iamwillcreative

You're very welcome Norma, good luck in your future endeavours and may your application be straight forward and stress free Will.

Thank you Alan. It is very nice to get a response from you for the first time. Of course I realise there were incidents that were beyond your control but the manner in which information was shared about updates and policies was woeful. Like I said, the removal of the DRC was done around Christmas, I found out about this 2 weeks ago only by asking for reasons why it was taking so long to be assigned a case officer. I can happily give you a rundown of events of my experience with Go Matilda which began in Feb 2013 and you can decide for yourself if my standards are too high or if indeed, the service was below par.

Hi Norma, I was just granted PR (186 nomination visa) and used Go Matilda for the whole process and to say I was disappointed with their service would be an incredible understatement. I am in the process of writing up a full incident report which I will be sending to Immigration as they asked for feedback on our experience. I live in Australia and was initially given an Australian contact to handle my case whom, to be fair, was very helpful and courteous. However, at some stage of the process I was transferred to another Go Matilda contact in the UK with no notification. This now meant I could not call my agent as it was the middle of the night when it was my working day. I could only communicate via email so a simple question would sometimes take 2 days to be answered. Our new agent in the UK made this one of the most stressful experiences of our life. Not to mention expensive. He didn't inform us of two separate price hikes in visas which cost us an extra $2200. We weren't told that both applications (nomination and visa application) could be submitted together - which again cost us money, this was because whilst we were waiting for nomination approval, the visa prices were increased again. There were numerous incidents where I needed help and very time critical stages and was literally told by their receptionist. "I'm sorry, I have no-one who can help you, call back another time". Alan Collett (above) did not answer or ever return my calls. I have never had any correspondence with him despite trying on numerous occasions. I recently (February) asked and asked about our visa status and was told that sometime around Christmas, immigration discarded the 'Decision Ready Application' process as it wasn't working. They never even bothered to tell me about this, it's only because I asked. When we were originally deciding whether to use an agent, Go Matilda told us: "By using a Mara registered agent, you can submit a 'Decision Ready' application and get a result in approx. 6 weeks. If you apply without using an agent, it's around a 6 month wait time". This is why we went with them. We did all the hard work and our agent in the UK made numerous mistakes which made us very uncomfortable with his competency. (Attaching rough draft documents to the final application).... I could go on and on. I have never been one to leave bad reviews as I'm quite a relaxed person who likes to just get on with things but I feel people need to know about my experience. If I can stop one person going through what we went through, then it's worthwhile. I received PR on Friday 28th Feb - the email was sent by a very friendly representative I'd never spoken with before. I have yet to hear from my agent in the uk regarding the visa approval. Not even a "Thanks for using Go Matilda". If I could do it all again, I would have done it without an agent and I am certain it would have been less stressful and probably quicker. Especially now that they have scrapped the "Decision Ready" feature, I have no idea why anyone would use them. My advice would be do as much reading from the immi website as possible and ask lots of questions on here and be in total control of your own future. Good luck!

Thank you very much for your reply! That's great news - can't wait to start doing some more photography in the near future

Hello Poms in Oz community! I am currently applying for PR through the employer sponsored stream of the subclass 186 visa. I am a Graphic Designer and Photographer based in Brisbane. Whilst I was on my working holiday visa (over 2 years ago), I got an ABN and worked for myself for a while, then when I got sponsored as a designer on a 457, it meant that it was illegal for me to earn any money other than from the sponsored role. I am quietly confident that the PR application should be quite straightforward as we have done everything to the letter and followed the rules, it's more of a formality than a problem. Once I become a permanent resident, is it possible for me to be able to do photography on weekends and be paid for it as a legal side business? I'm not looking to leave my sponsored role but I currently have to turn down a lot of work I really enjoy as I'm unable to be paid and it would be wonderful if I was allowed to earn a bit of extra cash again and do it legally. If anyone has any info that could point me in the right direction, I'd be very appreciative. Thank you in advance.