FionaG

Hi all am in need of some advice,I am trying to do my RPL in commercial cook, so after receiving no reply from the company I have been dealing with for last month I became concerned so looked the address up,,,for lease !! so I looked further and they went out of business on Friday. I thankfully have not paid them but had been trying to all last week. I am now in a position of having a major trust issue with all of this, I have been given a new company to contact but they are quite expensive and would like to know what it should cost and has anyone had this problem.Thanks fi

Richard_Gregan

Do you have a UK passport and five years' work experience? If so, you don't need an RPL. You can apply to Vetassess and you will be awarded an AQF as part of the skills assessment process, along with a skills result letter which can be used to apply for a visa.

Regards,

Richard

FionaG

Hi Richard,Im just totally confused if this is the case I don't understand why my visa company are asking me to do it ? Does it gain me extra points ? It would be much cheaper and quicker not to. I have called them this morning and will wait for there reply.Rapidly loosing trust I'm just so glad I hadn't paid as this would have set me back even more.

Richard_Gregan

If you are a UK passport holder and only have three years work experience then I can see why you would apply for an RPL AQF, as you can then apply to Vetassess via their pathway 2 route (three years' experience and an AQF 3).

But if you have five years' referenced experience as a Cook then that's all you need to apply directly to Vetassess for a skills assessment - you get an AQF as part of the skills assessment, so there would be no point in applying for an AQF beforehand, it would be redundant, in that you would end up with two AQFs!

I agree that you need to talk to your agent and ask them to explain their reasoning.

Are they a registered agent? do they have a MARA number? If not, then you have a problem right there.

Regards,

Richard

mikelincs

Possibly means more money for your visa people, are they MARA registered?

FionaG

Hi,Yes they are MARA registered. I will see what my agent has to say. Thanks for your advice. Fi.

Richard_Gregan

There may be a legitimate reason that we haven't thought of here, given the limited info we have to hand, but this is something you can establish when you talk to them.

Regards,

Richard

FionaG

Average cost of RPL ???? I'm getting varied prices can anyone tell me.Thanks Fi

Richard_Gregan

They can be up around £2000.

It sounds expensive (which it is), but when you compare it to courses in Australia it's cheap.

Regards,

Richard

FionaG

Hi,ok so now what? My agent says I can not go pathway 1 without the Aqf but I can find nothing that says this.My dilemma is do I pay $3800 to some company to get the Aqf or I'm I getting robbed. No idea I have paid my agent and the skill co 300 so am already committed but now feel I have no choice but to pay it.Any advice welcome .

old.sparkles

I think Richard said above that you can go pathway 2.

You are obviously not satisfied with the advice you are getting from your agent though, and 300 (£ or $) is a drop in the ocean with the total cost of everything. Perhaps try a different agent and see if you prefer their advice and approach. There are many who post on here - Richard from in this thread, Alan Collett is another who has a good reputation, TeeTMI would be a third.

FionaG

Hi, yea 300 would be ok to loose but in all I have so far paid almost 2000 out.Your spot on I'm not very happy with them and wish I had used a different agent, I'm hoping they get there act together soon and I feel jj $3800 for Aqf is overpriced but they have me by the balls I guess.ĺ

Richard_Gregan

If you cannot reference 5 years' full time employment as a Cook (including 12 months in the last three years) - which means providing full letterheaded employment references AND *pay evidence* then that would be the reason why you couldn't apply via Vetassess's Pathway 1.

If you can only provide enough evidence for three years' employment then this would be why you need an AQF - you can then apply via Vetassess's Pathway 2 option.

I can't say whether this is your agent's reasoning, but it's one explanation that comes to mind. Although if this is the reasoning, I'm not sure why they don't just tell you this?

Regards,

Richard