pleasant surprise with the foreign police

For the past few months I've had today hanging over my head - another trip to the FP to pick up a replacement visa (passport and paper visa stolen back in June). The visa was only issued in May and had some time left on it - when we went to the FP to get it reissued they'd let us know they'd adopted biometric visas and new fees.

Lost, stolen or other missing visas now incurred a fee - 4,000kc where as previously reporting a visa stolen did not incur a charge.

Issuing/re-issuing a visa now cost 3,500kc where as just a few weeks earlier it was only 1,500kc.

(These don't address the new passport, agency fees or other related expenses.)

My agent and I argued that the new fee was a penalty which isn't allowed - the related expenses it was meant to cover only applied to bio visas and not paper visas. Half of the agents agreed but not the ones we had to deal with. Most recently we were told to expect to pay a fine of 1,500 rather than the full 4,000 - which wasn't a complete reduction but better than no break, so that's how much I sent - 1,500 for the fee and 3,500 for the new visa plus the agent's fees.

Well, I got a call that the full fee was being charged and nothing was getting us around it - calls to the Ministry reinforced that. Resigned to having to either pay and get the visa released or stick to principles and face having my kid deported I obviously chose to... pay.

Turns out, and here's a shocker - the FP are terrible, terrible, god-awful communicators... or maybe it's just that no one there understands their own rules. The fee for losing the visa actually includes the cost of the new visa. No where, on the pages info we received, or on the Ministry pages we researched, no where does it indicate that the fee includes a newly issued visa - instead it states that the fee is to cover costs incurred in notifying the EU and Schengen member states that the visa is no longer valid - and that is the explanation we were given in person too, when they told us to expect to pay the 4,000kc plus the 3,500kc.

I'm used to going to the FP, sitting around and waiting for a while (even with an appointment) and then meeting with people who are uncertain or not clear of the rules (the rules are constantly changing) and not once has their confusion worked to our advantage... not until today. Thank you. This was a very, very pleasant surprise. I can afford groceries for the rest of the month :)