Four2oz

Hi, all, good news. I got my visa granted today. And coincidentally it's my wifes Birthday today. So the CO sent her congratualtions along with the grant letter. My agent has forwarded me the original e-mail. Can you imagine ?! We all (four of us) are so happy today. :ssign19: I would like to thank all of you posting on this thread, as I find it really helpful in terms of information we share and personal support to the ones who are still waiting. Special Thanks to PIO forum administration. Good luck to all of you and see you soon in Oz. P.S.: Mr.Pumpkinhead - would you please be so kind to update the spreadsheet. BTW I applied online and Medicals were e-health.

I bet you should live in hope =) In fact GH staff seems to have speeded up the processing during the past few weeks. I keep my fingers crossed for all of us in the queue.

Hi, Oliman, well the COs reply doesn't say anything about ASIO or IGIS checks. Lets hope that they only need to check your work experience (calling or e-mailing your employers and etc.). Fingers crossed that you get your visa soon =) Cheers.

I guess they are processing medicals that were referred in early October.

My daughters meds are finalised today. Now all our family is done with meds. My agent wrote CO a reminder message. Hope I get a my grant letter on Monday.

Hi, Oliman, I'm really sad to hear that. As per information from some other forums, external agency checks may last up to 9-12 months. Did your CO mention the date, when the external checks commenced ?

Congratualtions, ClaireandPilch, good luck with all your future beginnings.

Nope, they certainly wouldn't. However, I wouldn't swim too far from the shoreline (20-30 meters max.) just to keep the chance of being attacked somwhow lower.

Hi, Oliman, congrats on your meds finalisation. I would strongly advise you to send a message to your CO to "remind" him/her of change of status. COs are not always looking through their applicants checklists, thus he/she could be unaware of finalisation of your meds. I hope you get a golden e-mail in response to your letter. Cheers.

Congratulations, Maxjax. See, your CO isn't that bad =)

Well, the CO isn't paid to care about the applicants. Sad but true. We are still waiting for the daughters meds to be finalised, as my sons report was finalised right away on 28 September, me and my wife finalised today. So one person is still pending. And it's really strange. My agent told me that as of beginning of current week GH is not responding to the applicants e-mails and calls anymore and encourages apllicants to address their inquiries to COs. She wrote a message to CO tonight thus we are waiting for her response. Hopefully with a golden e-mail. :rolleyes:

Hi Angelika, this is really strange that your case has still not been looked at. My meds were referred on 28th September (176 visa) and finalised today. Try calling your panel doctor to check whether everything is fine with your medical report (whether it had been correctly uploaded and etc.), and after that try calling or e-mailing GH. I believe you had your medicals done at IOM office in Moscow ? Good luck.

Hello everyone, my wifes medicals as well as mine were finalised today on 11th December, so we still wait for our 4 y.o. daughters one to be processed and off we go with a "reminder" letter to our CO. Wish me good luck please ... I'm so excited as never before !!!! Cheers.

I'we bought an IPad in December 2010, as I thought it could be useful for my work. However, I was wrong. What disappointed me first is the fact that it hasn't got a USB drive. Second disappointment was the fact that any files I want to upload should only be transferred via ITunes application. Third sad fact was the reality that e-mail profile (the one you create on your IPad) would rsend/receive all your mails and attachments via ITunes - practically speaking Apple Corp. is fully capable of reading all your correspondence as it relays by their server. And this leaves no chance to privacy and information security. As a result the "toy" landed in the hands of my 4 year old son and still remains his best friend with all the fabulous games i.e. Angry Birds, Cut the Rope and etc. The good thing about IPad and Apple in general is the cost of games (from 1 to 5 USD) whereas Sony PSP (we have one as well) wants over 20 USD per disk and there are no free edition or trial-period games. My opinion is: IPad is a good thing for entertainment and I can hardly imagine that anyone is really using it for serious work. However I'm considering buying a new one for the kids, as many games nowadays require an IOs 5 or over and a newer versions of IPad.

My congratulations, Sylvia2012, Did you send a letter to your CO inquiring about your case, or was it CO who made you happy first ?

Hi, Maxjax, I don't see any rudeness in her response. She just tells you that she is unaware when would GH have a look at your medicals, and until then she is practically unable to give her comments. In fact she was as polite as her Professional Etiquette requires. I believe there's more point in writing to GH directly if you want to "politely remind" them about your case. Especially considering your date of referral. Good luck to you.

Hi sylvia2012, I think you should remind your CO to check your case file, and who knows, maybe he/she sends you a letter you wait for. :yes:

My family's medicals (eHealth) were referred on 28th os September. I check the status every few hours but NO CHANGES until now. So I keep meditating :wacko:

Thanks, Sammy1, for explaining this to me. At least now I wouldn't feel as if ripped off =)

Holy abracadabra, I always thought such practice with obligatory "voluntary contributions" and buying school supplies (mandatory from school at incredibly high cost) was "invented" in Russia only. Now I see that something alike is waiting for me in Oz as well. =( Please keep posting and let us know whether the prices for school stuff differs from the ones at the stores and what kind of shool-related expenses are the voluntary contributions are expected to cover. Cheers.

Hi, coblos, The fact is - I don't have any urgent issues. I was just surprised that the agent keeps track of my progress without even being reminded. It's not quite common that agents really care about their clients, though they'd better do so =) P.S.: Congratulations with your progress. =)

And BTW, I forgot to inform that my Case Officer has changed. She's still from the same Team 7, but it's some other lady now. Might it be due to start of summer-holidays season in Oz ?

My Agent contacted the CO today regarding my family's medicals. The CO informed that GH is processing medicals that were referred on the first decade of September (1-10 September). As ours were referred on 28th of September, she had suggested to wait for another 2 or 3 weeks and then she would send a formal inquiry on our status to GH. Well, at least this is some sort of an OFFICIAL INFORMATION from DIAC employee, not just guesses and speculations =) And I was really impressed, that my Agent took the initiative to inquire about our status, as I did not ask her to do that.

Nope. But I'm full of expectation :biggrin:

Hi all, as per information from the DIAC website, there were 100 new invitations to apply allocated in July 2012 (which would evetually mean 100 new lodged applications and therefore 100 new mediacal reports added in the queue). In August the number of invitations totalled 1,000 and September added another 2,000. We still miss the information on invitations issued in October and 1-14th of November, but the number we already know is 3,100 new applicants. On top of that, the above numbers are valid for visas 189 and 489 only. State Nominated sub-classes such as 190 type add another 115 applications in July, 741 in August, and 635 in September. Which makes it total 1491 applications. If put those figures together we get 4,591 applications to be processed along with the "old-school sub-class applications". And that makes me think that GH is not actually giving the figures just to get people off the phone. I tend to agree with their statistics. IMHO they are really short of resources. Especially if we consider that the summer-vacation season is now starting in Oz, all the pending applications may experience even greater delays in processing. And that makes me feel a bit depressed.