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Hey I'm from Edmonton too, and I will be marrying my wife in late December in Saigon.

congrats on winning your appeal, I was wondering if you can give me a background of your relationship with your wife? How long u guys date before marry, when did u first meet her, etc ?
 
berbu said:
The situation with IOM is strange. Why do Vietnam applicants need to use the services of this private company to send their passport? All they do is charge 40$ per passport, then put 10 passports in one 20$ Fedex envelope and pocket the rest for some massive profits. Smells like a ripoff but Singapore VO doesn't give -any- choice, the applicants can't even send the passport by themselves or in person - the option is just not there. What do you guys think?

Heck, we had 2 passports to submit. It costed 80$ at IOM. If we submitted by Fedex, that would be 30$ Fedex flat rate. If we submitted in person it would've costed 100$ of plane tickets (Jetstar) and maybe another 100-200$ for staying there a few days, but it would've been much faster, like days instead of weeks. I'm kinda pissed but I'm gonna wait AFTER we get the passports to complain... wise huh?

Hey Berbu

we just dropped my wifes passport off at the IOM this past Monday and I could not agree with you more!!!

What a rip off. Just one more pocket to grease. They did nothing other than put a clip on all her paper work and throw it on a pile to be combined with all the others.

In our case it was just the one passport so only $40. Its not the money that bugs me....I just cant see why we need to go through this third party. Although after all these years in vietnam i am not sure why i am suprised
 
Calm down, IOM send passport and docs in diplomatic bag (need someone to confirm this). They do receive docs in diplomatic pouch everyday. Hope you know how diplomatic pouch works. Also, they check documents and address where the mail should go to. Many people are smart, can read/understand English, and do know the immigration procedure but many others don't and they will send their important documents to wrong address and never see these again. Paying some money for a guaranteed service is worth it if you ask me.
 
mikeymyke said:
Hey I'm from Edmonton too, and I will be marrying my wife in late December in Saigon.

congrats on winning your appeal, I was wondering if you can give me a background of your relationship with your wife? How long u guys date before marry, when did u first meet her, etc ?

Hi mike, thanks. She was introduced to me by my mom and her aunty in toronto. While i was vacationing with my buddies in saigon in dec 2008, i decided to meet up with her. that was when we first met. we hung out alone on a few occasions, and kept in contact with her on daily basis when i came back to canada. I decided to marry her a yr later dec 2009. The reason for refusal was because she has 3 aunts in toronto, we only mentioned one aunt in the application because the other 2 aunts she never met cus they came to canada when she was a baby. we never thought this was that important as we went through the application pretty quick. they refused us for misrepresentation. its our mistake and i believe we already paid the price for it by waiting 3 yrs and counting. but i felt good when i won my appeal. so just waiting for the last couple steps, hope they come soon. learning from my mistake i would hope u go over the application with ur wife 10-20 times before sending in hehe. here is my time line incase u interested.

dec 2009 - wedding in saigon
feb 2010 - application sent to missisagua, transfered to singapore a month later.
june 2010 - received letter saying shes on the interview list.......then waiting begins.... :(
may 2011 - interview, didnt go well, they gave wife hard time cus of the aunts mistakes
july 2011 - recieved refusal letter and reasons. filed for appeal right away.
feb 2013 - full hearing in court.
march 2013 - recieved letter from judge saying we won and reasons for it.

now more waiting... lol

during this application process, i visited her 3 tiems, 5 times including first meet and wedding.
how did u and ur future wife meet? how many times have u visited her by the way. I am thinking of going back again this winter if she gets to come by then. It would be a nice vacation this time since we get to come back together. I am sick of coming back on the plane alone hehe.
 
Sucks that after interview request u have to wait a year :(, I hope we don't get an interview, I'm confident we wont, cuz i feel we will have a strong application, but well, I'll let you decide.

Read this thread

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/how-strong-is-our-application-t135091.0.html;msg2083361#msg2083361
 
After we drop off the passport at IOM, how much time does it take on average to get it back? We have been waiting for more than three weeks now.
 
berbu said:
After we drop off the passport at IOM, how much time does it take on average to get it back? We have been waiting for more than three weeks now.
Hi berbu,

I can't speak from experience as we just droped off my wifes passport a week ago but from all i have read and following the timelines from the singapore VO spreadsheet..... I think the earliest looks like 4 weeks with an average around 6. Some a great deal longer.

