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Immigration Daily News The department of immigration’s (DIBP’s) poor service standards puts visa applications at risk
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The department of immigration’s (DIBP’s) poor service standards puts visa applications at risk
DIBP’s unfortunate approach in responding to enquiries by registered migration agents (RMAs) has been stifling RMAs ability to properly advance the case of prospective migrants. Applicants have been paying higher DIBP fees in recent years only to have poor service standards dealt out to their professional advisors.
It would seem that the solution to all of this is simple enough: that case officers provide their phone numbers to a migration applicant’s professional advisor, namely the RMA, or provide quicker responses via the Agents Gateway. However, neither have been forthcoming.
The Migration Alliance is concerned that DIBP's Agents Gateway has failed to live up to any respectable service level standards. This has a serious, detrimental, and unfair effect on prospective migrants whose applications are being processed.
RMAs have long complained of DIBP's slow responses, which can take between 2 to 4 weeks for what could very well be straightforward clarifications. But RMAs complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Given this, RMAs in urgent need to attend to genuine concerns have had to rely on DIBP's general phone enquiry line. However, RMAs says that DIBP's operators on these lines have displayed a reckless attitude amounting to contempt for the migration advisory profession.
The Migration Alliance has received numerous complaints from RMAs on DIBP's handling of enquiries on its general enquiry number:
“call 131881, wait on hold for about 30 minutes (as usual), get to speak to a very unfriendly operator who advises me that ‘this number is for the general public”, said one RMA.
Liana Allan of the Migration Alliance says, “DIBP has to stop treating RMAs with contempt and disregard. Dealing with RMAs queries promptly and properly will actually save DIBP both time and costs. When an RMA makes a query it’s often on matters not properly described in any of the available resources.”
Mark Northam of the Migration Alliance says, “It’s high time for a DIBP agent hotline for RMAs. Too often legitimate questions about urgent client needs are met by zero response by email, a shocking lapse in professionalism. INZ has a far different attitude towards agents, and truly seem to appreciate agents – they have a dedicated branch for agents’ questions and issues, and the kind of antagonistic attitude shown by DIBP in cases like this is just not seen in INZ.”
Beatrice Leoncini of the Migration Alliance and NSW Law Society’s David Prince raised the issue of not being able to phone anyone at DIBP to discuss urgent matters. In particular DIBP was informed of the huge problem where registered migration agents cannot get telephone numbers to contact the DIBP and email addresses of the relevant case officers. Instead, RMAs are left with relatively useless generic email addresses and numbers which often go unanswered.
“Our clients are to be treated fairly and with dignity, and more importantly RMAS should be treated fairly and with dignity and respect”, says Liana Allan.
There is an urgent need to have more fluid and open communications between RMAs and delegates involved on cases. This is essential for prospective migrants. RMAs are professionals assisting prospective migrants through an often complex maze of laws, processes and procedures in order to lodge a complete and comprehensive application. Everything the RMAs does is to advance their client’s case.
“A failure of DIBP to properly assist an RMA amounts to a failure in DIBPs duty to properly consider the full merits of an application,” says Liana Allan.
Comments
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Thursday, 10 April 2014Interesting enough:
1) On the Agent's Gateway (http://www.immi.gov.au/gateways/agents/contact/) the link to department phone numbers directs you to http://www.immi.gov.au/Help/Pages/our-telephone-numbers.aspx - this is the page which gives 131 881 for general enquiries.
To me, this implies that migration agents can and should call 131 881 if they wish to talk to someone on the phone.
2) On http://www.immi.gov.au/Help/Pages/our-telephone-numbers.aspx
No where on the page does it say that migration agents cannot call 131 881.
3) DIBP client service charter:
We will answer 85 per cent of calls to our national contact numbers
131 881
131 880 and
133 177 within two minutes.
133 177 by the way is client feedback.
I try as best as I can never to call 131 881 simply because the information can be incorrect, and you have no paper trail. Asking other agents is better.
4) Did DIBP ever specify in writing that agents cannot call 131 881? They should provide this in writing either on the web site or through letter to MA or the other bodies if this is the case.
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: If you have to call, it's worth mentioning what research you have done to find the answer. When you think about it - if you are asking a simple question that can be found in Legendcom, a natural reaction for a DIBP officer would be to get annoyed that they are doing the research for us for free and we are the ones getting paid.
So my suggestion is to use 131 881 sparingly, and to ask fellow RMA's where possible.
Our own forum is under used, and if it is used more frequently, I'm sure that there will be more questions asked and more answered as well.
Having said that, it would be great to have a separate line for RMA's for genuinely complex queries. And if I have to pay for it, I'd probably be willing to do so. It will certainly limit the number of basic queries that they probably get. -
Friday, 11 April 2014
I believe that there are two separate issues here which need to be separated to make any progress:
1. Making urgent enquiries about a particular application which has been lodged. It is sometimes inevitable to call the 131 881 number in urgent cases, as more and more there is no direct number to the specific processing area. I have been noticing more and more that there is no case officer name on communications from DIBP, which I believe is against their own service standard Policy.
2. Making enquiries about Regulations, Policy, etc. for yet to be lodged applications. In this case there is no point calling the General Number. The best option is to consult with colleagues or the forum (which I agree is underutilised). Requests through the Agent Gateway on specific Policy issues are eventually answered but more often than not the questions are avoided completely and the answers are very generic and nonspecific. -
Friday, 25 July 2014
Hi , I have got the following error while checking my visa status at VEVO.
"Your query cannot be processed as the system has encountered an error (3). Please call 131 881 and an officer will assist you" -
Saturday, 26 July 2014
Prasad, this is what I got with my enquiry:
VEVO error message – Error 3:
An error 3 advises that we have multiple departmental records for the client being queried. Ms xxxx second departmental record was created on xxxx June when she undertook the health examination required for her next substantive visa. We have now merged these files and VEVO is correctly responding again.
Is your client an ETA holder?
Contact EVO Helpdesk: http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/forms/evo/index.htm -
Saturday, 26 July 2014
Thank you for your valuable reply, This is PhD student application. I have arrived to Australia last week. Actually I am trying to open the new bank account and they are tried to verify my visa status at VEVO and they couldn't able to check my visa status. I will contact to VEVO department or call to 131881 on monday
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Tuesday, 09 September 2014
I need help to reset passwords for VEVO
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Friday, 09 January 2015
133881 is often the only number given by the department. I am on hold at the moment trying to get help with an on line application where [a] the medicals link does not work and [b] the 'attach documents' link is not even on the page. The only telephone number on the application received notification is 133881. So far 15 minutes and 1 transfer after receiving a 'call back'
Immigration blog
Most RMAs are very knowledgeable with the Migration Laws but we all have encountered some unusual cases and need to clarify one or two curly questions before proceeding any further. The typical answer from the desk jockey is" You're a RMA and you should know the answer"! This type of respond indicated that they don't have the answer themselves. How many times at a meeting when a member of the DIBP said I will find out and get back to you? Which they never do most of the time but that's besides the point.