0z2012

The thing that concerned me about concept Australia was some of the posts including some here, which stated that the branch in Kent were not that helpful and they did not always get in touch or return calls. Mind you these were dated in 2003, all I can imagine is that they were one off cases and there is always two side to each story.
But saying that I have read like yours, some excellent reviews, I will take the positives and contact them.
Thanks

je59726

I used the Kent office last year for my application and I found them frustrating at times. Some of the partners work part time and were not great at getting back to me in what I thought was a timely manner. They use different people for different parts of the application, so one person did the skills assessment then other did the application submission. At those handover times there was always communication breakdown.

0z2012

Thanks for your feedback, how is your application progressing now, have you been granted the VISA. Did they know what they were talking about? Funny enough a lot of the feedback were similar to yours. Some also said I think one of the director’s Grahame Lgglesden is hard to get hold of and can sound patronising.
But I have read some good things about him as well, he has written couple of articles on the Times and I believe he has written much more.
What I am keen to hear from you is, did they get your job done out of 10 how would you rate them? I am in a dilemma at the moment, I have two options, concept Australia or Visa Bureau. But the latter is almost charge double the fees, but are prompt so far with my enquires and phone first stage free assessment.

je59726

My permanent residence visa is ongoing since all the recent changes but that doesn't worry me as I already have a temporary visa so can l move whenever I like. I did not deal with Grahame, it was his wife. I could never get hold of her, she always passed me onto her colleague and then I would randomly get emails from her with the requests for information. I often was not sure who I was dealing with to be honest. I could not fault their knowledge or expertise, they do however need to work on their customer service and communication. I think Graham is the only one in the office who is the qualified migration agent, but I may be wrong. I have not used other agents so I cannot do a comparison. Knowing what I know now, would I use them again, probably not for the customer service reason. Did I read you were applying in the IT area, if this is the case I would recommend you use an agent who is well averse to ACS as their skill assessment is detailed and someone who understands the IT industry would help considerably.

0z2012

Thanks you for the info, I am keen to understand how you managed to get the temporary visa is this something open to everyone? I will look up to see if there are any IT specialist agents around. I was quoted £1500, was your bill similar and did you get the option to have a face to face meeting. As the other agents I have enquired about don’t encourage face to face meeting!

fluffy1

We used Concept Australia back in 2004 (the Manchester one) and they were fine. They even helped us a couple of years after we got the visa when we needed a copy of something and helped straight away.

Alan Collett

If you require a face to face meeting you are limiting your choice of agents significantly.

Remember also that engaging an agent in Australia should allow the agent's fees to be on a free of GST/VAT basis.

Best regards.