Babette & Andy
23rd March 2005, 11:51 PM
Back in June last year we signed up to the services of a major Migration Bureau (not sure whether it's ok to mention their name, so I'll just refer to them as MB, PM me if you want to know who they are).
This was before I'd come across this forum, and based on the experiences of my parents who used a Consultancy in Holland to get their Business Visa. We talked about it alot, read through all their brochures and charges and decided to sign on the dotted line. After all, we're only intending to make this migration journey once, and we'd need the experience and knowledge of professionals to get there. Or so we thought :no Also, the MB we used offered the services of it's sister company - a recruitment company, to help find the desired Job Offer. Turned out it was a one man band operation, working part-time for the MB in question :eek
As time went by, I/we gained so much knowledge about the whole process simply by reading the NZIS site, this site and other links. Soon every time we were contacted by MB (by e-mail, letter or phone) they were telling us things we had already found out ourselves.
To start things of we paid them £850, half of which was put towards their 1st invoice, half was kept as a deposit and would be used towards the final invoice. On a regular monthly interval we started to get invoices from them (time to sit down if you're not already). First one £659 for a variety of what I call admin tasks like setting up our file, assigning a consultant, sending us some standard letters, a couple of phone calls - and that's more or less it. Further ones followed, IMO mainly for admin tasks rather than adding any value. In total we've been charged £1090 :eek :eek
We put together and submitted our EOI ourselves in Sept, and asked them to check it. No changes were made. Put together and submitted our ITA ourselves, no checking this time.
We have just come out of a dispute with them, and have now totally terminated our agreement with them. We're awaiting the return of our deposit, which after reluctantly paying their final invoice should be around £370
All I can say is: What an absolute waste of money, how stupid / green were we :no :no :no
Some of you may feel you had value added by the MB you've used to realise your dreams. If so, I'm really pleased for you. We might as well have thrown our money down the toilet.
If you're toying with the idea of using an MB - IMO unless you need a Business Case all anwers can be found within this Forum and through the experiences shared by all the wonderful 'forumites' :nice1
Babette
This was before I'd come across this forum, and based on the experiences of my parents who used a Consultancy in Holland to get their Business Visa. We talked about it alot, read through all their brochures and charges and decided to sign on the dotted line. After all, we're only intending to make this migration journey once, and we'd need the experience and knowledge of professionals to get there. Or so we thought :no Also, the MB we used offered the services of it's sister company - a recruitment company, to help find the desired Job Offer. Turned out it was a one man band operation, working part-time for the MB in question :eek
As time went by, I/we gained so much knowledge about the whole process simply by reading the NZIS site, this site and other links. Soon every time we were contacted by MB (by e-mail, letter or phone) they were telling us things we had already found out ourselves.
To start things of we paid them £850, half of which was put towards their 1st invoice, half was kept as a deposit and would be used towards the final invoice. On a regular monthly interval we started to get invoices from them (time to sit down if you're not already). First one £659 for a variety of what I call admin tasks like setting up our file, assigning a consultant, sending us some standard letters, a couple of phone calls - and that's more or less it. Further ones followed, IMO mainly for admin tasks rather than adding any value. In total we've been charged £1090 :eek :eek
We put together and submitted our EOI ourselves in Sept, and asked them to check it. No changes were made. Put together and submitted our ITA ourselves, no checking this time.
We have just come out of a dispute with them, and have now totally terminated our agreement with them. We're awaiting the return of our deposit, which after reluctantly paying their final invoice should be around £370
All I can say is: What an absolute waste of money, how stupid / green were we :no :no :no
Some of you may feel you had value added by the MB you've used to realise your dreams. If so, I'm really pleased for you. We might as well have thrown our money down the toilet.
If you're toying with the idea of using an MB - IMO unless you need a Business Case all anwers can be found within this Forum and through the experiences shared by all the wonderful 'forumites' :nice1
Babette