Went to border and they had no record of my COPR - happened to anyone else?

[markdr]

Hey,

Sorry if this is covered – tried searching but couldn't find anything.

I went to the border on Sunday to land, but the immigration officer couldn't find any evidence of my COPR 'in the system'. It was issued over five weeks ago, so it can't just be a time thing. Anyway, he said he was going to email and get someone (presumably the issuing office, in my case London, UK) to enter it into the system, and then personally email me so I can come back to see him and skip the flagpoling procedure.

I left the border in a kind of shock so I didn't even think to ask for his name or a contact number/email address. It's already been a couple of days and I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing. I'm worried that if he doesn't contact me I'm just going to have to go to the border again (and it's a long trip) and hope for the best.

Just looking to see if this is something that happens occasionally or not. Does anyone else have or know of any similar experiences?

Thanks.

 

[Aislingh250]

Im still waiting on mine, but one Scottish girl I met had this happen about a year ago.
I believe she waited a week, didn't hear anything so went back to the border and landed successfully the second time!

Good luck, hopefully just a blip or something?!

 

[zardoz]

Hey,

Sorry if this is covered – tried searching but couldn't find anything.

I went to the border on Sunday to land, but the immigration officer couldn't find any evidence of my COPR 'in the system'. It was issued over five weeks ago, so it can't just be a time thing. Anyway, he said he was going to email and get someone (presumably the issuing office, in my case London, UK) to enter it into the system, and then personally email me so I can come back to see him and skip the flagpoling procedure.

I left the border in a kind of shock so I didn't even think to ask for his name or a contact number/email address. It's already been a couple of days and I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing. I'm worried that if he doesn't contact me I'm just going to have to go to the border again (and it's a long trip) and hope for the best.

Just looking to see if this is something that happens occasionally or not. Does anyone else have or know of any similar experiences?

Thanks.

Same thing happened to "ghunter". Search for his posts.

 

[ghunter]

Hey,

Sorry if this is covered – tried searching but couldn't find anything.

I went to the border on Sunday to land, but the immigration officer couldn't find any evidence of my COPR 'in the system'. It was issued over five weeks ago, so it can't just be a time thing. Anyway, he said he was going to email and get someone (presumably the issuing office, in my case London, UK) to enter it into the system, and then personally email me so I can come back to see him and skip the flagpoling procedure.

I left the border in a kind of shock so I didn't even think to ask for his name or a contact number/email address. It's already been a couple of days and I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing. I'm worried that if he doesn't contact me I'm just going to have to go to the border again (and it's a long trip) and hope for the best.

Just looking to see if this is something that happens occasionally or not. Does anyone else have or know of any similar experiences?

Thanks.

This happened to me a few weeks ago, we even tried again a week later at a different border, but in the end London is re-issuing our COPR.

You need to email them with URGENT in it, and I would recommend getting your MP involved.

 

[markdr]

This happened to me a few weeks ago, we even tried again a week later at a different border, but in the end London is re-issuing our COPR.

You need to email them with URGENT in it, and I would recommend getting your MP involved.

Jeez. Thanks for letting me know, I'll get on that. Did either of the immigration officers offer to follow it up for you, like they did for me? My one said it had happened before and he expected it to be fixed in a day, but now it's been three...

 

[ghunter]

Jeez. Thanks for letting me know, I'll get on that. Did either of the immigration officers offer to follow it up for you, like they did for me? My one said it had happened before and he expected it to be fixed in a day, but now it's been three...

Our first visa officer told us that if we called the call centre they should be able to fix it. We were told the main issue was that the computer program in London was recently changed and the program at most Canadian border crossings does not match that.
As far as I understand, while trying to be helpful, the border guard was just speculating what the issue was.
When we finally got ahold of London they said the problem was based on the barcode, which had to be fixed by them in London.
In our situation the problem was the document itself, nothing that could be fixed at the border...

If this is the case for you (as it appears to be) contact the London office and hope that they are quick. I feel like the only reason they dealt with us because we contacted our MP and told them that this issue was a huge inconvenience on an already stressful process.

Best of luck to you, I am happy to help as best I can.

 

[markdr]

Our first visa officer told us that if we called the call centre they should be able to fix it. We were told the main issue was that the computer program in London was recently changed and the program at most Canadian border crossings does not match that.
As far as I understand, while trying to be helpful, the border guard was just speculating what the issue was.
When we finally got ahold of London they said the problem was based on the barcode, which had to be fixed by them in London.
In our situation the problem was the document itself, nothing that could be fixed at the border...

If this is the case for you (as it appears to be) contact the London office and hope that they are quick. I feel like the only reason they dealt with us because we contacted our MP and told them that this issue was a huge inconvenience on an already stressful process.

Best of luck to you, I am happy to help as best I can.

Ah okay. The border guard I had said it was just that London hadn't "entered it into the system", although I suppose he could have been speculating too. I've emailed them with an 'URGENT:' subject line, and if I haven't heard from them or the border guard by the end of the week I'll ask my MP to get involved too. Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.

By the way, I checked and the barcodes just encode the number below them (UCI and App No) so it's insane that they're relying on them so much that they'd need to reissue your COPR entirely. Really shameful that they can't just type the number in - these are barcodes that anyone could generate so they're not even adding security...

I have a job offer and I had told them that I'd be able to start work on Monday (my COPR arrived to my representative while I was on vacation so I was counting on landing on Sunday!) so this is such a pain for me. Hopefully that'll encourage my MP to help if necessary though.

 

[ghunter]

Have you heard anything back on this from either London or the border guard? We are still waiting for our new COPR over a month after our first flagpole attempt...

 

[markdr]

Have you heard anything back on this from either London or the border guard? We are still waiting for our new COPR over a month after our first flagpole attempt...

So sorry to hear that. I was actually able to land yesterday, so I think I got lucky.

The border guard emailed me on Thursday to say he'd been in touch with London and that the COPR needed to be reprinted, same story as you. He also said that he'd requested it to be done in Vancouver instead of London though to speed things up, which I thought was pretty great. Didn't hear anything for a few days and then yesterday (9 days after my first border attempt), I got a call out of the blue from someone at a downtown Vancouver CIC office saying they had my paperwork there and that I could go down that afternoon to land. When I got there I was in and out in 20 minutes. The person that called me even gave me her direct phone number, so I was able to call back afterwards with a question about SIN cards and get straight through to her. Such an usually pleasant experience given everything else I've gone through with CIC.

I'm sure this isn't the normal procedure though – but I think they expedited it for me either because I had a border agent working on my behalf, or maybe because this is becoming a pretty common occurrence. I emailed London just as you did, and didn't receive a reply either, so I'm leaning towards the former. In either case it really sucks that you didn't get this treatment and that you're still waiting for your COPR from London I hope it comes soon.

So I guess my message to other people is if your COPR isn't accepted at the border, ask (...beg, etc) the border guard to follow it up internally on your behalf and you may be sorted within two weeks.