I am a non-immigrant worker in the USA and like thousands of others, I have been facing immense difficulties with the new USA Visa Appointment Scheduling Portal (https://www.usvisascheduling.com/ since its launch on 29th July 2023. The technical issues and incompetent support service have turned this necessary process into a nightmare for us.

I paid the application fee on the old platform which was not successfully migrated to the new one. Despite numerous attempts, I am yet to secure an appointment for visa stamping. This is not just my story but echoes the experience of countless applicants who are left stranded due to these issues.

The problems we face are not trivial; they directly impact our lives, jobs, and families. These technical issues must be addressed promptly by competent professionals to prevent further distress among applicants.

The key issues that need attention (not limited to) are: 

1. There are no clear instructions on how to add dependents and book the appointments along with the dependent. The support agents ask to create separate profiles for the dependents and schedule individual appointments. Why should a child younger than 14 years have an email? What happens if we don't find the same-day slots as the primary applicant?
2. Every time, the system gives random errors when a dependent is added to the profile. 
3. There are no clear instructions on how to claim previous payments done in the old portal before going live with the new portal. Several applicants ended up paying multiple times because of their emergency without any refund. 
4. Several technical errors randomly occur during the payment of the fees and booking appointments. Most of them give technical messages e.g. "The given key was not present in the dictionary". How can a user understand what is wrong?
5. The customer support line is always busy. There is a minimum wait of at least 45 minutes. Most of the time it disconnects at around 40 mins. Which means another round of wait of 45 minutes. Even if you are lucky to talk to a support agent, most of the time, they are technically incompetent in resolving the issue and they politely say "Please wait for some more time".
6. Every time we mail to the support "support-india@usvisascheduling.com". It creates a new case and the reference to the old case is lost. When the team needs more information like snapshots etc. they close the case and say "Resolved" and information provided. All the time their responses have futile information like "Kindly Wait for Sometime".
7. There is no option to recover the security questions. If you forget the answers, you will have to create a new profile and start all over again. 

There are many more errors and issues with this new platform. It seems there was no proper testing done before going live. Being a software engineer, I think they went live hastily without a proper data migration plan. The end-users are only testing and finding workarounds to resolve the issues without much technical help. 

We urge the responsible authorities to take immediate action to improve this portal's functionality and customer service quality so that it serves its purpose effectively - facilitating visa appointments without causing undue stress or financial loss.
Please sign this petition if you believe in fair treatment for all non-immigrant workers seeking visa appointments through this portal. Your signature can make a difference!