alexalexa

Hi,

until now I believed the PRO is the person in my husbands company who takes care of our visas, but today I found out that the PRO is somebody outside of the company.... What is a PRO? A relocation agent, governement employee, lawyer,...? Is it usual to ask for the contact details of the PRO and call him up for visa questions?

Many thanks!

highways

Usually the PRO (Public Relations Officer) is an employee of the company who deals with visas and passports as you have said. I'm not sure about the one outside the company.

Madam Medusa

think in general it's only bigger companies that have in house pros...the others are lawyers who work for law firms, or are independent...

MM, xx

lionheart

They should really be called BRO's (Bureaucracy Relations Officers) or GRO's (Government Relations Officers) as they do bugger-all to foster good public relations from my experience.

alexalexa

Thanks for your answers. I asked the company now who their PRO is, and they told us it is a government employee and we can't contact him. I have the bad feeling that our company, which is small is just trying to skip the step of hiring a lawywer since the visa process so far has been a mess. Any advice on what I could do?

Madam Medusa

i could let you have the contact details for a good independent pro if you want, let me know...

MM, xx

Confucius

Noone hires a lawyer to do a PRO job...And your company probably has a freelance PRO who charges them on a transaction basis...
Also, you should be smelling the monkey a mile away...I see troubble in the horizon...

Madam Medusa

that's not correct...

MM, xx

alexalexa

I asked the company if I could talk to the PRO and that is what they told us:

"Our PRO (government employee) works for our company, but is not assigned to individuals, hence the reason we have not allocated a direct person to you."


What can I do now?

zamboooka

Ummm, how about going to the relative govt office and discussing what the issue is with them? I dunno, maybe there'll be a language problem or something though.... Kinda strange ur company isnt helping you out with govt / visa issues..!

You could also go to a "typing office" or whatever they're called (they're all over the place).. them people are usually helpful with govt stuff and could guide you better?

Confucius

Allow me to be pedantic; companies who have income exceeding USD100 million a year would hire a lawyer to attend to legal and regulatory matters within Governmental framework, but doesn't mean that a lawyer that gets AED30K+++ will go and wait in line to push paper in front of the Immigration officer...
PROs in my company get AED7K a month...And they're shit by the way...The stories they tell you...

Confucius

Typing centres know more about official ins and outs than anyone else...But still, officials will only entertain people who have a PRO card and not the person who has their photo on the forms (exceptions always happen...)

Madam Medusa

allow me to be pedantic...that's exactly what some junior lawyers from the top firms have to do, our pro did just that when we moved over here...

MM, xx

Confucius

Oh I see...Like a pledge in a university fraternity...Cleaning up other people's shit and shit...

Madam Medusa

no, nothing like that...

MM, xx