Is clearence of D.D a positive sign

[praveen10]

I applied for FSW on 17th of March 2009. Today I got the confirmation from my Bank that my D.D has been encashed. Is it a positive sign? Pls let me know?

 

[adnan_hsn]

They have just received your application and charged you for that mate. At this time its neither positive nor negative. You will now receive a letter asking you to submit full documentation and thats when your application will be actually processed and a decision reached. You can ask for your money to be refunded any time before a decision is made on your application.

 

[Mike053]

So, does 'cashing/clearance of bank draft at Sydney, NS' "definitely" mean that the application has passed the Sydney, NS stage and passed onto local consulate.

 

[PMM]

Hi

So, does 'cashing/clearance of bank draft at Sydney, NS' "definitely" mean that the application has passed the Sydney, NS stage and passed onto local consulate.

No, all applications are opened and the cheque cashed it means nothing more.

PMM

 

[rupeshhari]

They have just received your application and charged you for that mate. At this time its neither positive nor negative. You will now receive a letter asking you to submit full documentation and thats when your application will be actually processed and a decision reached. You can ask for your money to be refunded any time before a decision is made on your application.

NO, this is wrong. You will not get your money back any time before a decision is made. There is a point at the visa office after which if you ask for your money, it WILL NOT be refunded. When they recheck your eligibility on the ministerial list and if your application is complete, you can get a refund but after that when they start processing your application, I was told that you cannot get your money back.

see end of page 9 on OP6.

"An applicant may withdraw an application and receive a refund of the cost recovery fee any time
before processing of the application begins. A refund is also due if the applicant does not meet
the Ministerial Instructions. Once processing has begun, the cost recovery fee is not refundable."

I am writing this incase you do plan to withdraw at any stage because you might not know when it has passed the ministerial instruction checking stage at the visa office and hence not eligible for a refund.

 

[Mike053]

I applied for FSW on 17th of March 2009. Today I got the confirmation from my Bank that my D.D has been encashed. Is it a positive sign? Pls let me know?

I just read OP6,

you have to wait for letter from cic that your case has been accepted for further consideration. checks are cashed even if you are ineligible. later on you will be refunded money if you are found not eligible i.e. if you don't pass Sydney, NS stage.

 

[praveen10]

Thanks for the information. I am waiting for their next call.

 

[adnan_hsn]

"An applicant may withdraw an application and receive a refund of the cost recovery fee any time
before processing of the application begins. A refund is also due if the applicant does not meet
the Ministerial Instructions. Once processing has begun, the cost recovery fee is not refundable."

Actually you have proved my point. If you read his post again, you will see that they have only just received his application. They will start 'processing' it once he sends full documentation in.

 

[rupeshhari]

They have just received your application and charged you for that mate. At this time its neither positive nor negative. You will now receive a letter asking you to submit full documentation and thats when your application will be actually processed and a decision reached. You can ask for your money to be refunded any time before a decision is made on your application.

"An applicant may withdraw an application and receive a refund of the cost recovery fee any time
before processing of the application begins. A refund is also due if the applicant does not meet
the Ministerial Instructions. Once processing has begun, the cost recovery fee is not refundable."

Actually you have proved my point. If you read his post again, you will see that they have only just received his application. They will start 'processing' it once he sends full documentation in.

After the OP sends in the full documentation, they will do the ministerial check again, and until that process is done, the OP can withdraw with a refund. Its only AFTER that a refund is not given. The ministerial check happens twice. Once at Sydney and once at the visa office.

In fact, during the Sydney stage, you cannot ask for withdrawal. If you want to withdraw during the Sydney stage, you let them process your application, and once they reply back to you, then just let the 120 days go by or mail the visa office to say that you are withdrawing.

During the visa office stage, you can withdraw only up to the point when the ministerial check is done AGAIN and get a refund. Once they start processing your application after that, no refund.

Hope this helps the OP.

 

[Mike053]

After the OP sends in the full documentation, they will do the ministerial check again, and until that process is done, the OP can withdraw with a refund. Its only AFTER that a refund is not given. The ministerial check happens twice. Once at Sydney and once at the visa office.

You say that they check application twice against ministerial instructions - once in Sydney and once in local office. Then why they are wasting time and money by bringing applications into Sydney when they repeat the process in local consulate? this is BS...

I heard this was to reduce the processing time but it seems that it increases the processing times...

 

[rupeshhari]

The first time is to check that you indeed fit the ministerial instruction and filter out those who don't fit it

The second time is to check it against the proof that you send in (like work documents).

If they had to do only one check and that too with the work documents, I guess they figure that you might be wasting your time, in case you don't fit the ministerial instructions.

I am guessing, that two checks slows it down a bit, but this new process with two checks is still on average supposed to be faster than the older system so it will reduce processing time. At least thats the plan.

I agree with you that this process can probably be made better. The one thing I notice is that they are changing the rules, it might be that they are changing it to make it faster (like telling all FSW to send their applications to sydney now, not just fsw 1). It could be that between sydney and visa office stage, they do some stuff (can't imagine what).