BC2013,
You mentioned transferring of files from other VOs and I wanted to share my experience with our application and hopefully get some advice on this matter, as my husband and I are getting pretty desperate at this point. Our sponsor approval was done on July 23rd 2012, but application was sent to the wrong VO (through no fault of ours, Mississauga CIC did this). I intervened, called CIC twice, they ignored me, assured me that "there must be a reason why your file is transferred to London, so please wait for London VO to contact you."
Unfortunately, London office does not send AORs when they receive files, only when they open them, which happened 4 months later. I explained to them too that our file belonged in Vienna, but they did nothing, we had to wait. After that, they said file was being transferred and not to contact Vienna for at least 8 weeks. It turned out to be 4 full months before we received an e-mail from Vienna (March 13th, 2013) that they finally had our file.
Our original AOR from London was Agust 2, 2012.
OP1 CIC manual clearly states the following:
OP 1 Procedures /5.19. File transfer
"For assessment purposes, visa offices receiving a transferred file must respect the original date on which the application was received as the “lock-in” date. For processing purposes, all processing steps for the files transferred to an office, including the scheduling of interviews,should be the same as for all other applications received in the office on the date corresponding to the “lock-in” date of the received file. This means that an application that is received in Paris in July 2002 and transferred to New Delhi in March 2003, would enter the New Delhi queue as of July 2002.”
According to this, it has been 14 1/2 months since original AOR date (LOCK-IN DATE), August 9, 2012 and we were supposed to be in process a while ago, but each time we send a Case specific inquiry, we are either ignored or we get the same repetitive response which indicates ""Please be informed that your application is in the queue for the review by an officer; Please also note that your file was transferred in March 2013 to our office. Applications for permanent residence in the Family class (spouses) - category may take 12 months or more to process."
Our local MP was no help at all, they just copied and pasted what Vienna said and told me to contact them in March 2014 if nothing happens by then and they will get an update.
My question to anyone who can shed any light at all would be - What do we do to bring this mistake to their attention??? Honestly, we cannot afford any more of CIC's mistakes. I just don't understand how nobody takes responsibility for things like this. All we are asking for is to be treated in accordance with procedures and to be put in the queue for August 2012 AOR, but it is like talking into deaf ears.
Sorry for the lengthy post and thanks to everyone who reads it, even if they cannot give any advice at the moment.
I wish all of you the best of luck and hope nobody has to go through these frustrations and problems with CIC and VOs like we have been going through.
I'll be asked for my passport in February and since Hungary (and possibly others) has the same timeline as me, maybe we can all go to Vancity by the end of March. Let's see what happens 
