VFS: The most expensive courier service

The first thing you need, if you have to travel abroad, is a visa to the countries you have to visit. And so, begins the hunt for what is the type of visa you need, the checklist of documents, photographs, etc. In India, most of the embassies, those who witness a large amount of visa applications for their countries, have now begun outsourcing part of their work to VFS.The VFS centres of the particular embassy/consulate collects your visa documents and passport, on behalf of the embassy, sorts them in the order required by the embassy and deposits those with them. On the scheduled day, VFS collects those documents and brings it back to its centre for you to collect those.

For all this business, VFS charges every applicant a processing fee, which ranges from Rs. 600 onwards. If the embassies themselves were to do all the administrative jobs that VFS does, they wouldn't be charging us any service fees, as it is included in the visa fees. But we pay these fees to VFS, because it helps us escape those long queues that we might encounter at the embassies/consulates. Also, it helps us realise whether our form is correctly filled and the right set of documents are attached, thus reducing the chances of visa being rejected due to incomplete documents, incomplete forms, etc.

This means, the VFS website listing the document requirements itself should be updated with the latest visa application requirements of the concerned embassy. If not, then there is a chance of a ruined trip to the VFS office. E.g., take the VFS website for the Chinese consulate. To apply for any visa, it does list the requirements. But, after you have gathered everything and gone to the VFS centre, you are told, "Sir, for the business visa, you need to submit your savings bank account statement." You tell them, that isn't mentioned on the website. Then "executive" says, "Sorry sir, the website might not have been updated." So, how am I supposed to know about what documents are required? I cannot have the latest requirements planted into my dreams. Then, she says, "If your airline isn't a Chinese/Hong Kong airline, you need to get your ticket stamped by the airline office." Again, you tell her that this isn't mentioned anywhere on the website.

You start feeling helpless. You have double, triple checked whether all the documents are in order. And you have referred to the website of the organisation authorised by the consulate for the document requirements. And for all this outdated information, VFS charges you Rs. 610 as service fees. Plus, costs you a futile journey to the VFS centre. Makes you wonder, is VFS only a courier service, transporting your documents to and from the embassy for you? Seems to be a pretty expensive service.

The curious case of convenience charges

The inspiration for this article lies in Gul Panag's tweet. We have all been paying that 2% extra when we make payments by credit card at some retail outlets. The IRCTC also charges between Rs. 10-40 as internet booking charges. And multiplexes too having been charging anywhere from Rs.40 onwards as "convenience charges" for internet booking.

Everybody asks the same question- "Why should we pay these charges, over and above the prices?" And people are right. The primary idea of introducing technology is to improve convenience and bring down costs for both the service provider as well as its user. In case of the Railways, internet booking has brought in more transparency with respect to reservations of the tickets. All it required was setting up of the software and secure payment gateways to put the system up in place. May be a few extra servers to handle the extra users who might log into the system. But for the Railways, this is not a very big investment. They already had a reservation software in place, for their use and servers to handle reservation systems. It has helped them reduce dependence on man power, who are unionised and definitely cost more than a set of servers and fiber optical cables and bandwidth. But still they charge that service charge and also 1.8% of the total fare, if you pay by credit card. This is disadvantageous to those who use technology that actually reduces burden on the counter staff.

For multiplexes too, the case is even more curious. They have an interactive website already in place, to display the movie show timings in their screens all across India. They too, needed to just setup the software to book the tickets and secure payment gateways. Booking through the internet gives them a guaranteed customer, compared to those coming on the spot. And it does reduce a lot of man-power time. But then why do they charge those "convenience charges". For whose convenience are they charging us? Their convenience or the viewers?

There might be issues like payments to bank gateways, credit card companies, etc. But then, airline companies too have the same issues. They do not charge extra. Of course, their pricing is dynamic and they may earn a huge premium by selling tickets at the last moment. Are these outlets trying to recover these charges from us? But if this mode of selling doesn't make business sense, then it should be shut down. They shouldn't try to recover these costs from us. And they can't charge us a premium for this service, claiming that it is convenient for you. Ultimately, it also makes business sense for them too. They are able to reach a more number of people, middle men get reduced to a large extent, confirmed buyers available much earlier and less dependence on man-power. But still they charge and still we pay!!