£5 just to send an email? That’s what you’ll have to pay to contact the Visa and Immigration service after the government decided to outsource its customer service department.

The new company in charge, Sitel UK, will be charging £5.48 for people to send an email from outside the UK -- with phone charges and Visa costs as high as they’ve ever been.

To add insult to injury, the number of languages on offer will be drastically cut, too -- giving people a worse service for rip-off prices.

For people looking to visit the UK, or for those having Visa troubles while abroad, they’ll now have to pay just to find out more information - all thanks to the government’s outsourcing plans.

Call on the government to stop the rip-off fees being demanded by Sitel UK.

In addition to being charged just to send emails, applicants will be receiving a much worse service from Sitel UK.

Previously, twenty languages were on offer at the customer service department - but that’s now been slashed to just eight, with speakers of major languages such as Japanese and Portuguese now unable to get the services they need.

This is a backwards-looking move. The government says that the move will cut costs, but imagine how much this will cost the UK in tourism alone. The pricing is simply shifted onto ordinary people, while Sitel UK reap the profits. We need to stop this before it sets a precedent for other government services, too.

We’ve seen ordinary people get ripped off before thanks to UK government outsourcing. Together, we were able to stand up to G4S by working with lawyers on a legal challenge, where the judge commended our work on undoubtedly raising serious matters of public interest and concern.

Since then, your voice has also helped to force the Home Office to backtrack on its foreign workers lists, too.

Together, we can stand up to them again - and stop more people getting ripped off by the government outsourcing services. Add your name to the petition and tell the government how you feel about the new charges - before they become the norm.

Tell the government to end these outrageous email fees now.

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