Some people are not too bright when it comes to dealing with government bureaucracy dave8408e. This woman is clearly one of those people.

When asked to include her passport, she declined to do so. Instead, she chose to RISK falling afoul of the bureaucratic process and lo and behold, she got a FORM letter telling her that her application was not approved and she should leave the country. Where is there any surprise in that?

Her story happens to make a good newspaper story. Newspapers along with the rest of the media are in the business of sensationalism, no surprise in that either.

The article is obviously written by someone who knows no more about the process than she does. That's obvious in some of the comments made like, " she was told her case could not be discussed on the phone or by email", as if that was unusual for any country's immigration process. It's the NORM.

Another is, "The application form, which includes a “flummoxing” requirement to list every absence from the UK in the past 24 years," This again is a NORM in many countries but it is not"flummoxing", it is simply MISUNDERSTOOD by many people.

The key word is 'absence'. Absence in this case refers to any period of more than 6 months duration that were spent outside of the country. They were not asking for a list of every weekend she spent outside the country or every 2 week package holiday she went on.

Here is the real story. She failed to meet the ID requirement of including her original passport. Her reason for not doing so made complete sense to her but NOT to the bureaucratic process.

She and the other person mentioned at the end of the article both ASSUMED they, "satisfied the provision for not including original documentation." Most people know that ASSUMING things when it comes to bureaucracy is never a good idea. What to you want to bet that she phoned and asked for clarity on what constituted 'beyond her control'. My money would be on her never having done that.

What logically IS 'beyond her control'? She had a Dutch passport in her possession. It was IN her control.

The guideline for applying is quite clear, "Please note: we can only accept alternative evidence of your identity and nationality if you’re
unable to submit a valid passport, travel document or EEA national identity card due to
circumstances beyond your control."

She had a REASON for not submitting her passport but that reason was NOT because submitting her passport was 'beyond her control'.

Nor does the story mention that up until November 2015, all she had to do was ASK for Permanent Residency and it would have been granted WITHOUT having to apply for it at all.

https://www.freemovement.org.uk/eu-nationals-must-apply-for-permanent-residence-card-for-british-nationality-applications/

She had 20 years to do that and didn't. Then she failed to meet the requirement to submit her passport with her application and didn't.

Now she is crying that in MY world, this shouldn't happen to ME.

The media would serve the people better if they actually did some research into things like this and then wrote articles that made it clear what people like this woman had done wrong. That would help others to know what NOT to do.

Instead, it is far more popular to write articles about how 'unfair' or 'unacceptable' a government department is in their treatment of someone, without mentioning how stupidly the person acted.

There is no doubt that bureaucracy can be a nightmare to deal with. But that is because it is simply physically impossible for each individual to be dealt with individually. So you get forms to fill out and if you happen to have some circumstance that doesn't seem to quite easily fit into the box that 99% do fit into, you can have a problem. That's no one's fault, it's just the way it is.

I recently applied for a pension dave8408e and as part of that application, it asked me to account for my whereabouts from age 18 till age 65. It asked me to list any 'absences' from the country. It 'flummoxed' me until I realized after some more digging into the fine print, it referred to absences of more than 6 months duration. The purpose was to establish how many years of residence I had in the country as that was the basis on which the pension was paid.

I made the MISTAKE of admitting to an absence of 6.5 years during one period. I should have just said, 'none' and they would never have been any the wiser.

So I got a letter asking me to prove when I had left and entered the country for that 6.5 years. The FORM letter suggested things like ' an airline boarding pass' or a 'entry/exit stamp in a passport.'

As it happened, I did have an entry stamp in a passport showing the return date. But who keeps an airline boarding pass from 15 years ago or still has an old passport with perhaps an entry stamp into another country?

So I wrote a letter to the pension office and told them I could not prove when I had left the country, only when I had returned. So that being the case, I could only suggest that since I could not prove when I had left, the only logical conclusion to reach was that I had by default, never left if they didn't want to take my word for it. They didn't reply, I got the pension.

Where is the logic in asking someone to prove they left? They were in affect asking me to prove they should consider reducing the amount of pension they should pay me. They couldn't prove I had left, so they wanted me to do it for them! Nothing is beyond belief when it comes to bureaucracy.

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