Vietnam Outland Spousal Application Singapore Visa Office

[Vietnam2013]

Hi Everyone,

I have GCMS note request questions for you guys.

I hope someone here can point me in the right direction. I am running a bit low on patience after 10 months of waiting. I now have considered ordering the GCMS notes to see what's happening with my application.

At the moment, I am having a bit of trouble filtering through the process of ordering the notes. I don't know which of the selection I should be making for the request. "Privacy Act." Or "Access of Information Act"?

Question #2., Are the request made under the name of the Sponsor which is Me, or under the name of the applicant, which would be the name of my spouse?

Question #3 Consent form required? What's this about? This is a lot of work if an actual signature is required from the applicant? I just want an update to OUR application forms, is this request not link together by both application forms (spousal and applicant forms)? I like to say that , I LIKE TO CONSENT TO MYSELF IF I MAY! A bit fustrating, I feel if I pay enought $5, I will have the right combination to correctly request the GCMS notes.

This is the reply I received on my first fail attempt at it.

“This is to acknowledge receipt of your request submitted pursuant to the Privacy Act, which was received on April 29, 2014, for the following records:

“the electronic permanent residence file concerning XXXXXXXXX”.

I regret to inform you that we are unable to process your request for the following reason(s):

Requests made under the Privacy Act require that XXXXXXXXXXX be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident or an individual present in Canada. Please provide proof that XXXXXXXXXXX is entitled to make a request under the Privacy Act (i.e.: copy of a stamped passport, valid visa, citizenship card). You may resubmit your request under the Access to Information Act, along with an application fee of $5.00.

Your file will remain open for 30 days from the date of this letter. If you do not respond within this timeframe, we will consider your request abandoned and will close your file. “


Some assistance is much appreciated if you have done this GCMS request before.

I didn't do the GCMS request correctly the first time, so I can assume I just flush my first $5 down the drain? Or can I still recover something from this request that was made in error?

I simply just want an update on my application with the GCMS notes. I feel like I am walking into a Starbuck coffee shop ordering a coffee for the first time. When all you want is a simple cup of coffee, the person behind the counter would reply and ask you what type of coffee did you liked since they have 7 millions type of coffee available. Once you pick out the type of coffee you want, they ask you if you want it cold or hot?, once you have done that, you are ask what sized cup did you want to have it in....etc.... Lol

 

[Coldstream63]

I wouldn't mind this info as well. We're in the document gathering stage for our submission to this VO, and I am somewhat worried about their timeline (OK, a LOT worried...)

I hope you get a reply soon on this!

 

[thanh245]

There is a tutorial on YouTube on how to order GCMS notes
How to request ATIP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_E_dq_uLVo
Follow the instructions its pretty simple.
Yes your spouse needs to sign the form IMM5744 and mail it back to you. Or she can sign it and scan it and email to you. Either way you're still going to have to scan it to upload it online.
I have ordered it 3 times and none have failed. What I did was scanned my passport showing that I am canadian citizen and BC driver's license and upload it with the application. I think all you really need is a canadian address to apply. But I did it anyways.Hope this was of some assisstance to you. Cheers.

 

[Vietnam2013]

There is a tutorial on YouTube on how to order GCMS notes
How to request ATIP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_E_dq_uLVo
Follow the instructions its pretty simple.
Yes your spouse needs to sign the form IMM5744 and mail it back to you. Or she can sign it and scan it and email to you. Either way you're still going to have to scan it to upload it online.
I have ordered it 3 times and none have failed. What I did was scanned my passport showing that I am canadian citizen and BC driver's license and upload it with the application. I think all you really need is a canadian address to apply. But I did it anyways.Hope this was of some assisstance to you. Cheers.

Thanks for the info. anh Thanh. Also, thanks for the update on the IOM passport delivery sistuation as well.

 

[thanh245]

Thanks for the info. anh Thanh. Also, thanks for the update on the IOM passport delivery sistuation as well.

IOM Ho Chi Minh City is now accepting passport submissions to Singapore.

 

[Vietnam2013]

IOM Ho Chi Minh City is now accepting passport submissions to Singapore.

