa then next day so roughly 48 hours after we asked to appeal.
The funniest part of the process was we were never actually told why we were turned down. The woman in the interview just said I not believe you come back, you bad girl.. prove you come back. That was it.. no direction no reason just a really crappy attitude when we explained to her boss on the phone he more or less admitted she screwed up and gave us the chance to prove what we claimed.
As for the formal complaint I talked to a couple of people further of the food chain and they agreed that "maybe" the interviewer was a little bit harsh in her methods and they would talk to her but little more than that.
Of course the second time we went for the visitor's visa we were in that morning and had the Visa that afternoon very much a rubber stamp.