mrwilko

I checked the status of my escalation ticket this morning and the status is now "REFERRED". I am not sure what this means, but my GE Application is still showing "Pending Review".

60613Flyer

Applied 5/1
Email notifying application status change received 8/30 - CA received

Now have to figure out where to do an interview as nothing available in Chicago. Of course CA came through two days AFTER I was in Nogales AZ where there is no wait for interviews!

Duck930

AboutTreeFiddy

Also applied early May and still waiting. To escalate you need to call 877-227-5511 and follow prompts (6/1/4/0). It may take multiple tries and may get a message that the number doesn't work. Eventually you'll connect to a person who will create a ticket, and you'll get an email with a case number. Can't do anything with that number though. Current quoted resolution times for escalations are 3-8 weeks.

ikev85

Applied: 6th July 2019
CA: 15th July 2019
Interview: originally scheduled for the 15th of August, moved to the 24th
Approved: 24th August 2019
Card Rec’d 30th August 2019

Painless for me other than having to drive ~3hrs to the nearest enrollment center, as my state had no locations available.

lvgrl

Applied: May 2
CA: September 3
Email: Yes, at 3:10am

Closest interview location has no slots until January 2020, so now I will make the 4 hours drive north to a location that has interview slots available next week.

1KChinito

Check for cancellations at your desired enrollment center daily and frequently, especially when that enrollment center is open. Very likely you will find something suitable in three days or sooner. Good luck.

maztron

maztron

crunchie

Just completed the entire thing without escalation. Here's my timeline.

Applied: 04/09/2019
CA (with email notification on status change): 07/25/2019
Interview: 08/23/2019
Approval (with email notification): 08/24/2019
Card arrival: 08/31/2019

Total days from application to CA: 107
Days from interview to approval reflected in account (and email received): 1
Days to receiving GE card from approval: 7

Having worked on perf tuning for a few auto-processing systems, I suspect online GE applications are put through a long list of automated checks. If any one of them fails, regardless of what actually failed, it gets routed to a separate queue for detailed review. Fail here could be anything from potential match with a criminal record to an error on the routing code of your zip+4 code. Given the number of applications and available CBP staff to process them, once you fail automation, you're in for a long wait. Those without fails go through cursory human review and approval which explains the 3-7 days variation.

Good luck to others still waiting. Now you have one more data point on the ~110 days cycle.

harryca

Good analysis. So basically whether you got a typo in your name (who would do that, but still, maybe a typo in zip+4) or a criminal record, you move from 10-30 day to 120 day queue. And maybe maybe maybe if they just add 2-5% more people to check out this backlogged queue (from the queueing theory), the wait time could go down to half in almost no time (maybe a couple of months). Taking totally random numbers, let us say they have a capacity to handle 100 exceptions per day and they are getting 102 apps per day, so they keep slowing down. Change the capacity to be higher than intake and queue will start clearing.

Waiting at 115 days. Filed May 11, 2019.

Majuki

It's queuing theory in action.

dugfresh

Applied: April 30th 2019
Escalated: No
CA: August 26th 2019 - 119 days - Received email with status update
Interview: Sept. 4th 2019 - I checked availability daily after CA and finally found a date (interview lasted less than 10 min)
Approved: Sept. 5th 2019 - Received email with status update

lvgrl

I am so glad for the advice to keep checking for cancellations. Thank you! I now have an interview scheduled for next week at my desired location and I don't have to make the 4 hours drive north.

Dubzski