beginner

Anybody had experience with Four Corners emigration consultants? Any feedback would be gratefully received! Not sure whether to use a consultant or go it alone!

Souvenir

No but go for the second option.

beginner

Thanks very much, already leaning towards second option as not sure whether using a consultant would slow things down even more.

Souvenir

Unless you have an unusual situation, I can't see a consultant being of any use.

Wouldn't you be better of in the immigration forum?

stainedglasslady

Yes, we had some experience a couple of years ago at the start of the process. We were not too impressed with their knowledge on Canada. We were both matched up with completely the wrong jobs, wrong principal applicant put forward, and the quote was around £10,000 in total. Starting at a couple of thousand but if we signed up there and then they would give a couple of hundred discount. A bit of a disorganised shambles at their office also, so we decided to take a chance and go it alone, as we had already prepared most of the paperwork for them anyway. I don't know of anyone else who has used them to compare, we may just be a one off experience.

beginner

Thanks very much for advice, that's confirmed my feeling about them from the initial contact and at the moment we certainly haven't got that sort of money to pay out! Looks like we'll be going it alone!

mick and roz

Hi, we used four corners on recommendation from a friend and we are really pleased with their service - especially as we both work full time and dont really have the time to do as much research as we should, they basically do it for you. We first applied March 04, AOR June 04 and we had our medicals Jan 06. We have never had any problems with them at all. We paid upfront £3k (there are different payment options) which they will refund half of if the application is not successful. First off, we attended one of their seminars, which they hold around the country, you should go to one and make your own mind up. They will only take you on if they are 99.9% sure you will get in.
Good luck

Marathon Wreck

Hi.
Same here.
Used them, got excellent service,no problems,paid about £2.5k ,half back if unsuccessful etc. No nonsense, no digging up years worth of rubbish you dont need. No request's for extra info when all around us needed all but to dig their grannies up! Meds 15 months after AOR, Got lovely shiny visas in our passports.Guess if you're skint ,have unlimited time and dont mind wondering for several years wether you've left something important out..... :scared:
Your Choice......

London7

hi,
we used them, thought they were very good, especially a caseworker called andrea!!!! she was amazing. we still keep in touch with her.
good luck

susan

Hi
We also used them. Found them really helpful, they also have an office in Canada you can contact if you have any problems once you're there.
Susan.

wensamjam

When we first thought about emmigrating to Canada we went to four corners, (because it was so near to us we lived in lancashire) but they wouldn't even look at my application, just wanted to get my husband to drive a truck in Manitoba, and wanted £4,000. So we went away thinking we couldn't even get to Canada. We then went to a different agency, they looked at my application and i had 75 points. So we went through with them. It is personal choice, we would use an agency again. Had friends used four corners and they were very unhappy with them. We have now been in NS for 8 months and love it. Good luck what ever way you choose. It doesn't make the progress any faster.

R2D2

We used them and quite honestly should have saved the money and done it ourselves. For what we paid them, they didn't do anything we couldn't really have done ourselves, ( it was only lack of time and circumstances that prompted us to go with a consultant)
Then again .............all went smoothly. Was that due to using them or just the fact we had a straight forward case??????????????????????????
Their job search option is a complete waste of time. For a start the guy who contacted us was in Toronto and we were heading out to Alberta ????

wizzard

Bunch of con artists if you ask me. Went to their 'seminar' and 'free advice' consultation thing and they basically spouted a whole bunch of crap that was mostly made up and factually incorrect and had I followed their advice would have cost me an uneccessary fortune and also screwed up a whole aspect of my life. I suppose I should elaborate a litte.

I met my now wife via the internet about 8 years ago and I'd been to stay with her in Canada for one summer and over Christmas and she had been over to England for the summer (I was at university still). So the summer she came we decided to go to this free assesment thing at their offices near Manchester airport. At the time we didn't know anything about immigration and hadn't really thought about it but after all the visits over the last year or so we had realized that if we were going to carry on then one of us would have to move somewhere and I really liked Canada and was in an easier position to move right after university having no job or ties to anything yet.

So this was about 2 years or so before I was going to graduate and we figured that is when I would move. Now for the historically minded this was about 3 months or so before the new law was going to come into effect at the end of 2000. So we go to the meeting and the guy basically tells me that I don't have enough points to qualify as an 'indipendant immigrant' as they called it back then and that my only choice was to get married and apply as a spouse, which was our general plan anyway. However he then went on to tell us that the new law might mean that I wouldn't qualify as a spouse and that I would be best advised to apply right away to make sure I got in under the old law. He then said that people who applied on their own usually got refused and it was best to use a consultant. They then gave us this fancy looking binder with a contract to use them and a price tag of a few thousand dollars.

So we come away, a 21 year old and 18 year old at the time basically believing that if we don't get married right away and sign the contract and pay them a few grand I couldn't move to Canada. So I'm trying to figure out how, as a student, I can find this cash and should we really get married just like that and all this stuff. Then some sort of common sense particle or something hits my brain and I decide to actually look into what it is he has told us using the magic power of the internet. So I find the CIC website and read it. I read the old law, the new propsed law, the application guides the FAQs, everything. Everytime I read a new line I find out the guy was talking bollocks. In fact it would be easier to apply as a spouse under the new law. It will be faster and more stream lined. In fact you can actually print out the forms and guides for free. Actually you can find all the info and put the entire application together yourself at the cost of some paper and ink. There was a $550 processing fee and then $950 landing fee (if approved) and that was it. Cost of medical and police check sure. All together less than half what 4 Corners said and we could easily wait another year or so to get married and apply at our own leisure. Which is what we did and apart from a delay when the law switched half way through our application everything went perfectly fine.

Drew

Bleech

Hi,
We used them and to be honnest in hindsite I wouldn't of bothered.
Cost us as a family of 5 over £6k and we really nievely thought that they'd babysit our entire applciation and help us settle once we get out there, a bit like the "relocation experts" that you see on the tele, ringing around getting you job interviews etc Oh well, that'll teach me to watch to much TV.
Basically for the money they typed our written application into an acrobat file, printed it off, and that was it! We had to send it back to them about 4 times as they'd compeltly ignored what we'd written in our original forms, getting dates of births wrong etc.
The one thing that really grinds is that they put pressure on us to get our applications in quickly, saying that the points were going to go up on the 1st Feb, giving us just 3 months to get all our paperwork in, what a crock. Since then I've spoken to them on the phone about 3 times!!
Typical of me, I found this site after my application had been sent off
On the otherhand though, you do get the peace of mind that your application has been checked out and everything's there that needs to be. Like was stated above, we didn't send off tons of paperwork.
Try to get some recomendations from this site about consultants based In Canada though, they seem to be the best bet, just watch out for the baddies.

dbd33

If you feel you would like to have a consultant, I don't know why you wouldn't just review the questions and answers in the immigration section of this site, see who seems to have given good replies, and pick one of them. Better someone you know to be knowledgeable (even if you have to hold your nose over his politics) than a pig in a poke.