I am in vietnam right now and am scheduled to leave on the 19th of May.....was really hoping she would be able to return with me but i am not overly hopeful. Oh well....i will return and bring her back as soon as she has her visa in hand.....what is one more trip.....it will be my 22nd time making that long trip :-)
 
berbu said:
After we drop off the passport at IOM, how much time does it take on average to get it back? We have been waiting for more than three weeks now.

In my case, my wife submitted her passport on Dec 7th, 2012 and we didn't get it back till Mar 4th. I know that some took only a week or two and some took well over 2 months.
 
That's a looooong time, especially when you know everything is done and they just need 5 minutes to stamp the passport... But they can't seem to find the time to do it!
 
etownboy said:
Hi mike, thanks. She was introduced to me by my mom and her aunty in toronto. While i was vacationing with my buddies in saigon in dec 2008, i decided to meet up with her. that was when we first met. we hung out alone on a few occasions, and kept in contact with her on daily basis when i came back to canada. I decided to marry her a yr later dec 2009. The reason for refusal was because she has 3 aunts in toronto, we only mentioned one aunt in the application because the other 2 aunts she never met cus they came to canada when she was a baby. we never thought this was that important as we went through the application pretty quick. they refused us for misrepresentation. its our mistake and i believe we already paid the price for it by waiting 3 yrs and counting. but i felt good when i won my appeal. so just waiting for the last couple steps, hope they come soon. learning from my mistake i would hope u go over the application with ur wife 10-20 times before sending in hehe. here is my time line incase u interested.
dec 2009 - wedding in saigon
feb 2010 - application sent to missisagua, transfered to singapore a month later.
june 2010 - received letter saying shes on the interview list.......then waiting begins.... :(
may 2011 - interview, didnt go well, they gave wife hard time cus of the aunts mistakes
july 2011 - recieved refusal letter and reasons. filed for appeal right away.
feb 2013 - full hearing in court.
march 2013 - recieved letter from judge saying we won and reasons for it.
now more waiting... lol
during this application process, i visited her 3 tiems, 5 times including first meet and wedding.
how did u and ur future wife meet? how many times have u visited her by the way. I am thinking of going back again this winter if she gets to come by then. It would be a nice vacation this time since we get to come back together. I am sick of coming back on the plane alone hehe.
.



Hi Mike: How did they figure out this 3 aunts matter ? I mean is it that 3 aunts were mentioned before but later you mentioned 1 aunt in the application (family information form).
 
My wife's ecas changed to decision made today and said they will contact my wife about the details!!! How long until IOM calls or we get her passport with visa. Singapore vo has my wife's passport already.
 
vietcutieboy said:
My wife's ecas changed to decision made today and said they will contact my wife about the details!!! How long until IOM calls or we get her passport with visa. Singapore vo has my wife's passport already.

Hey Viet

As CTC027 said on the singapore tread....

Don't wait for IOM to call you. Keep calling them everyday for your passport. My wife called them 3 days after her status changed, she got her PP back in 4 days after they mailed it from SVO.
This is great advice.....now I just need my status to change :-)
 
thanks for your reply, now just hope that singapore already sent my wife's passport to IOM.
 
We sent our passport in 3 weeks ago and this afternoon we Went to decision made!!!

I am scheduled to fly back to Canada on May 19 and it looks like (fingers crossed) she will be able to join me. I can extend my return a few days so we do have a bit of wiggle room. Now if it doesn't come my wife will fly on her own.....just would be so nice to accompany her.

The really cool part is we decided to get away for one last weeked together before i head back to Canada. We are sitting on the beach in Phu quoc and my wife says....I have a good feeling....check ECAS. Well I didn't tell her I checked this morning and it showed no change. But to humor her I pulled out my iPad and checked......well look at that. "decision Made"

Gonna make for a Great Weekend!
 
silver1968 said:
We sent our passport in 3 weeks ago and this afternoon we Went to decision made!!!

I am scheduled to fly back to Canada on May 19 and it looks like (fingers crossed) she will be able to join me. I can extend my return a few days so we do have a bit of wiggle room. Now if it doesn't come my wife will fly on her own.....just would be so nice to accompany her.

The really cool part is we decided to get away for one last weeked together before i head back to Canada. We are sitting on the beach in Phu quoc and my wife says....I have a good feeling....check ECAS. Well I didn't tell her I checked this morning and it showed no change. But to humor her I pulled out my iPad and checked......well look at that. "decision Made"

Gonna make for a Great Weekend!

Congrats on decision made, my application turned to decision made on may 5. on another thread someone told me in about 7 days from the time of decision made IOM in ho chi minh will call to pick up my wife's visa and that we should call IOM often to check and see if they received our visa.