This is gonna be a long one so I have to split it into a main thread and a reply as I the forum won't let me post longer than 10000 characters.
Not sure if I’m gonna post this as an answer to a question, or an independent blog, though I’ve been waiting to write this for a while now and I’m finally gonna pen down the whole journey!
TLDR; I received my Canada PR, it was a long time consuming process, but finally got it.
November 2014, I’d just started researching for ways to move abroad. Job-route, study-route, etc etc. Then stumbled upon the ‘Canada PR’ thing and heard that its relatively easy to get a Canada PR (or Australia). Met with a few agents in Bangalore, all demanded fees of something around 70k + the official application fees.
In 2014 it was a first-come-first-serve FSW program and seemed fairly straightforward to me, except that I needed IELTS and there were no nearby dates available! In my rush I booked a date of Jan, 2015 for Goa centre (while I was working in Bangalore) thinking that I’d just take a few days off from work, go there, answer and come back. Mistake #1.
I couldn’t go to the exam, so I skipped it. I got a dental certificate stating that I can’t do speaking neither can I travel and hence asked for a re-schedule. Saved some money there, I suppose. Though the exam got re-scheduled to June 2015. I finally answered in June and got my results in July 2015. In the interim I had my WES done too and since that’s valid for 5 years I was sorted there.
The same day I got my IELTS score (8) I created my EE profile. Got an email with all details etc, score of 438. 438 sounded like a really good score, I was so sure I’ll get the ITA in the next 1 month itself. LMAO, I was so bloody optimistic. So, stupid me, went to the agent who I thought was the best and spoke to them about my case and how I’ve done everything and I just need some guidance on what to do post-ITA.
Mistake #2!!
I requested my salary in advance for this month so I could pay them the 57k they demanded. AFTER I had created my EE Profile, done ECA and IELTS on my own. What the fuck was I even thinking!
As expected, the agents didn’t do anything. They just requested me to send them all my documents, and I did that immediately. A month later I know they hadn’t even logged in to my account. How do I know this? They didn’t ask for my password! What the hell?!
December 2015 I start researching more on ways to improve my score, as the draws had continuously been for 450+. #JustMyLuck. I even considered learning french and taking the french exam!
Thats when I heard that if you recreate your profile, you will get an OINP nomination. I was pretty psyched but also dubious, how can this be true?
So I went ahead and re-created my profile in Jan 2016. Jan 31st, to be specific.
Feb 1st, I received a letter of notification stating that I was invited to apply for Ontario Nomination.
Now at first I thought I’d directly gotten the nomination so I was super happy about it. Though on reading the letter I came to know its just a invitation and I could choose to apply if I wanted to, and pay CAD1500 for the same and receive it in 3 months.
Alright, not a big deal, considering I’d been waiting for more than a year with nothing else to do. It was a nice glimmer of hope.
Though I was pretty angry that my agents didn’t know this and hadn’t really bothered telling me about this silly hack. I went to their office and kicked up a big fuss about it. The lady there even had the nerve to tell me that I got the nomination just because their lawyers name was in my profile. I just said “really?” and walked out of there, even though I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her a bit!
Never mind that the representative can’t really influence my case, his name wasn’t even in this “new” profile that I just created. #ftw.
I then wrote to their head office in Delhi and to their director informing them of how careless their staff was and how I don’t want to proceed with them anymore and at the very least be assigned a more senior member who knew what the fuck to do. So they assigned me to the Delhi team instead, very well.
Though, here’s the kicker. Because I was a OINP Applicant now I’d have to pay an additional 40k. Like, what for?! I asked them, their answer was standard Processing Fees for PNP Applicants it is. I simply asked them for a breakdown of what the 40k actually involves, like how much of this goes towards what service they’re providing. Apparently they took it to mean that I was negotiating, so they brought it down to 20k.
Now I’m more than happy to pay 2lakhs if they can just bloody tell me that they are doing something useful, but paying an arbritary amount without knowing what its for didn’t make sense to me. Anyways I went ahead and paid that, not like I had much of a choice really.
I collected all documents and had everything ready by Feb 18th. Collecting documents was a big fiasco on its own, considering I didn’t really have steady jobs where there were proper HR teams to manage paper work etc. Most places were startups where I’d just have to draft the letters on my own and get them signed. Probably the most difficult was trying to get the dates right because fuck knows what exact date I started working and finished working at each place. Geez.
After collecting all the documents in place, I couriered the whole file to Delhi office. They checked it a bit and forwarded it to Ontario for me. I remember the date, I put a countdown timer of 90 days. Informed everyone how I’d finally be getting the nomination in 3 months. Haha, I was so happy then.
Though, wait. Here’s the kicker. 90 days came and went. No sign of the nomination. No sign of the 600 additional points. :/ Its May 2016, I’m all excited to get my ITA and leave India by December 2016, but no bloody sign yet. Where the fuck is my nomination.
I started googling around more, and came across the Canadavisa forums around then. Found a thread where more people were in the same state as me and were connected on WhatsApp, so I requested them to add me in.
