Also a December 27th applicant, I just got off the phone with IRCC when I was told my application was sent back. It hasn't come to our mailbox yet, but there can only be two possible reasons this happened.
1. Some of my forms were outdated, since they updated them a month before I sent them in and I didn't check. Big mistake on my part.
2. I've been reading some people's forms being sent back because of the form IMM 5669. The forms asks you for an electronic signature but apparently they want a handwritten signature too. I don't know if this has changed since the time of the posts I read.
A real bummer. I really needed to start working soon. This is going to be hard.
A question about implied status. Luckily I applied for a visitor status extension last month. Haven't heard anything back, but my original status expires today. I know I have implied status until I hear back from that, but will I have to let IRCC know that when I resend? Will they have record of me applying to extend? Would I be considered out of status when I reapply? Or does the implied status save me from having to do anything special?
Just posting an update for my situation to everyone.
My application was sent back to me on February 22nd and I only just received it today on March 5th. I listed some possible reasons to everyone, those being outdated forms or missed hand-signatures in areas where they ask for electronic signaturrs. Turns out it was only the signatures. They didn't care that my forms were a little outdated. Two forms that I electronically signed but didn't hand sign were the cause for my app being sent back. They flagged this for the IMM0008 and the IMM5669, but not for the open work permit form IMM5710 even though it was the same situation.
This bothers me because I checked rather intensely and can't find anywhere that specifically states we needed to hand-sign those in addition to electronically signing them. If we needed that, why even allow us to e-sign them in the first place? This is almost intentionally misleading. If someone can point me to where it says that, it would be appreciated.
This also worries me because I fell out of my original visitor status after it was sent back and before I received it. I applied for a visitor extension by paper a month before my status expired and its form IMM5708 has an electronic signature on it too, which I signed but didn't hand sign. Will this result in that being returned too? If so that will mean I'm out of status and have to apply to restore.
I can't believe my situation is this much of a mess all because of misleading signature requirements.