Indian e-Visa for UK citizens - problems
 

Is anyone else experiencing online problems? My application proceeds right up to the payment page, accepts my credit card but fails to collect the approved amount from my bank. I thought maybe my bank was blocking it, but they say they see the sum requested and there are no problems with the card nor account but the other bank fails to complete the transaction.

have you tried using a different browser????i know someone who was having problems with the payment page earlier this year & it worked once they tried a different browser....

Yes: I usually use Chrome but did try on IE5 with no success there either. I did get advice that the payment connection was through State Bank of India in Mumbai where the completion then failed. Later on that the application has now been cancelled because too many payment attempts have been made and a new application must be created. There are Non Govt Agencies that will do the application, for a fee, anything up to double the cost of the basic one.

How do you upload photos? use one of your existing passport size photo or the regular 4x6 inch size photo to scan on your printer and upload it?

It is pretty straight forward. You will be asked to chose a suitable photo and can browse your PC files to find a JPEG file. If you don't already have something suitable a photo taken on your smartphone can be used. Maybe not all smartphones but certainly the iPhone. You just have to get the background shadow free and you can crop the photo to the right size then send it to your computer and so forth. You don't have to bother about the 4x6 dimensions, just the file size.

Thanks. I have pics taken from my new iphone and have other pics saved on my PC but they are casual pics and these are not OK right?

If it means cropping and editing, I am not good at these but I will try as I have to.

It needs to be a photo taken specifically for passport and other ID purposes. Plain shadow free background, full frontal face and so on.
Stand a few feet in front of a plain wall, preferably white or very pastel hued in a well lit room, well in front to avoid shadows. No flash. Choose the best of several exposures and edit it on the iPhone. If you are looking at the photo on your phone you will see 'edit' as an option. You can play with this and you will see tools to adjust the exposure and contrast to get the background etc exactly right, and to crop the photo down to exact head and shoulders format. Send the adjusted photo to your PC and you are there.

Same payment problem - did you solve yours?
 

Hi there, I've got the same payment problem and wonder if you solved yours, and if so how?
I've tried different browsers, different computers, different credit cards and have also gone to the bother of re-applying a couple of times (I think you only get three goes on the payment). Nothing seems to work. It goes all the way through to the very last screen, after the 3d secure credit card page and at that point the transaction fails and I get a Page Will Not Load screen and a bundle of error messages. I know my credit cards are fine.

If anyone solves this for me (the help service has been hopeless - they just send messages to State Bank of India, who ignore them) then I'll gladly make a £30 donation to the UK charity of your choice!

Best wishes, Jon in London

Hi there - did you manage to solve this. I've had the same problem. Gnash, gnash... Jon

I was going to try again this evening, having given them to chance to fix any known glitch, but after reading your posts will give that attempt a miss. I have a good two weeks before departure, but if it is not corrected soon will have to try the commercial route at extra cost or get a standard visa.

i sent an email to the Indian High Commission here in London asking if they were aware of the problem.
If anyone manages to complete a payment do post a report here, please.

tried again today, no joy
 

Tried again to pay for my evisas this morning. Different credit card, different computer, whole new set of application forms. Continues to fail after the very last 3D secure screen. I get an error message about the website (ie the State Bank of India) not being available.

I know others have made this e-visa service work - I wish you could tell me how! For me it's been worse than useless because I've spent so much time trying and failing with it.

I received no reply to my email to the Indian High Commission here in London. I called their Public Response Unit this morning, an interesting exercise. Their phone is answered but silent. If you hang on to what seems like a dead line for a couple of minutes a recorded voice tells you that you are in a queue but they are experiencing high demand so just hold on. There are then several minutes of silence but you have not been cutoff, the voice repeats its message and so it goes. I gave up after 30-40 mins.
I wondered if UK applications were being help up to divert income to their designated visa operation. Maybe an evil thought but these things can happen. I made an application using my Antipodean passport but again payment failed so as I need some finality I have gone commercial and it was completed in less than an hour. I have a print out and can relax.

Also have the same issue. I can't even get to the 3d secure part of the payment.

Tell me, are you able to see the 'Billing Details' tab and enter your address? That's where I'm failing. The only way I can get that tab to show is accessing the site via my mobile, but then I can't actually select the tab.

I was able to apply for 3 people by just clearing history= cookies, caches.
try it it will work

I can do the application fine, it's just the payment that I can't do. Have tried clearing cache/history etc. and have tried on 3 PC's. Nothing works.

Eventually I used a US based commercial site and collected my e-visa very promptly but a quite a hefty premium. However it saved me the hastle of having to report to the visa-office here in London for a regular visa.
The US site was simplicity itself.

I ended up bouncing through a connection in Australia. Same credit card, same details, etc. and payment went through first time without any issue. All very odd.

I've seen various reports on TripAdvisor as well of using a company called Visa Genie to do it and they're not too badly priced (£65 all up I think).

Worked for me with MBNA AA UK card just a few days ago. Went through to 3D secure but nothing required and was approved. Before that tried with the Travelex Supercard and this failed.

keep using different credit cards.

It is nice that we can do this online but it is very expensive.

we are staying only a week in india and we have young toddler and paid almost $62 for each of us. India's neighbor Nepal don't charge fees for infants or toddlers.

Use of the e-Visa at DEL
 

On arrival passengers with e-Visas are directed to a separate location in the immigration hall. The line ahead of us was very short, maybe 10 people in all, but progress was disappointingly slow. They collect biometric data and the finger print registration screens were being difficult. One passenger in front of me took almost ten minutes to complete the finger print bit while the official leant acoss his counter over and over again to polish the screen. This was happening at several of the four or five counters open. When it was our turn we were not fingerprinted and I guess that this was because we had a 'proper' visa issued earlier in the year and the data collected then was still on record. For us the processing time was 1-2 minutes.

Doesn't mirror my experience on the 24th. Two separate queues, (oh why oh why - just have one!), I joined the shorter one and even with 4 people in front was out of there within a few minutes. Providing my biometrics was painless.

Reports suggest that getting an e-visa is still hit and miss but using 3G or 4G instead of Wi-Fi is a work-around that might do the trick. The fee may have come down too. That would make persisting more attractive, rather than just giving up and getting a regular visa.

Indian e-Visa for UK citizens - problems
 

Just a data point worked fine today using Natwest debit card

If I stated in eTV application that my intended airport of arrival in India is BOM. However, due to change of scheduling I arrived in DEL as my first point of entry in India. Will the immigration officials at DEL accept that and let me in without any trouble?

You can enter from any of the 16 designated entry airports, regardless of what you stated in your application.