Anh Thanh,

Thanks for you help. I finally manage to get the consent form done. I just sent it in yesterday to make the request for the notes to my sponsorship files. The consent form is terribly confusing! You pretty much need a PHD in English to decipher the form. I am not sure how any new immigrants who do not have a good gasp at the language are able to help themselves on this form. I mean your intention is quite simple; you just want to get information to your sponsorship files. However, when you are trying to fill in the IMM5774E consent forms, you have no idea who is giving consent to who with all the dame section area you are able to put names in. Filling in the web form was another challenge. There are more questions on the forms than answer I can pick out, nothing but frustration for me.

Anyhow, you mention to someone on your other post the other day that they should have a few consent form signed by their spouse? From what I know, there is not expire date on the forms, or is there?

To anyone as well who might be reading this post.

Do you really need a new consent form every time you make a new request on the GCMS notes?

I didn’t see anything about this part? Did I miss reading something here? It’s really a pain in the a$$ for me to get the form sign everytime if this is the case.

 

[thanh245]

The consent form is a ONE time use only. U need a new one each time u apply for gcms. Have ur spouse in Vietnam to print like 5 and sign them all and mail it to u . Make sure to use registered mail. Canada post lost some of our mail. It's cheap in Vietnam anyways.

 

[Vietnam2013]

The consent form is a ONE time use only. U need a new one each time u apply for gcms. Have ur spouse in Vietnam to print like 5 and sign them all and mail it to u . Make sure to use registered mail. Canada post lost some of our mail. It's cheap in Vietnam anyways.

Are you mailing in your request for the gcms notes or requesting them online?

Here is the thing I am not clear on. I only have one copy of this consent form from my spouse. I have scanned this original consent form on a pdf file and attaching it to the instruction, as requested from the web site.

I am not putting you on the spot or anything like this. I am trying to use the least amount of effort to achieve the biggest out come from this bureaucratic confusion.

I can not afford DHL anymore. I'm broke as it is with all the personal taxes this government is taking away from me.

Sorry to put you or anyone on the spot. It's not my intention.

I don't see the point of signing many copies of this consent forms? What I mean by that is there is no bar code, expiry date, form number...or any sort of marker on the form to indicate this is a one time use consent form only. If you sign 10 copies of this consent form with the same date, they should all look the same. Do they not for the sake of argument?

Then it's no different from my one original copy which I can scan over every time I need to make the gcms notes request?

On the other hand, if you sign 10 copies of the consent form, and have many different dates, it's still a consent form at the end of the day and it serves the same purpose, but with one exception, a different future date on them. Why put all this effort into tricking the system? I don't see any legal implication for that?

You see my point?

 

[thanh245]

if you read the form carefully it does say it is a one time use. under section G, question 7.
I did all my gcms request online. paid $5 with credit card. uploaded the scanned consent form.
you ask ur wife to sign all 5-10 consent form. Signature ONLY. you can fill in the current date each time u request the gcms notes. your wife IS giving you authorization right? scan and upload.

 

[Vietnam2013]

I did catch that line and I read it twice over. I am just annoyed because I didn't see any point to it. The form doesn't expire, it's not number, and there is no watermarking, bar code ...etc. on it. It just seems so backward, as if I am getting my paper work request done in Vietnam! And don't even get me started on that topic either. lol It is still as corrupt as the days I left that country when I was a little boy. I am so happy to be here in Canada and as a Canadian.

Anh Thanh, you have a lot more patience than many of us looking at your timeline. For me, I have ran out of patience. I am easily irritated by all the little pointless things we have to go through in order to find out something about your own destiny, all of which we have no control over what so ever! I wouldn't wish this upon my worse enemies to go through this sponsorship process. The loss of work time, support money if your significant other is not working, family related matters, all of which can put a lot of stress on any relationship. The longer the wait, the bigger the related stress is.

“your wife IS giving you authorization right?”

The last time I check, yes. Lol Lucky for us, it just happens that I got 10 different copies of it sign, but with the same date. They all look EXACTLY the same. CIC didn't mention anything about using the same date and different copy, so I am going with that play. I hope CIC don't have any problems with this part. ;-)

 

[thanh245]

@Vietnam2013
could you tell me some things about your application? like do you have a strong application? your evidence, etc....just curious.
i think my timeline is pretty much the standard because I didnt have a REALLY STRONG relationship timeline heading up to the marriage.
But I did travel to Vietnam 4 times total since the first time I met my wife. You have to exercise patience because thats all you can really do.

