CKGS Application Centre San Francisco

I was applying for OCI in lieu of PIO. I had to go to the CKGS office in San Francisco twice as I had missed out on one document. Both times, the reception staff (different ladies on two days) were professional and helpful. Abigail, who processed the application paperwork for me, was super efficient, polite and courteous. Thanks for the great experience.

Lousy? A good word? Both call center numbers are not working 516−206−1483 /​646−589−0088. I have been trying for days now.

This rating is for customer service.
There is no response ever.
I called the helpline number and even after 1 hour of call, no representative.
I submitted my complaint twice via website feedback section, still no response.
My question was simple that why CKGS is asking for ORIGINAL MOTHER US VISA STATUS DOCUMENT.
Whereas only COPY is requried per checklist.
No one is answering this question and i am afraid if i should send the original documents to them.
Regards,
Parmeet.

I have to admit, after having a bad experience with the website I was very skeptical about the whole process. But other than the glitch in the website, everything else was seamless. After I handed over my application, I received regular email and text alerts about the status of my application and 7 business days from the day I handed over my passport application at the CKGS center, my new passport was in my possession. Nicely done.

HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE…
the worst service I ever had in my life. I have been filing OCI in lieu of PIO for my twin daughters, I have applied and reapplied 3 – 4 times, they rejected my applications again, every time they reject the application for no apparent reason with no clear details. Intrusions on the site to fill application is a total JOKE. They haven’t responded to my refund request for both application for over a month now. I have spent more than $ 200 just in cost for notary and shipping. call center team has different answer for same question. its a disaster, completely unmanaged system or system with no apparent leaders. I have been to many places but this is the worst Visa process center. No service, no instructions, horrible call center and no refund at all. They don’t bother to follow up or provide details as to what needs to be done. ONE LINE or ONE WORD rejections don’t help.
How can a picture and signature be accepted online (when you upload) but application rejected based on small signature.
#2–
Sent all details as asked by Rocky to email address listed below

Inst there a zero star?
Applied for a re-​issue of OCI for a lost OCI Card. CKGS and/​or CGI SF asking for absurd meaningless documents that are not even in the list of documents posted on their own website.
And their phone lines are supposed to be open for public from 2PM to 4:30 PM at extension 148. But there is noone at this number ever. It goes to a voicemail which is full. Seriously… try it…(415) 668‑0662
And this is while it is aache din…

Leave it to the Indian government to hire the worst and most incapable company to mediate for consular services. CKGS reps give inconsistent information. Their website has so many flaws which then results in delay. The so called «checklist» I printed was incomplete. Imagine if I wasn’t diligent I’d have sent incomplete documents and then they would’ve delayed my application. They also don’t know what they’re doing. Their reps tell you one thing, their site tells you another and their processing center is on a whole other planet. Kudos Indian government on consistently being ineffective and a joke.

ZERO stars if that were an option. The webiste is awful — the only thing worse is their horrendeous phone system which tells you the expected wait time is either under or over a random number and never changes (I say random becuase 5 of the last 5 times I’ve called the wait time has been triple or quadruple what I was told). Too bad we’re stuck using the guys — they are doing the entire country of India and all of us Indians a huge disservice.

I made a mistake on my application, and CKGS support told me that I could simply cancel my application and submit a refund request, and my request would be fulfilled. I checked the website two weeks later and found that my refund had been rejected! Now I am out $ 400… Customer service is impossible to contact.

OMG the site, the whole process is so horrible. I feel like cancelling my air ticket instead of dealing with this piece of crap. Really a nightmare, filled the application 1000 times and the site keeps throwing errors even when I am sure that I am doing it right. This is the price you pay for being born in India. Close to 280 dollars for this hell like service. Where is God? A paper application would have been very welcome as the site doesn’t let you proceed without questioning your intelligence again and again. Who designed this application Site? Devil himself

Worst customer service I have ever seen. CKGS simply sucks when it comes to attending customer calls and helping customers. They are rude and mean. No matter when you call them you are put on hold for atleast 30 mintues. And if you call 5 customer reps and ask them same question, you get 5 different answers. This is the reason why most of the applications are put on hold and its the customers who have to suffer as CKGS asks them to send documents again wasting customer’s time and money and hence slowing down whole process. If you guys clearly state about what exactly you need, people won’t suffer. The other reviews on Unilocal align with what I have encountered. These reps lack courtesy and are so blunt when they talk. I am not sure why Govt of India gave them contract for passports and OCIs. The previous agency BLS was much better.
I hope Govt. of India does something about CKGS.
Update: I got a generic reply on this review from the manager. He has just copied his previous reply that he posted on other reviews and pasted it to mine. I already emailed them but no reply yet. No courtesy, no obligating, no credibility. CKGS: You will be doomed soon.