That was the ONE best thing I did all along. This group has been a constant support to me through this whole process. You know how they say “misery loves company” Fucking hell I found out how true that is! Here was a group of 30 people who had the same misery as me and its insanely helpful to know you’re not some ridiculous exception and to maintain your sanity.
We all wrote in to OINP, asking them where the fuck are our nominations. We all got generic responses “Oh, there’s a large volume of applicants” and we will contact you when there is an update.
We bitched. Ranted. Cried on each others shoulders.
Now to most people this might not seem like a big deal. Wait for it.
180 days came and went. And remember the CAD 1500 we had to pay? That was a DD. Yup, Demand Draft. And you the deal with international DD’s? They expire within 6 months. And OINP Department had not yet en-cashed these. So at around 200 days we all started getting emails requesting for new DD’s. Hell this was another kick in the nuts, but we were happy that someone’s doing something at least.
ICICI Bank was CROWDED. Filled with people requesting new DD’s and enquiring about how do we get our money back from the old DDs. Though there was nothing much we could do. So we sent our DDs. Around 5000 DD’s found their way to OINP Office in the months from August 2016 to December 2016. (Assuming 5000, because OINP quota was up to 5k people).
And finally we received our old DD’s back and could cancel them. Anyways. The monetary issues aside.
There was a time when everyone in my group was congratulating each other because we received an email saying “We have received your DD”. Haha. I kid you not! Grown-ass people happy about receiving acknowledgement receipts. This hell you will only understand if you’ve been through it yourself
Finally OINP started working on our files. We knew because we kept receiving Additional Document Requests. And these were as random as it gets. Some people got requests for new Bank Statements, some for job-related documents, etc etc. We all duly supplied everything.
And then we have it again. Radio silence. For 2 months nothing.
Finally in late November 2016 people started receiving their nominations. A whole 300+ days after they’d applied.
I’d filed mine on 25 Feb 2016 (much later than everyone else) so mine got held back even longer than the others.
Finally received my nomination on 22nd Feb 2017. Yup. A whole year after I applied. So much for a promised timeline of 90 days. I have around a thousand white hair I can attribute to this period alone!!
And my score went up to 1038 on 22nd Feb 2017.
Now, wait for the real kicker.
2017 brought with it a whole new trend. That of dropping scores.
The draw at which I got selected at?
The score was 434.
My score was 438 pre-OINP.
Now it was 1038.
And I got in in a draw with a cut-off of 434.
What was the use of the OINP nomination and 1 year wait?
Wanted to kill self. Instead settled for pulling hair out, both white and black. The more the merrier.
It was a mixed feeling. Relief,
of course because at least I’d gotten the ITA. 1.5 years after I initially expected it, but something nevertheless. Pointlessness of the whole nomination situation.
Not sure if I’m gonna post this as an answer to a question, or an independent blog, though I’ve been waiting to write this for a while now and I’m finally gonna pen down the whole journey!
TLDR; I received my Canada PR, it was a long time consuming process, but finally got it.
November 2014, I’d just started researching for ways to move abroad. Job-route, study-route, etc etc. Then stumbled upon the ‘Canada PR’ thing and heard that its relatively easy to get a Canada PR (or Australia). Met with a few agents in Bangalore, all demanded fees of something around 70k + the official application fees.
In 2014 it was a first-come-first-serve FSW program and seemed fairly straightforward to me, except that I needed IELTS and there were no nearby dates available! In my rush I booked a date of Jan, 2015 for Goa centre (while I was working in Bangalore) thinking that I’d just take a few days off from work, go there, answer and come back. Mistake #1.
I couldn’t go to the exam, so I skipped it. I got a dental certificate stating that I can’t do speaking neither can I travel and hence asked for a re-schedule. Saved some money there, I suppose. Though the exam got re-scheduled to June 2015. I finally answered in June and got my results in July 2015. In the interim I had my WES done too and since that’s valid for 5 years I was sorted there.
The same day I got my IELTS score (8) I created my EE profile. Got an email with all details etc, score of 438. 438 sounded like a really good score, I was so sure I’ll get the ITA in the next 1 month itself. LMAO, I was so bloody optimistic. So, stupid me, went to the agent who I thought was the best and spoke to them about my case and how I’ve done everything and I just need some guidance on what to do post-ITA.
Mistake #2!!
I requested my salary in advance for this month so I could pay them the 57k they demanded. AFTER I had created my EE Profile, done ECA and IELTS on my own. What the fuck was I even thinking!
As expected, the agents didn’t do anything. They just requested me to send them all my documents, and I did that immediately. A month later I know they hadn’t even logged in to my account. How do I know this? They didn’t ask for my password! What the hell?!
December 2015 I start researching more on ways to improve my score, as the draws had continuously been for 450+. #JustMyLuck. I even considered learning french and taking the french exam!
Thats when I heard that if you recreate your profile, you will get an OINP nomination. I was pretty psyched but also dubious, how can this be true?
So I went ahead and re-created my profile in Jan 2016. Jan 31st, to be specific.
Feb 1st, I received a letter of notification stating that I was invited to apply for Ontario Nomination.
Now at first I thought I’d directly gotten the nomination so I was super happy about it. Though on reading the letter I came to know its just a invitation and I could choose to apply if I wanted to, and pay CAD1500 for the same and receive it in 3 months.