 

[Vietnam2013]

As solid as a rock, well we do have landslide, so that's not a good analogy. ;D BUT, landslide doesn't happen too often, so it's pretty solid. lol

Thank god I wasn't a cheapskate, I sign up with Timetelecom so that we can talk over the phone everyday. It was 0.05 cent a minute then. Lucky for me the company kept a log all of all my phone calls that was ever made. It took me a few days to print them all out at work. That being said, I gave them 3 years worth of all the phone calls we ever made, pictures indicating the time line, I flew 5 trips over to see her, a beautiful wedding party, and my pension plans having the spouses name on it. I keep a photo album with all the souvenir tickets and events of all the places we visited. My EX keep an album like this when we were going out, thanks to her I did the same with the new girlfriend, now wife. Otherwise, I don't have much to show CIC that the relation is even on. lol I think the only things we left out is probably a $ex video to put our sponsorship file over the top for fast tracking!

I got her an Iphone now that things are serious. I am a lot poorer :'( as well, and older , and much more frugal ;D. Facetime is what we use everyday. Had we use FaceTime 4 years ago, I am not sure how that would play out. I don't even know if there is a way we would have been able to print a log of all that communication as proof.

I know 2 people who did the sponsorship application with a 6 and 8 month timeline before the door was close by this government

It's next to impossible to restraint my patience. It's real life scenario we are playing here. Any amount of wait time is too long. As I posted before, no government in the world should be able to deny anyone from seeing their love one.

In July it would be 1 full year since they received my application. I am not sure about you, but to me 1 year is a very long time of your life wasted! We made plans to start a family, have a career, go to school, travel, and start a small business. All this are now on hold pending on the decision of some individual who is holding our lives hostage. This person is being paid very well from the taxes of hard working Canadian sponsor, who they are approving this very application! Am I bitter, dame right I am! Lol

Your wait is pretty much over anh Thanh. You got to be thrill. ;D ;D ;D I still have miles to go before reaching our destination. By the way, the home address of my wife's application is in Vietnamese. CIC took the translated English address version onto their website. I am not sure if that's going to cause some issue in terms of receiving any letter. Did your spouse get any physical letters or some sort through out your processing timeline? Or was all your correspondent via email? My wife live in the suburb/province, not sure how they would coordinate that with the postman.

 

[thanh245]

When we submitted her application, we indicated that I would be her Representative. So everything went through me. I received everything through email, not even a single mail through regular post. However I did receive by registered mail our photos that they returned to us. Did you indicated an email address on her PR application? IF so, check her email, even in the spam folders. But you have already applied for GCMS notes. You will know soon in a month what the status of ur application is.

Your application looks solid enough. Just hang in there and wait for GCMS notes. 5 trips to Vietnam is SOLID, my opinion.

 

[Vietnam2013]

When we submitted her application, we indicated that I would be her Representative. So everything went through me. I received everything through email, not even a single mail through regular post. However I did receive by registered mail our photos that they returned to us. Did you indicated an email address on her PR application? IF so, check her email, even in the spam folders. But you have already applied for GCMS notes. You will know soon in a month what the status of ur application is.

Your application looks solid enough. Just hang in there and wait for GCMS notes. 5 trips to Vietnam is SOLID, my opinion.

“I did receive by registered mail our photos that they returned to us.”

That's great you got your personal items back. I heard some people don't get them back from CIC, other cases people do get them back, but they are sited for an interview. Whatever the cases is, I would like to have all our personal items return one day.

We manage to get every pieces of paper work back from my suppose it lawyer in Vietnam who was helping us with obtaining the marriage certificate. This supposes it lawyer from Vietnam wanted to keep all my files so they can show it to next victim (client) of what they do. I told them to screw off, if they wanted my paper work as sample, I told them to name me a price. I wasn't giving $hit to them for nothing. My wife and I did most of the leg work; they just know how much money to grease the wheel of all the government worker official. If this suppose it lawyer took a bigger role in our case and work a bit harder for which we paid them for, I would gladly oblige and give them our files. However, I was too unhappy with the way this suppose lawyer conducted their business. They were lazy! I had all the money in the world to paid them because I had a limited time to do the paper work. They can make a lot of money if they just care a bit about the client and acted with some professionalism and some urgency.

