I agree. The CIC website indicates it will take 24-36 months to process, so that I just try to verify my status on eCAS instead of calling them to follow up. However, I sent my application on July 4th,2014, and they received it on July 8th, 2014. There has been nothing on eCAS since then, and I haven't received any email, letter acknowledging receipt or returned document. I felt something wrong thus I called CIC yesterday. What surprised me is that the agent told me they don't have any records in their system. He said they might return it to me and suggested me to resubmit the application. But I wonder if they returned the application without any records?
I find it happened to some people in this forum as well that their applications got lost and were asked to resubmit by the agents. But eventually, they got their original applications back and restored in the system after they called them or resubmit it. It means their applications were just in somewhere at Sydney Center and not be picked up.
Now I realized that different agents may give different answers, which really confuses me. And what sucks me is that the fees raised in 2015, which means if I resubmit the application, I have to pay the differences just because they lost my original application?
Today I tried to call them again but failed because of the busy lines. I sent an ATIP request instead and hopefully they can try to do some efforts to find my application.