Chinese Visa Direct

SpicyDuck

SpicyDuck

SpicyDuck

Soldato
Joined
10 Dec 2003
Posts
6,347
Stupidly, I didn't look into getting a visa properly until yesterday and it appears the lovely Chinese like to make it as difficult as possible. I can't use traditional methods as my local travel agents don't do this service and I don't live in London. Any other methods are too slow as I travel to China a week today.

Has anyone used these guys:

http://www.chinesevisadirect.co.uk/

The website is a little n00bish and I'm kinda concerned about handing over £90 and my passport to them. I've read their FAQ and they answer the question of why they're trustworthy, but can anyone see any reason why it might not be legit?

*stressed and dying* :o

Thanks,

Phil.
 
No, don't send your money willy-nilly. As ^^ says above, get ye to an official embassy-type place. Whereabouts are you going anyhow - is it for business or pleasure? Do you know any zhongwen?
 
Paying on the day it probably will be - probably more than you would pay that bunch.

But you are running out of time, do you really want to be phoning someone the day before you fly screaming for your passport and visa?

You get up early, splash the cash and get down to London, you get to the consulate and spend the day filling forms and hanging around - you go home *knowing* everything is fine, you relax.

I know what I'd do.
 
Telescopi said:
Paying on the day it probably will be - probably more than you would pay that bunch.

But you are running out of time, do you really want to be phoning someone the day before you fly screaming for your passport and visa?

You get up early, splash the cash and get down to London, you get to the consulate and spend the day filling forms and hanging around - you go home *knowing* everything is fine, you relax.

I know what I'd do.
Click to expand...

Excactly what I'd do as well.
 
I was sensible and applied for mine at the Chinese embassy by post weeks before the setting off date.
:) Do that in future.

Don't do it now though. It took over a week to arrive.
 
a week today? Good luck with that. Haven't you had this moving to china thing planned for ages?

the website is most likely legit, i did some webdesign work for a visa company based in london who do the same service and their website was terrible too.

best regards, i seriously hope you get to china (i myself am just leaving hong kong this week!)
 
go to london in the morning, drop of passport fill in forms and pay cash.

Have a day in london milling around, go back and collect a few hours later.

That's what we usually do.
 
Coming to London early in the morning and going to the embassy directly would be the fastest and safest (surest) way by far. Remember that sending it off really leaves no room for things to go wrong.
 
If you decide to go to london and book early enough in advance (say a couple of days) Virgin trains should be pretty cheap. I know I get £10 single tickets for Manchester to London by booking a week in advance...so might be looking at £20 each way maybe?
 
CVD said:
One comment though - is the website really terrible? :(
All I can say in my defence is that when we started up in business last year, it was much worse!
Click to expand...

One thing that jumps out if the animated clipart, and the fact the whole site looks like a scam especialy with just offering PayPal, you need a proper merchant system.
 
Don't they deliver, or is it just a takeaway service?















That was scraping the barrel, even for me.

Roll on the weekend, I say.

I hope you have fun in China. At the very least, a better trip than I had.

CVD said:
...
Click to expand...

</claimed>

 
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you know...its actually quite nice to see a company director go to the lengths of signing up for a forum etc to get feedback on his website and the like, especially having gone to the effort of tracking the forum down whilst checking for fraud...

nice one :)
 
Woops, I never received any replies in this thread at first and I really needed to make a decision at the time.

Going to London would've been the safest way but I had so much more to do. I took my chances and used their site. The turnaround was amazing and the whole thing was completed amazingly fast! :)

CVD, I'm sorry that I had to post this thread regarding your business, but it was in no way a personal attack on the company or anything like that. I was just looking for some confirmation that the site was ok.

I'm actually a freelance web developer and, if you like, I can tell you all about why the site is not very good. Just send me an email and I'll reply. This way, it keeps business promotion off of the forums, which is against the rules. :)

Anyway, I did indeed get the Visa and I leave for China on Tuesday at 7am... so, tomorrow is my last day in Britain for a year, at least; I'm going over there to teach English at a public school in Shenzhen, south China. Just a ferry ride from Hong Kong, woo hoo! Very excited and thanks for all the wishing well-ness! :)
 
Hope all goes well for you mate! Best of luck for the future and hope to hear from you again!

Josh
 
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