If you are an Indian citizen and are trying to either renew your Indian passport in the USA or get an OCI card, you will see that you are forced to deal with a company called VFS. VFS started as a small company that began with handling outsourcing of processing applications for USA visas. Now it has become a giant multinational which handles logistics for applicants of visas and other government documents across the world.

It is also greedy.

In USA, for example, by default (that means these options are checked when creating application on their site)

  • it forces you to use their payment platform (charging a 3.5% surcharge, which is much more than what any credit card company charges in the USA)
  • use their FedEx shipping service (which overcharges customers $36 + 3.5% credit card surcharge)
  • spams you with emails asking you to use their photo service affiliate link where you take and upload the photo and all they will do is print it out for you when they get your application.
  • and, of course, charge mandatory application processing fees.

But I refuse to give extra money to VFS as a matter of principle. Here’s how:

  1. Do not pay by credit card for the application - Many banks in the USA offer free cashier’s checks that you can enclose with the application packet that you send. Ally Bank is one such popular bank which even sends the cashier check to your home address for free. Local credit unions (First Tech Federal Credit Union in my area) may also offer free cashier’s checks; just ask. The amount for the cashier’s check is available in some FAQ on the VFS site or when you create an application on the VFS site. Just remember to uncheck any extra services that you aren’t utilizing to get the correct amount to be paid by the cashier’s check.

  2. Do not use their overpriced shipping service - They make it so that if you want to use FedEx, you can only use their shipping service and pay a huge premium for it. Also, if you do not pay the application fee using a credit card (that includes their huge surcharge), they won’t even allow you to use their shipping service. Pretty sneaky and unethical in my opinion. The way out is to use USPS that will cost you less than $10 (as of now) to send and receive documents. Here’s how you can do that:

  • For outgoing mail to VFS - For a new OCI application, my entire packet with pages of documents, a 12x9 return mailing envelope with label, cashier’s check, paper clips and photographs weighted less than 6 ounces. So, you can grab a Ground Advantage USPS shipping label and send the letter for less than $5. To do so, use a site like Pirate Ship (it is a totally legitimate site, despite the questionable sounding name) and generate a label from there. It is much cheaper (and convenient) than doing this in a post office. It asks you to specify the weight; choose 8 ounces (the weight slabs changes every 4 ounces).

USPS shipping label to VFS

  • For return envelope - A passport or an OCI card weighs less than 2 ounces. The envelope and the shipping label stuck to it weigh almost nothing. So a shipping label for 4 ounces sent back using Ground Advantage should do… but, here’s where VFS throws a googly; it says that USPS labels cannot have a ship by date (makes sense since they have no idea when the Indian consulate will complete processing). Normal Ground Advantage labels have a ship on date that VFS will reject. In the past, you could stick stamps for Priority Mail and a Label 400 with a tracking number to get a predetermined tracking number for your return package. Unfortunately USPS has eliminated these labels. So instead you can now use a Ground Advantage Return packages. Pirate Ship (the site I mentioned previously) requires that you contact them to enable this feature for free. Once they enable the feature for you, you can generate a return label that is valid for 90 days. This looks similar to the return labels you may have used when you send packages back using USPS. You can specify 4 ounces as the package weight, print and stick the label on a 12x9 envelope and enclose it in the application packet.

USPS shipping label from VFS

  1. 2x2 passport size picture - You can take a good 2x2 passport size photo using your phone camera. Use Walmart photo (or any local photo printing location) to print a 4x6 containing six of your photos. Make sure the background is white (a light color won’t work, contrary to what the Indian government form may say). This will cost you between 10 and 25 cents.

You cannot skip their mandatory application fee since the Indian government mandates that the application must go through VFS. But since other fees can be avoided relatively easily, why pay extra money to VFS for their over-charged services?