Payment problems on India's e-visa website

Debbie Humphry writes
I am travelling to India later this month and the travel agent advised that I get an e-Tourist visa online. As this can only be done a month before travel, I filled in the form two weeks ago and uploaded it successfully.

The problem is that the site won’t let me pay for the visa. For the first week there was an alert saying that the payment portal was not working. Now it is working again but once I put in the credit card details and press pay, it takes me to a page that says payment has failed.

I have tried to pay using both the Safari and Firefox browsers to no avail.

I have contacted the Help Desk by email and by phone to no avail. What can I do?

Several readers have faced issues paying for their visa online  Photo: Alamy

Gill Charlton, India expert, replies
By chance, I had a similar situation two weeks ago, while several other readers have contacted us the same problem. The Indian High Commission’s website doesn’t work very well with Safari but usually responds to Firefox or Google Chrome. This time, using a different browser to pay didn’t work for me either.

After reading online forums I found an answer. Pay using your phone. I entered my e-visa application ID into the High Commission’s website (indianvisaonline.gov.in) using the Safari browser on my iPhone and payment went through straight away. My e-visa approval came through in 36 hours.

"After reading online forums I found an answer. Pay using your phone" ';

If this still doesn’t work it may be that your application ID has been blocked because payment has failed more than five times. In this case you’ll need to make a new application before paying by phone.

If time is very short, online agents have sprung up who will process Indian e-visas for a fee. They appear to have no trouble paying.

Around 800,000 Britons visit India each year  Photo: AP/FOTOLIA

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