I have traveled to over 170 cities around the world and have never had seen anything as terrible as this in terms of visa process.
0 stars for the website, 0 stars for service. I have applied 5 TIMES in total. Each time, the CKGS site is either down or does not recognize my application, even though I have evidence that my application was submitted via a web reference number and application ID (and even a downloaded PDF of the completed application). As mentioned in other reviews here, there are 2 websites that one must go through to complete the application form and they don’t talk to each other well at all (after going to the CKGS website and complete the application there and am transferred to complete my application on the India government’s site, the session will just expire and not return me to the CKGS website (even though the India Government website shows that my application was successfully submitted). I have sent numerous emails to CKGS, called their offices, and went through their contact us/​feedback form. I either get no response (they never pick up there phone — the 15 minute wait keeps cycling over and over), or if I do here a response (only via email), there is a ton of back of forth and my questions never get closed out or they tell me to complete the application again! I can understand technology is not perfect, but to have the system constantly not working is ridiculous. At this rate, I may have to adjust my travel plans as I am concerned I may not be able to get a visa.

Pathetic service, worst employees, absolutely no coordination at all between what they tell on phone and what they reply in email for insufficient documentation. Every time you call them there is more than hour long wait just to get someone on line. And before that they don’t even have appropriate queue for call wait, sometime call just disconnects telling all the employees are busy attending other customers, what the hell CKGS are you kidding me?
Absolutely no professional courtesy at all, bunch of unmannered, irresponsible shitty people working there who think they are bigger than anyone else.

This a review of their website for visa and the OCI process.
Just one word– TERRIBLE.
Cannot believe in this day and age this level of openly visible incompetence being displayed publicly by an outsourced organization. Absolutely no accountability for services delivered. We have spent hours trying to get an online visa application– which for whatever reason is the most complicated series of links and hoops since the advent of the industrial era.
The OCI process– sigh!!! A long drawn process with the folks at the CKGS center acting as go betweens with the Indian Gov, but with no answers or authority, except to reject stuff with a very black and white approach to everything.
Sigh! If someone from the Indian Consulate in San Francisco is reading this– Please fire these guys or someone at the consulate that made the choice to subject the peace loving Indian and Non Indian citizens whose only wish is to go to India and see their relatives and boost the economy while doing so.
What the shuck are you thinking!

Horrible experience!
I applied to get OCI for my kid and it bounced back to me after a month saying that there is a missing document and I got to restart the process from beginning. I called their support to find why no communication and we figured that they misspelled my email ID and I never receive any mails.
When the email ID is the important piece for all communication, how they can do these silly mistake. Also, what is the guarantee for accuracy of other information? The support guy on the phone insisted me to file a complaint in the website. I did it and got a response after a week saying «Your application has been withdrawn and you need to submit again!». Dude. I knew that already and I’m filing the complaint only because of that. Did you really read my complaint? I don’t think filing complaint will make any difference!
Finally, I resubmitted my documents and their website created shipment label with old web reference number. I got to file another case to get my amount refunded. Now they have refunded only 50% and I have no clue why. AGAIN!!! I asked them for the reason and still they are responding.

Atrocious service with a monopolistic attitude.
Applied for my Indian renunciation and OCI card. Its $ 190 each! I had sent 2 self-​addressed and paid USPS envelopes to help things.
Got the OCI card back, but they didnt send me the renunciation (which should have happened before). They didnt even know that, till I inquired. Then every week they would claim they are talking to different teams and giving me different information ranging from we are sending you the cert to we have to ask another team — but eventually coming back with a request for me to pay for a courier service for them to send the renunciation certificate back.
That is extortion! Not customer service.
They did not use either of my USPS envelopes, wouldnt take responsibility and the going back and forth has been for 5 weeks now.
Ofcourse it is the only option — so they act in monopolistic ways. If I could sue, i would.
Really disgusting to work with them.