Alright, not a big deal, considering I’d been waiting for more than a year with nothing else to do. It was a nice glimmer of hope.
Though I was pretty angry that my agents didn’t know this and hadn’t really bothered telling me about this silly hack. I went to their office and kicked up a big fuss about it. The lady there even had the nerve to tell me that I got the nomination just because their lawyers name was in my profile. I just said “really?” and walked out of there, even though I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her a bit!
Never mind that the representative can’t really influence my case, his name wasn’t even in this “new” profile that I just created. #ftw.
I then wrote to their head office in Delhi and to their director informing them of how careless their staff was and how I don’t want to proceed with them anymore and at the very least be assigned a more senior member who knew what the fuck to do. So they assigned me to the Delhi team instead, very well.
Though, here’s the kicker. Because I was a OINP Applicant now I’d have to pay an additional 40k. Like, what for?! I asked them, their answer was standard Processing Fees for PNP Applicants it is. I simply asked them for a breakdown of what the 40k actually involves, like how much of this goes towards what service they’re providing. Apparently they took it to mean that I was negotiating, so they brought it down to 20k.
Now I’m more than happy to pay 2lakhs if they can just bloody tell me that they are doing something useful, but paying an arbritary amount without knowing what its for didn’t make sense to me. Anyways I went ahead and paid that, not like I had much of a choice really.
I collected all documents and had everything ready by Feb 18th. Collecting documents was a big fiasco on its own, considering I didn’t really have steady jobs where there were proper HR teams to manage paper work etc. Most places were startups where I’d just have to draft the letters on my own and get them signed. Probably the most difficult was trying to get the dates right because fuck knows what exact date I started working and finished working at each place. Geez.
After collecting all the documents in place, I couriered the whole file to Delhi office. They checked it a bit and forwarded it to Ontario for me. I remember the date, I put a countdown timer of 90 days. Informed everyone how I’d finally be getting the nomination in 3 months. Haha, I was so happy then.
Though, wait. Here’s the kicker. 90 days came and went. No sign of the nomination. No sign of the 600 additional points. :/ Its May 2016, I’m all excited to get my ITA and leave India by December 2016, but no bloody sign yet. Where the fuck is my nomination.
I started googling around more, and came across the Canadavisa forums around then. Found a thread where more people were in the same state as me and were connected on WhatsApp, so I requested them to add me in.
That was the ONE best thing I did all along. This group has been a constant support to me through this whole process. You know how they say “misery loves company” Fucking hell I found out how true that is! Here was a group of 30 people who had the same misery as me and its insanely helpful to know you’re not some ridiculous exception and to maintain your sanity.
We all wrote in to OINP, asking them where the fuck are our nominations. We all got generic responses “Oh, there’s a large volume of applicants” and we will contact you when there is an update.
We bitched. Ranted. Cried on each others shoulders.
Now to most people this might not seem like a big deal. Wait for it.
180 days came and went. And remember the CAD 1500 we had to pay? That was a DD. Yup, Demand Draft. And you the deal with international DD’s? They expire within 6 months. And OINP Department had not yet en-cashed these. So at around 200 days we all started getting emails requesting for new DD’s. Hell this was another kick in the nuts, but we were happy that someone’s doing something at least.
ICICI Bank was CROWDED. Filled with people requesting new DD’s and enquiring about how do we get our money back from the old DDs. Though there was nothing much we could do. So we sent our DDs. Around 5000 DD’s found their way to OINP Office in the months from August 2016 to December 2016. (Assuming 5000, because OINP quota was up to 5k people).
And finally we received our old DD’s back and could cancel them. Anyways. The monetary issues aside.
There was a time when everyone in my group was congratulating each other because we received an email saying “We have received your DD”. Haha. I kid you not! Grown-ass people happy about receiving acknowledgement receipts. This hell you will only understand if you’ve been through it yourself
Finally OINP started working on our files. We knew because we kept receiving Additional Document Requests. And these were as random as it gets. Some people got requests for new Bank Statements, some for job-related documents, etc etc. We all duly supplied everything.
And then we have it again. Radio silence. For 2 months nothing.
Finally in late November 2016 people started receiving their nominations. A whole 300+ days after they’d applied.
I’d filed mine on 25 Feb 2016 (much later than everyone else) so mine got held back even longer than the others.
Finally received my nomination on 22nd Feb 2017. Yup. A whole year after I applied. So much for a promised timeline of 90 days. I have around a thousand white hair I can attribute to this period alone!!
And my score went up to 1038 on 22nd Feb 2017.
Now, wait for the real kicker.
2017 brought with it a whole new trend. That of dropping scores.
The draw at which I got selected at?
The score was 434.
My score was 438 pre-OINP.
Now it was 1038.
And I got in in a draw with a cut-off of 434.
What was the use of the OINP nomination and 1 year wait?
Wanted to kill self. Instead settled for pulling hair out, both white and black. The more the merrier.
It was a mixed feeling. Relief,
of course because at least I’d gotten the ITA. 1.5 years after I initially expected it, but something nevertheless. Pointlessness of the whole nomination situation.