Daedra

I think what it boils down to is how complicated your process might be and wether or not you have the funds to pay for someone else to look after the paperwork/followups for you.

Personally, I harrased the heck out of the embassy/consulat agencies asking them a list (no seriously, I compiled a list of questions for them when I rang their chargeable phone number, double spaced for answers to be writen in and everything... how sad am I?) of questions and getting them to elaborate on what proof is required, whats acceptable & whats not etc etc... I did it this way for my application to move to the UK, it meant having to get some additional documentation I wouldn't have thought required, but in the long run, paid off. My visa took under 2 weeks to arrive in the post once I sent everything off by courrier

Bleech

From my experience, I'd agree with what everyone has said that if you've got a straightforward case, do it yourself.
We used an agency who basically saw us coming and ripped us off for over 6k UKPS! We'd gone to all the fancy seminars and had one on one meetings all before I discovered this place
Sod it, I'll name them as well, Four Corners. Absolute waste of space. For some reason I was expecting them to be there for us and hold our hands all the way, find us jobs, find us schools for the kids, everything. A bit like they do on the tele I think I was just taken in by the sales pitch and over excited about coming to Canada. All they did was copy our documents into a PDF format and print them off, that's ALL they did!! I could of done that. We had to fill in all the forms (which are printed off the internet) and do the donkey work ourselves, send them back, they'd type them in and send them to us to sign. They messed this up 4 times. When ever I'd ring them for a question they weren't as friendly as the first meeting, funny that! Actually there was one lady there who was quite aggressive and spoke to me like I was an idiot (Hmm maybe she's a good judge of character ) and if I'd ever ask for information all they did was print off documents from the internet which I could of done myself I've got to say that it was the biggest waste of money ever. I may as well of just got 6k out of the bank and thrown it in the bin
I know that some cases are more complicated, but you can generally get most the information you need from this site, I just wish we'd found it before we applied.
Good luck

rich1977

i was going to use a agent Willis brazolot had a meeting with them in the Hilton hotel went through it with him i had a job offer too it wasn't approved through HRDC though so he said he would knock £2grand off the total he wanted was £8 grand shocking if i had had the money at the time i wouldn't have paid it anyway.
Then when we said we would go away and think about what we would do he became very rude he had been nice as pie up till the price told us we couldn't have been that sure of going to canada in the end his face was bright red and i had to be very firm and rude to him because he would not take no for an answer kept shoving the contract in my face he is lucky i didnt knock him out complete ass*oles just be warned also i was going in on skilled work visa and my immpression was he new we were going to be a easy one and i had job contract too be warned

Stephen Jones

Hi Daedra - good shout. We are a family of 5, so it could get complicated.

Steve

dbd33

I don't think that's so. Children are just listed once, one, three, eleven, it's all about the same amount of work. (Unless they're adopted, of different nationalities, or otherwise complicated.)

deenailz

we were gonna do it ourselves but decided to go with a immigration agent for peace of mind , its cost us but worthwhile (we think so anyway ) hopefully it wont give us a longer wait :scared:

Calgal

Started out with one - but fired 'em due to doing not very much at all for us except dragging their heels. They claimed we still 'owed' them $3k, we told them to go whistle for it - seems they did, as we never heard from them again.

I don't know if we would be classified as straight forward or not - several countries, ex-spouses and dependent children remaining behind; but we managed it on our own.

Daedra

I think what it boils down to really is how much time are you willing to dedicate to your application. Anyone can do it on their own and save money but it does take up alot of time, especially if you make sure you cover every base and harrass the immigration office with long distance calls to make SURE the documents you have are sufficient.

A good rule is to always give them MORE then the minimum of what they ask for. If your going to err, then err on the side of too much information rather then not enough.

The applications which are 'questionable' to these immigration officers reviweing them seem to mysteriously get relegated to the bottom of their pile & it could take weeks before they finally contact you and ask for the further information, or that they decline your application & you have to start over again! *horror* :scared:

Lucky for me I had a very understanding boss who let me make the long distance calls to the embassy with my list of questions & clarifications during my lunch breaks, I offered to pay for the charges but she wouldn't hear of it. Either she was dying to see the back of me or she was too shocked that I was actually leaving to think it through *lol*