Year 2013
I was working overseas when I applied for a student visa to Australia through a self proclaimed professional consultant. It was my Mum who attended the talk by an educational agent from Australia in Baguio City. This professional consultant who must not be named claimed to be working with the agent which was true as he was acknowledged by the agent. He approached my Mum and offered his service after marketing his achievements and position in a TESDA accredited school. Mum got convinced so she relied to him since I was not in the Philippines at that time.
I sent via email the documents to this self proclaimed consultant and in less than a month I already had my Letter of Offer. He was rushing me into paying the tuition fee amounting to almost 4,000 AUD despite his awareness that I did not yet prepare the other necessary documents. Two months before my contract ended, I took a month's vacation from work and headed to my country to accomplish the requirements for my application.
I chose a diploma course in one of the Vocational Education and Training schools in Melbourne under subclass 572 yet this self proclaimed professional consultant changed it to Aged Care because according to him the show money is lesser compared to a diploma course which is also true. As what I understood, he presented himself as a manager of a school and also a manager in separate agency connected to that school. He seemed to be nice yet I still had this feeling of uncertainty and doubt against him. I had a lot of questions about my application but he could not give me direct and confident answers unless he confided to the education agent. He would always quote the education agent's information and this made me think of transferring my papers to the main office in Manila and let them be the one to process it for me. I told him about it and he agreed unless I pay him his professional fee stating that he already did a lot of things on my application. He highlighted on my Form 157A and letter of offer from my school expressing it was not that easy to get that letter.
I was surprised and still reasoned out that it would be practical for me but he still insisted on his payment. I did not have enough days to stay longer so I told him I will rely everything to him but he must have to assure me he would work on my paper very well. He agreed. I paid the amount he asked through bank.
My Mistake. I should have listened to my instinct.
He told me to submit documents to him yet he did not give me the complete requirements in one shot so I needed to go to and fro from my province to my nearby province to Manila to Baguio to get what he was asking. He never realised that travelling is not so easy.
I paid my tuition fee to the account of the school where I am enrolled through telegraphic transfer to one of the banks here in the Philippines. In a week's time, I was informed I already had my Certificate of Enrollment from the school where I enrolled.
One of the requirements of my application is the show money. This was the main reason why I was refused.
My Mum loaned a big amount of money from a cooperative in my province and entered it to one of the embassy's accredited financial institution under my bank's account name. My vacation leave was almost over so I left everything to my Mum to deal with the bank transactions. I signed an SPA before leaving Philippines to finish my contract.
After a week when I resumed to my work, my Mum informed me that the consultant lodged my application only waiting for the result which would take more than a month.
Two months went by yet I did not hear from the self proclaimed consultant until I finished my contract and finally came back to Philippines. Still, there was no news from him until I decided to go to his office. I found out he got the refusal letter from the embassy yet he did not inform me or my Mum. He told me we could re-lodge. I lose my temper and shot back at him telling him "oh yeah? so another payment?"..grrrr.. Unfortunately for me, I paid an unprofessional fee. :(
Anyway, I learned my lesson on this and though I was very angry and killed him in my thoughts, I still asked him to hand me over all my documents and that I did not want to ever hear from him again.
