[xanctus]

Hello all,
We were just wondering, how often do any of you contacting your case Officer?
Reason asking this because, after we went to the face to face interview, my case officer was out of the office for about 2 weeks. We sent her email, and we got automated reply saying "I am out of the office, and will be back on 8th of March" which is yesterday. We were just worried if she kind of mistrack with our application. Now I wonder if we should send her email again asking about our status, or should we just leave her alone. I am planning to go to NZ is coming May or early June. So if I can get the answe by then, that would be great for us.

Any inputs from fellow emigratenzers? TIA

Marco

[Moorf]

Once I had our Case Officers email address I kept in constant contact - phrases like "I hope you don't mind me bugging you but I am all geared up to xxxxx and would really appreciate your advice/update/etc" seemed to work and I now have a great relationship with him. He even agreed to see me in person to go through the ITA before I submitted it plus he is seeing me next week (was meant to be today but I've come down with something nasty) to do our Migrant Levy by EFTPOS and put our PR stickers in passports at same time.

I think it pays to sympathise with them a little and "appreciate" what pressure they must be under etc etc.

Well, it worked for us, probably depends on the case officer too I guess. Ours is Jeremy Calcroft at the Chch office and he is FAB!

[xanctus]

Helen,
thank's so much for your feedback. I guess I am just going to do or say something really really really polite in order for her to get back to me. hehehe

[lindajax]

Hi Marco,

Our case officer in UK was BRILLIANT. :nice1

NOT SO HERE!!!! :wah

He has NEVER got back to us after we arrived apart from 1 email which didn't answer the question I had asked.
Not returned calls and is very difficult to call in the first place - always out or you get someone elses desk etc etc etc

BUT

We haven't really needed him - sort of got on with it -- I don't know if thats good or bad but we seem to feel its okay!

Linda xx

[xanctus]

thank's linda n helen...
We actually got replied with "approved in principal" letter soon after we sent our officer email.
:mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[MB]

Way-hey! Well done, Xanctus! TERRIFIC news!
Aren't you, by the by, the first, or one of the first, US folks (at least of the regular posters) to get PR approvaal on the forum?

To say I'm pleased for you is an understatement. You're always generous and kind with your advice, and you took -- for example -- the news of the interview trip to D.C. with good grace and positivity.

:raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana :raebanana

Cheers,
Matt and family.

[xanctus]

Matt,
Thank's so much mate...
I was worried for a while actually. As I told you, our case officer was gone for 2 weeks. After the date that she supposed to come back, there was no news at all. That's why I started this thread to ask anyone with experience contacting their officer. As Helen and Linda was telling me, we decided to send an email saying..."welcome back (her name), I was just wondering if you have made any decision for our applications?" and she replied with attachment letter saying..."approval in principal" :mrgreen:
oh yes she made my day!!! :mrgreen: :laugh :laugh

Well, you will get it too I am sure Matt... :hopeso :hopeso

[wayne]

I never contacted my C/O I just submitted all they wanted and let em get on with it got my PR dec 12th 04 just waiting to sell my house now , not in too much of a hurry , making the most of still earning decent money as I know we will be worse off in NZ so banking all I can now :cool

[Lil]

Xanctus - you got lucky with her mate. You obviously had the same Officer as me. I e-mailed her on the day she was going on holiday cos I could not bare to wait two weeks til she came back. She called me back straight away, she yelled at me so much about being impatient etc then told me that she had given us PR in principle. I spent so long apologising and felt so bad at making her mad that the offer of PR was more like a smack in the face, than the joyous event I was expecting. She still has not returned our passports and I don't relish the thought of having to call her and ask for them back. :eek

[xanctus]

Oh my goodness Lil, I am sorry to hear that you got yelled by her.
However, all this time I was quite polite and I have never call her or email her anything. That was my first time email her asking about the status of my application.

When I email her frst time when she was out of the office, I was asking her assistance about sending my passport. ( I didn't ask about the status at all).
But, yeah I think we were quite lucky.

[Moorf]

Poor Lil - this is the 2nd story on this forum whereby people have had ogre's for CO's... is this a sign of the pressure they are under? Still, no excuse.

I wonder if the NZ based CO's are more laid back than the UK/USA ones? Or perhaps under less pressure?

[Terry&Sophie]

Hi Linda,

How's things? :nice1

Just wondering... who is your case officer over here? I tried emailing ours and got no reply, haven't tried phoning yet because it's difficult to get time at work but it sounds like that might not be any better :roll: Just sent an email to the lady in the London office who organised our WTR visas... hopefully she will be a bit more help :hopeso

As you know our situation is a bit complicated (now here in NZ on WTR visas with an ITA to send back to London) so I could really do with some advice... Woke up in a panic this morning because I realised our medicals go out of date in a couple of weeks (don't want to go through that again!! :eek) and our ITA is only open until May.

Oh well, better go and gather the paperwork...

Take care

Sophie

P.S. We just bought some kayaks... give us a shout if you fancy a paddle! :nice1

[MB]

Re. case officers' leave, I guess that -- with several dozen (I think) case officers in the London branch alone -- it is very reasonable that any given two or three of them will be on 1-2 weeks' leave at any given time.

Two factors that may slightly increase any preponderance of leave around now is that fares to many parts of the world (incl. NZ) are either cheaper or starting to dip right now, and also that from what I recall of Christmas posts this was the first time ever(???) that NZIS staff worked over much of the Christmas break... so maybe the holidays are starting at least a little to bottleneck now rather than a quarter-year ago. These are just thoughts, not based on anything other than abstract thinkin' on my part (and, by golly, you're lucky to get even that much :laugh ).

Cheers,
Matt.