I want to show my grand kids one day of this sponsorship file. It contains a lot of memory of our journey and marks an important timeline of our relationship which we keep in our photo scrap book. I am hoping maybe one day, someone comes along and writes a book about it...in turn sell millions of copies of it , translated into 15 languages around the world....and just maybe just ONE day... if enough copies of the book are sold, a movies will be made of us...That's when I say “they are paying daddy back now!'”. lol Wishful thinking. lol

“Did you indicated an email address on her PR application?”

Yes, I did put in an email for her on the application. She also has received an email confirmation on the application for permanent residence from CIC. So her email is working, that the important part which you have confirm with me. I would hate to find out sometime down the road that a smart person working at CIC is sending her a physical letter to her home address, which never arrives and we don't know anything about the deliveries. That would be quite disastrous!

Anyone been following the news in Vietnam lately?
I was talking with my wife. She's telling me that protestors are torching factories in southern Vietnam. The demonstrating is over China's deployment of an oil rig into waters that both counties has claims over. When she said PROTEST? I was quite surprise such word exist in Vietnam. Lol Any news from family member if the protests has escalated or is it's quietly dying down?

 

[Vietnam2013]

There were a lot of questions regarding how to get GCMS information request. The same questions seem to have come up many times. The answers are all over the place on this forum. When you do find the answers, it’s not as clear cut. Anyhow, I suffer enough through it looking for information on how to applied online to get GCMS notes. I hope this will help some of my fellow poster here looking for a “HOW TO” applied for GCMS information request on their sponsorship application.

There has been many different opinion as to when you would make this request. Here is my take on it. If you feel your application is complicated, you should make the request sooner rather than later. It will allow you to address some of the concern that may have been written on your case. In my situation, my case was very simple and straight forward. Boy meets girls, boy and girl fell in love, they got married, boy sponsors girl.

Vietnam – Singapore office has a 30 month, or 2 ½ year processing period. So, I didn’t feel a need to make the request until my application was close to a year old. I have made the request and received my notes. At the moment, an immigration officer has not been assign to my file. Base on the notes, everything on my application seems to be all in order. That being said, it kind of pointless to make my GCMS request any earlier, but then again not every situation and cases are like mine.

Here is the how to:

To start you need to fill out the consent form. CONSENT FORM IS CALLED IMM5744E

IMM5744E - You need to complete this form!

SECTION A #1 - Name of your spouse (The applicant).

Section B #2 - I left this part blank. Reasoning: The applicant is not seeking the information. You are! So the applicant is the one giving you the consent.

Section C #3 - Put your name on to this part. The information that you are requesting will be sent to your email address that you have provide them.

Section D #4 - Select Email unless you want snail mail.

Section E #5 – I left this blank. The reason being is that I am requesting the information on my spouse's file. If the spouse is not a Canadian citizen, I recall reading some part that you have to be a Canadian citizen in order to make the access to information request. This does not applied to us.

Section F #6 - Spouse (the applicants) signature.

Section G #7 – I left this black. This does not applied to us.


You can make your request online.

https://atip-aiprp.apps.gc.ca/atip/welcome.do?lang=en

Here are the confusing questions that cause a lot of grief for me. This is how I answer it.

* Please select the Department where you would like to submit an Access to Information or Privacy request. Select Citizenship and Immigration Canada

*Are you requesting information on your own behalf? Select YES

*Select the category that best describes you. Select: Member of the public

**Please select the Act under which you are submitting the request. Select access to information act

**Which type of records do you wish to request? Select case files

*Client ID Number (####-####) – put your spouse UCI#

**What type of information would you like to request? Select notes in electronic file

*file type – select sponsorhip file

Other Documents to upload: “The attached documents must only complement your request.”
-upload the IMM5744E consent form!
- I also provided them with my marriage certificate, my passport, my spouse passport,…etc. It’s probably a good idea to provide them with some government ID so it’s not to further any delay on your request. Once you have upload your document, you are almost done.


Once you have reached this part, pay your $5 bucks. Wait a few weeks, the information will be sent to you via email, that’s if you request the information be sent to you in email form.

It only took me about 2 weeks for the GCMS notes to arrive.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_E_dq_uLVo