May 2012 Applicants - JOIN HERE!

[bonitanita]

Two approvals in June... It's getting more than ridiculous....

One of the reasons of choosing Canada as a place to live in is the reputation of being a just and fair country. First sample overly negative...

my heart is in the pit of my stomach

 

[bonitanita]

just peeked at the june ss for the first time ever and i want to die.

 

[waheguruji]

i got sick bcoz of this stress

 

[AnaMaria]

Read the letter carefully - IF You have already paid it then you don't need to pay it again. I had paid mine and the letter said "IF I haven't" paid it they will contact me to pay it. So since I did I won't need to again.

Also if your lawyer asked you to send the money to him/her and NOT to CIC then he maybe taking you for a ride (trying to get more money out of you).


I did NOT USE LAWYER because you don't really need one for this process if you understand english and french well enough and your case is simple.
My mom had a friend tell her to get me an immigration lawyer/consultants in Vancouver and the interview went like this.

THEM "Hi we help you get your applicatin done and approved"

ME "how do you do that? do you fill my appication for me?"

THEM "Um... no but we check it for you"

ME "do you file it for me?"

THEM "No... but we help to make sure it gets sent it to the right place"

ME "so do you get it processed faster? do you have better connections at CIC? Can you track my application better?"

THEM "No but we can support you through the process and answer questions"

ME "how much do you charge?"

THEM "minium retainer is $2000"

ME "so let me get this right all you guys do is make sure I filled out my paperwork correctly but can't track or move the application along faster... is that right?"

THEM " um well there are many things we can help with"

ME " Ok thanks for answering my questions, I'll make a decision and let you know"


Lets just say I wasn't overly impressed.
At least the immigration consultants in Vietnam were honest. They deal directly with CIC singapore for TRVs and such. The conversation with them was simply that if I understood english and knew how to fill out the forms online I didn't really need to hire them. They were more for people in Vietnam who didn't know english and needed help applying for TRVs and student/business visas etc.

Totally agreed! I used one before when I was brand new in Canada. They charged everything. How in the world in this digital world you would expect everything will be snail mailed (to me)? Photocopies, postage, time for making photocopies and time putting them in to envelope are charged and you can imagine at super expensive rate while emailing would eliminate most of the charges. Just checking postal code cost several tens of dollars. And there is nothing I could not have done. Although, I have to say I met a consultant before applying for PR and paid one time fee, not retainer. He actually gave me a lot of advices not on the CIC web site. CIC web site does not cover everything we need to know and is confusing, and sometimes not correct. It was before discovering this forum though. As long as the case is not complicated, I think this forum is the best resources and more reliable than some lawyers!

 

[Kiri]

Yeah, I called a lawyer to check into it before the process and they wanted around $4000 to start. It provided 2 years of constant contact... but pretty much what you said. And I said, "well what if I wanted to go about it myself" and a few other things.. and they tried to tell me how complex it was getting evidence (which I'd still have to do but they would just tell me what to get), and that the forms could be very confusing. After doing a 8lb package of evidence being overly thorough, and the forms were not hard at all for me. Needless to say... it would have been a waste of money. I'm doing this without a lawyer. Let's see where it goes

 

[RCVmini]

Yeah, I called a lawyer to check into it before the process and they wanted around $4000 to start. It provided 2 years of constant contact... but pretty much what you said. And I said, "well what if I wanted to go about it myself" and a few other things.. and they tried to tell me how complex it was getting evidence (which I'd still have to do but they would just tell me what to get), and that the forms could be very confusing. After doing a 8lb package of evidence being overly thorough, and the forms were not hard at all for me. Needless to say... it would have been a waste of money. I'm doing this without a lawyer. Let's see where it goes

Many people have done it without the lawyers. My mom did hire a consultant to run around and collect all my paperwork as I was out of country with work at the time. He only charged $200 but all he really did was get some public records and I could have ordered AND he wrote up some notorized documents that weren't accepted by the Vietnamese government anyways.

The funniest part was I checked over his work and there were spelling errors in the english part. His answer was "oh I know but the vietnamese governement doucment spells it that way"

for $200 he did some running around and made my mom feel she got to 'help' me etc. Any more then that would have been money out the window.

 

[RCVmini]

Totally agreed! I used one before when I was brand new in Canada. They charged everything. How in the world in this digital world you would expect everything will be snail mailed (to me)? Photocopies, postage, time for making photocopies and time putting them in to envelope are charged and you can imagine at super expensive rate while emailing would eliminate most of the charges. Just checking postal code cost several tens of dollars. And there is nothing I could not have done. Although, I have to say I met a consultant before applying for PR and paid one time fee, not retainer. He actually gave me a lot of advices not on the CIC web site. CIC web site does not cover everything we need to know and is confusing, and sometimes not correct. It was before discovering this forum though. As long as the case is not complicated, I think this forum is the best resources and more reliable than some lawyers!

Yes its good to see I wasn't the only one. There are even comercials funded by the government of Canada that tell you that you don't need a lawyer or consultant and that they sometimes LIE and are making false promises to people about getting their case done faster.

"Don't Get Cheated by a Crooked Immigration Consultant" Canadian government produced ad

http://www.google.ca/url?q=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pcclFMgjno&
sa=U&ei=qjAYUOTeCe-x0QHu3IGYAg&ved=0CBwQtwIwAw&usg=AFQjCNEmzvX9bmxo33w
xHoeORVAEseBTaA

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/representative/index.asp

 

[Kiri]

The biggest red flag comes when you find a lawyer and they guarantee approval. No one can do that.

 

[alish]

No news from May???? ???

 

[Kiri]

Supposedly, according to the spreadsheet, someone got PPR yesterday. Nothing today that I see.

 

[alish]

22 more people on our spread sheet that need their AORs!!

hopefully all this week

 

[bbccanada]

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKES FOR THE VISA OFFICE TO ASK FOR PASSPORT REQUEST AFTER FILE TRANSFER? WOULD THEY MAKE THE REQUEST IF PERMANENT RESIDENCE PAYMENT HAS NOT BEEN PAID YET OR THEY WOULD ASK FOR THE PAYMENT MADE BEFORE REQUESTING FOR THE PASSPORT? Thanks in advance

 

[alish]

So I just FINALLY was able to reach CIC !!! after 50 times of trying to call them and getting the "busy" message!!
and..........first of all she didnt know what an AOR was!!!!!!!! then i had to explain it to her!!
then she asked for my client ID and said we havent opened your enevlope yet.. we are on April 30th. call us back in 10 days... and I asked about the random approvals at the end of May and June she said it shouldnt be like that but it has happened "not randomly, but in a way it was random"!!! what does that mean????????? So i asked should i get an email when they open my enevlope and get my AOR she said you should but if you dont call us back in 10 days... and i asked if the way they opened the envelopes was depending on the sizes? she said not really...it should be the way they recieved it they open it....
but honestly god knows whats happening in CIC........


I just hope tomorrow will be a good day for all of us...

 

[Hamurabi]

You can add me to your spreadsheet.
All the pertinent details are in my sidebar.

By the looks of it, I am probably going to be the last one to get a visa

 

[nole73]

just peeked at the june ss for the first time ever and i want to die.

Every time I peek at the June SS a part of me dies... I'm serious.

Nothing happened in the past two days for any of the April/May applicants, while June SS shows 1 AOR and 2 official approvals... June almost got as many AOR's as May did so far.