BLS International  Reviews 

I was invited to attend the Sansaar Poetry Festival in New Delhi by The Raza Foundation where I was asked to recite and be a part of a panel of international poets , I am a Sudanese poet residing in Granada, Spain. I called the helpline in order to ask about what I needed to do to apply for a visa to attend The Sansaar Festival in New Delhi and prepared my visa application, the invitation letter, the clearance letter from the Indian Ministry of Affairs, photos, passport copy and spanish residence card and booked my appointment. I took a 5 hour bus ride from the south of Spain (Granada) to Madrid and was on time for my 12:30 appointment. When I arrived to desk counter 4 I was attended to by an employee who appeared to be Spanish who others referred to as Kema or Gemma . I gave her my paperwork and she asked me what kind of visa I wanted as if I was at Pizza Hut choosing toppings. She then informed me of the opposite information I was given by the helpline that if I had an invitation letter I could not apply for a tourist visa. When I asked what kind of visa I would need to apply for she claimed she did not know and took photos of my paperwork and sent them to an unknown "Official" I was asked to wait for his response. She then attended to an elderly couple of Spaniards the wife did her biometric photo and fingerprints on first attempt and the husband had to redo his biometric photo and fingerprints 22 times(I counted and spoke with his wife who was also extremely annoyed with the undesirable wait). By the time she finished and finally was able to process his file she informed me it was her lunchtime, It was 2 in the afternoon. I had to cancel my bus back to Granada and reschedule my last evening class to online to accommodate this and waited for her to return she did so at 3 pm. From 3 to 6 pm I waited as she received news that what I needed was called an “entry visa” and I signed the paperwork submitted my photos and was waiting to pay and to the biometric photo and fingerprints step. She then proceeded to tell me that there was no need for me to come in person and that I could have sent it by courier stating it was URGENT (which is the opposite information I was given by the helpline which informed me that it took up to ten days to process it via courier and that in any case I needed to come in person in order to do the biometric step of the application.) She then disappeared from her desk until another woman Indian appeared and informed me that I needed to stay a few days in Madrid until they could find out how to process an entry visa for a person holding a Sudanese passport with a Spanish residency card. When I kindly informed her that I could not stay in Madrid and that i had travelled from Granada she disappeared and an Indian Man arrived and asked me to wait and that they are doing their best to try and find a solution. Minutes later he arrived and asked me to ask the Raza Foundation (my host) to change the dates of the festival so that they could have more time to "figure out" how to grant me an "entry" visa adding that there were no assurances that I would be able to finally have a visa in time and that they could not be held responsible for that. This place is unprofessional, reeked of instituitional racism I have no idea how the Embassy of India could subcontract such incompetent employees to represent their country in Spain. Beyond this review I will also be writing an article in a local Spanish newspaper about this incident. I have spent the bulk of my career teaching Indian and marginalised literature from all over the world and cannot believe the disrespect, humiliation and lack of humanity I experienced as a non EU passport holding person of color at the BLS Madrid Office. I wasted a total of 16 hours at this place which felt like a SCAM with equipment that would not work, lazy and evasive employees and I hope by voicing my own experience I will receive a formal apology for what has occurred and if not I will continue speaking about my experience at every event and in every medium where I am invited to in the future. I understand now why telephones are strictly prohibited and recording of any kind is not tolerated in this place it is not by the books and very clearly corrupt. Also note the high reviews on Google which reek of fraudulence.

One of the worst websites I have ever used. India can definitely do better than this . To view appointments it is a refresh game which took me 40 minutes.
It just kept showing we already have an appointment booked when we had previously cancelled ours. To get to speak to someone at BLS we had to keep calling for over 45 minutes before we spoke to a lady . Not sure if this will be sorted out today .

I have contacted this company several times in relation to getting a Visa. I’m booking an appointment.

The website just keeps freezing and you’re unable to book anything.

I contacted the call centre again they said just to email in which I’ve done several times and to no avail

All the staff are good attitude make us feel home

The processing time is fast and the facility is good and nice.

Terrible website. Constant crashes and lags, highly limited time to upload documents despite large amount of information asked, constantly assuming human inputs are from a robot. Should be replaced by a different company.

Terrible Website
Feels like the website is built in 2002 and not updated since. Been trying to schedule an appointment all morning, something that shouldn't take more than a couple minutes.

The staff are accomodating and the transaction is smooth

worst website server ever - force you to get premium and times out without warning - shame on spain!

The website is garbage honestly!! So difficult for booking and navigating through

Very bad service. Booked the appointment at 10.30 and reported at 10.15 but received token No.10. Even after 2 long hours they are serving no.6..! Hope to avail service probably in the afternoon.

Indian authorities should appoint better service providers for the Indian Visa and passport services.

Total scam - first they say they "can't remove" courier fee eventhough you directly inform them you'll be picking up passport in person. Then they ask to address their manager to help with the refund. The manager gives you the number and emails info"at"blsmobileservice.co.uk and info.uk"at"blsinternational.net which are all unresponsive or not found by mail services. You get you passport at St. Andrews - they get 29.99 for ignoring you even when addressed in person.

One of my friends visited BLS Colombo last week as a first-time applicant. Unfortunately, the staff member who assisted her did not provide proper help. The customer service was very poor, and they did not support applicants when needed.Please improve the service .

The most horrendous service ever. SCAM

The woman sitting at desk 1 was very unpleasant. I believe she is a manager. She showed no customer service skills—no smile and no interaction at all. The BLS website is also very poor.

The only positive was that I completed the whole process very quickly and didn’t have to wait long.