I have to rate the various aspects of the Visa process separately as they vary vastly in quality.
1. The CKGS website: Rating: 0 Stars (can i give –ve Stars?)
The form on the site tries to serve as a front-​end to the Consulate site, intending to be helpful, but is absolutely the WORST. I am sure there are High School students that can construct a better web experience. Here are some examples:
— by default, the form takes you to «Tourist» visa. There is no obvious way to select a different type of visa. The only way I found was to go to the footer of the page and click on the link for the appropriate type of visa (eg: Entry). Why is this not a very simple drop-​down selection at the top of the form?
— if you enter incorrect information by mistake, there is no way to go back and change it. You have to start a new application. In 2016, really?!
— It asks for irrelevant information that even the Consulate does not require (eg: spouse’s old nationality timeline!).
— there is absolutely no consistency between the various pages. Simple things like «Date of Birth» are forced as drop-​down calendar selections, making them very tedious. In one instance, you have to go back a month at a time! So if you are 30 years old, you will have to click 30×12 = 360 times to get to your birthdate. Which moron designed that?!
— there are some basic checks between the CKGS form and Consulate form. If there is a discrepancy, you can only change the Consulate form, NOT the CKGS form… why?
As a result, I ended up filling this form 4 times before I got it right.
2. Indian Consulate Online Visa Form: Rating: 4 Stars
For a change, the Indian Consulate form is pretty straightforward. For the most part, the fields are self explanatory and require simple text entry. If you have all the information handy, it should take under 10 minutes.
3. CKGS Office experience: Rating: 5 Stars
The CKGS office is very convenient to get to. There is paid parking next door. Everyone at the office is extremely helpful. I dont quite understand why you have to take a token when you have an appointment, but since I took an early morning appointment, I did not have to wait too long. My token number was called about 15 minutes past my scheduled appointment time. The lady who accepted my application was very professional, reviewed the paperwork, asked for and added documents that I had missed and the whole process took me less than 10 minutes.
I received regular updates on the application processing via email. I submitted the application in person on a Friday and received the passport back via Fedex the following Tue, so 2 working days. Awesome.
After reading the past reviews, I was dreading the experience, but was pleasantly surprised. Most of the negative experiences have to do with the CKGS website, which is indeed horrible. Others who have complained about the fees have to understand that the requirements (like the assinine one for Renunciation) and the associated fees are all dictated by the Consulate and the Indian Govt. CKGS has no control over these.
Overall, CKGS SF is a definite improvement over the past outsourced outfits. If only they would redo their website, I would be happy to give them 5 stars.

5 stars for GREAT customer service and getting my multi-​entry 10 year visa in 4 business days start to finish!
I went into the office to hand deliver my papers last Wednesday and my passport with my Visa was on my doorstep when I got home today.
The difficult part is navigating through the Indian Consulate website without being bumped off and not retrieving your paperwork. Make sure you have all the documents noted on the checklist, even if you are not paying online you must have the last payment page printed out.
We had a very nice man named Gregory helping us. He was very friendly and patient and helped print off some items we had forgotten. All the staff were very kind despite all the chaos from the customers.
We went in at 11am and left at 1pm without an appointment. It only took this long because of being bumped off the consulate website over and over and it not saving my application. If I had everything in order it would have been less than 30 minutes.

Absolutely the worst. Paid extra for emergency visa. They give us a checklist & threaten that if everything is not filled & submitted as required, the application will be rejected.
Spend hours checking & rechecking. Make an appointment for 11am. Get there 10:40am & my number called 1 hr & 35 mins later. Go up to counter & submit documents — Sorry can’t process because you don’t have a medical letter showing emergency. ‘I’m sorry no mention of that needed on your checklist or website’
Nobody willing to take up responsibility or take action. Sorry can’t process it as emergency & can’t refund money since you pre– paid for it.
WHAT??? I am Indian by birth & am ashamed by their incompetence. I’m now an American citizen & damn proud to be one.
You Americans have it so good yet complain. Forget going to India & living there a week — you couldn’t make it through 2 hours at this place.
JAI HIND

Hey India — this ish doesn’t happen at the Chinese consulate. This is why China is kicking your butt on the world stage.
I hate to admit it because I’m cheering for India, and there’s some old world hate amongst these countries. But getting a Chinese visa is quick, they answer your calls and emails, and they want you to travel easily and safely to their country and enjoy yourself. Actually every country has some bureaucratic BS but they’re not dumb enough to chase away tourist dollars!
But seriously, my family has canceled our India trip because CKGS held my passport hostage. I had to cancel my application because I needed my passport back to travel to Europe. Once that happened, collectively we decided it wasn’t worth it to go.
Money that India lost:
$ 5000 worth of hotel rooms
probably $ 1000 of meals for 4
$ 2 – 3000 for day trips, transport, sightseeing
We’re coming up on $ 10,000 that you’ve just lst, India. At $ 1 USD a day in salary, that’s the annual salary of 27 people, coming from a 10 day trip of foreigners.
No wonder India is a mess. They’re losing money like this left and right.
That’s fine by me, there are plenty of people in my own country who would like me to spend my money locally. Hell maybe I’ll spend it in Shanghai. No matter what, someone else is eating your lunch, India, because you wanted to save a few bucks on terrible outsourcing!
(but thanks India for taking the Dalai Lama, that’s cool)