My morning as an extra on "The Bill"...
CB: So, I've been trying to get this dang Police Record Check thing done for a month or so now. It's been easily the most frustrating part of obtaining this US Visa... Wentworthville Police Station claimed they were just a shop front station and couldn't fingerprint me, while Parramatta was just decidedly uninterested. All sorts of guff about how they were a very busy station and I would just have to come down and take pot luck... blah blah blah. So they told me I should try Blacktown and weren't much help after that.
So I tried to ring Blacktown a couple of times and got no answer, the phone just rang out.. I was starting to look up numbers for Castle Hill and Merrylands just in case I needed them! Frustration was probably at my highest point here.
This morning, I was up early after a chat with Chaos Gurl and decided to give Blacktown one last call... and I got through! The constable who answered the phone started to give me the Official Line... you don't live in our Local Area Command (LAC), you need to go to the station that's in your LAC, blah blah blah... but I'd had enough by this point. I told him that Parramatta didn't care, that I lived right on the boundary of three LACs (which I do!) and I really didn't care which one did the deed. And then I told him that I thought criminals and people in custody were getting better customer service than me, seeing as I have to pay $175 for the privilege of having my fingerprints taken!
That seemed to do the trick, because he then told me to come down to the station right away to get the prints done! Well, I didn't need to be asked twice, and 20 minutes later, I was at the station!
The constable on duty seemed to be a bit of a greenhorn and had to ask another officer for help a lot, but we eventually got there. He took me down to the custody area, which looked exactly like the ones seen in all the cop shows and we went through the whole process of getting ALL my prints... four fingers, then thumb, then roll prints of all five fingers, palm and writer's (side) palm! Repeat for other hand. And you have to get the pressure just right, or the computer rejects your prints as too light or too dark!
I asked the officer how they managed to get drunken or violent people to do this and he just smiled and said, "We hold them!"
The whole process took about 2o minutes, then I produced all my ID, paid my $175 and went on my way. Almost everything is done for the Visa Interview now... just a few financial details to finalise before I can start the final phase!
Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, Sydney on February 21, 2007 at at 4:14:00 AM