What is the best place to order Gcms notes?
Where you obtain your Gcms file from is important. Simply put, misuse of your confidential information can lead to fraud. If not fraud, you will be bombarded with advertisements, spam emails and phone calls with offers to sell you often unrelated and unnecessary services. Services like health insurance, visa re-application assistance, help with interpreting your Gcms file, writing a statement of purpose letter and the list goes on.
Table of contents
❇️ Request your Gcms for free
❇️ Request your Gcms with some help
❇️ 3 things to consider before ordering Gcms
❇️ Conclusion- What is the best place to order
Nuff said! Request your Gcms for free 😱
We assume you know what Gcms is, if you have applied for a Canada Visa then this article is for you. Checkout this article or visit this site if you want a quick primer on Gcms Notes. You can even see a sample file here
Now to the free part! Under Canadian laws it’s your right to access the information held by government institutions. This law allows you to obtain your information on your own for free, yes nada, नि: शुल्क, मुफ्त, مفت, 自由. How do I get it? Go here, select IRCC as the department and use the Privacy Act to request your own information. It’s that simple and you can do it any number of times and it has no adverse impact. In fact you can use the same process and pay the government a nominal fee to request the information for your beloved, mummy, papa, uncle, auntie, cousin, friend or anyone else, but you will need a consent form which you can get, also for free, from here or here. As for the consent form, you can use either form; if you are concerned about safety of your information then we recommend the first form because it’s valid for 30 days from the date it’s signed. The other form is valid for 1 year.
So what’s the catch in getting Gcms for free 🤨? Here are the exact official rules:
- There are no fees charged for requests made under the Privacy Act.
- The purpose of the Privacy Act is to protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves where it is held by a government institution and to provide individuals with the right to access such information.
- Note: Personal information which belongs to an individual who is not ⚡ a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident of Canada or currently living in Canada must be requested under the Access to Information Act.
- The application fee for request made under that Access to Information Act is $5.00.
- The purpose of the Access to Information Act is to provide a right of access to records under the control of a government institution to Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or any individual or corporation present in Canada.
If you must, the catch ⚡ is that you must be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident of Canada or currently living in Canada. If this does not work for you or you don’t won’t to go through the process then you can get some professional help.
Request your Gcms with some help 🙋
With almost every imaginable verb, adverb and adjective affixed before or after the words “Gcms Notes” it’s understandable why your head might be spinning 😵. Here are some things to consider. Let’s remind ourselves why you should obtain your Gcms file in the first place;
✔️ Lets you know the status of your Canada Visa application
✔️ Lets you know if your representative is doing his/her job
✔️ Helps you prepare for interview and gather documents
✔️ Lets you understand visa refusal reasons
3 things to consider before ordering Gcms🤔
1️⃣ Immigration lawyers, registered consultants and the likes — back in the day some of these folks did not like to publicize the availability of Gcms notes; because it “ ✔️ Lets you know if your representative is doing his/her job ”. Times have changed and these days some of these folks are heavily promoting this service. You ask why? For some folks it’s an opportunity to up-sell and cross-sell other services they offer like legal opinion, interpretation service, health insurance and a myriad of other services. Such services are often unnecessary to the larger audience and definitely expensive. Case in point, something called legal opinion is offered by some firms for US$600 for a couple hours of work; if that. Let’s say an average person works about 2000 hours in a year and with that kind of bill rate it equates to an earnings potential from $500K to over $1M 💰💰. Canada’s top professionals are going to be envious with the possibility of such earnings potential (it beats the current sunshine list).
Here is another example of what can happen when you order your Gcms file from folks “affiliated” with a licensed immigration lawyer or “affiliated” with a registered immigration consultant. Look closely to what the image below has to say. Such “affiliations” are sometimes not in your best interest. Working with an independently operated firm has better outcomes.
Many of the immigration lawyers, registered consultants and the likes work hard and provide an honest service but there are reasons for organizations like this to exist.
2️⃣Data collection — is a huge endeavour among some of these firms as well. We are not talking about anonymised data; it’s very much personal and identifiable data points that are being collected. Such data is collected from web forms you complete to order your Gcms file or at times from the Gcms file itself. Ever wonder why some firms are asking for your 📬 mailing address or 📞 phone number? Gcms notes are NOT going to be mailed to you and neither is anyone going to call you to deliver the information over the phone. It’s not needed for processing your payment either. With advances in payment technology such information is increasingly becoming optional as it creates friction in the checkout process. Furthermore, why are some firms asking for a copy of your 🛂passport and visa refusal letter? It’s not required to obtain your Gcms file. Sometimes, IRCC may request such documents for validation purposes but it’s not common and absolutely not required during the initial phase when you order your file. Why provide confidential information upfront when it’s not required? It does NOT speed up your Gcms order; that is a myth because IRCC has laws about processing standards. Another interesting trend that is becoming prevalent is collecting your information and reselling it in the name of providing visa progress tracking services which are of little to no value.
3️⃣ Currency and Pricing — Is another area in the Gcms process that has graduated from being simple to perplexing. We will talk about currency first. Some companies are so concerned about foreign exchange impact that they offer the same service in US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Indian Rupees, etc to cater to their clients in those countries (disappointed that Wakanda didn’t make the list). This is a perfectly acceptable practice but sometimes it is bewildering and disingenuous. Case in point:
🍦 Service A is offered in USD 20, CAD 30 and INR 1500 — exchange rates between the 3 currencies look reasonable as of this writing because foreign exchange rates can be volatile. (example; the 🍁 Canadian Loonie is also called a petro dollar because it’s impacted by global oil prices.) Also, there is some rounding involved in these prices, so this example looks fine.
🐍 Service B is offered in USD 45, CAD 55 and INR 3000 — The pricing of this offering is disjointed and does not make sense. It’s the luck of the draw when you order Gcms and depending on the currency you pick you could be paying more or even less. This is an example of where things get bewildering and disingenuous, stay away from such deceptive pricing tactics.
Now to Pricing — this is a topic we won’t expand on much and you will understand why. There are companies that claim to have the lowest price in the market or will tell you that their prices are ~25%, ~ 30% etc. lower than market. Power to such companies because you know what they say about cheap prices; “ you get what you pay for ”. Actually, you may be paying quite a heavy price for such cheap services if you end up working with someone who makes up for the cheap prices by selling your data to others or up-sells and cross sells you other unnecessary and expensive services. Loss leaders exist for a reason; go back and re-read 1️⃣ to understand why.
🔚 CONCLUSION (until next article in this series)
First off, many of the immigration lawyers, registered consultants, and the likes work hard and provide an honest service so let’s thank them for all they do. Now to the question with which we started this article;
What is the best place to order Gcms notes?
The answer to that question is that — it is your decision to make! Make an informed decision. You can obtain your Gcms Notes for free or with some help. If you need help then do your homework because it matters where you get your file from. There is a lot at stake. Misuse can lead to fraud; see how.
Choose a Gcms provider that has the experience and track record of superior results, is respected and trusted by others and provides an honest service! Here are some handy links for future reference;
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this article and good luck with the next steps. 👋