You could end up paying for their mistakes

<p>My husband and I approached Migrate2oz in July 2016 to find out if we qualified for an Australian Permanent Residence visa based on the points system for s****s, age, etc. We thought that paying experts to advise us was the best way to ensure, firstly that we didn’t waste a lot of time and money chasing a visa that we did not qualify for and secondly to ensure the best and quickest chance of success.</p> <p>After providing our personal information to Migrate2oz to allow them to assess and advise us on whether we could qualify for the visa, we were thrilled when they advised us that we fulfilled the requirements (on a combined basis) and would accumulate enough points for the so called 190 S****s based visa. Further comforted by the assurance that they gave to us in their sales pitch – “we have a 100% success rate”, we engaged their services.</p> <p>We followed Migrate2oz’s advice at every stage in the process and in doing so we paid over R59,000 in fees over the next 6 months covering Migrate2oz professional fees together with additional fees paid to other bodies in the assessment of our s****s and work experience.</p> <p>You can imagine our disappointment when we were informed in February 2017 that my s****s assessment had come back negative. The negative result was because I had been out the workforce as a stay at home mom for longer than the visa qualification rules allowed.</p> <p>Migrate2oz admitted at this point that they had given us the incorrect advice and that we actually never had any chance of qualifying for the 190 s****s visa. Below is a quote from an email sent to us by Migrate2oz’s migration agent Reuven Abeshouse on 16 February 2017 in which he admitted their negligence and the advice given to us was incorrect:</p> <p>“However, on inspection of the documents once provided we should have picked up this discrepancy that she had been out of paid employment as a HR Adviser for more than 4 years in the preceding 5 years prior to Vetassess lodgement.”</p> <p>Naturally we requested that we be compensated in full for the expenses we incurred, acting on Migrate2oz’s advice, in applying for a visa we never had any chance of qualifying for. We were offered a refund of only the Migrate2oz fees but that only accounts for around 50% of our loss. Call me old fashioned but I think a professional advice based company should stand behind its advice and take responsibility for 100% of the financial damages suffered by their client when they make a mistake. So we emailed Reuven with our opinion and requested compensation for the full amount. At this point he told us that his boss Ray Welthagen would be dealing with the matter. Unfortunately it seem Ray’s strategy is one of ignoring us completely as more than two weeks later we have not had the courtesy of a reply.</p> <p>Unfortunately we now have little choice but to take this as a dispute of professional conduct to the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority in Australia and further if necessary. Watch this space we will let you know how it goes.</p> <p>In fairness all our dealings with Migrate2oz were professional and seamless up until the point they chose to abdicate responsibility for the damages caused by their error in advice.</p> <p>Just know this if you deal with Migrate2oz</p> <p>1) They do not have a 100% success rate (maybe we were their first failure – I don’t know)<br />2) They are not committed to standing behind the accuracy of their advice.</p>