Where do you get your immigration advice?

My golf coach often cautions me against looking for golf advice on YouTube to gain insight into my golfing technique (or lack thereof) and instead suggests that I should be having lessons with him to hone my technique and iron out any problems. The skeptic in me thinks that he is in the business of charging for tuition, so he would be dissuading me from obtaining free advice on YouTube. And why would I pay for his advice when I could find the answer I need for free on YouTube and other forums?

Many of you have a similar attitude when it comes to immigration advice. Why pay for a consultation with me if you can find free advice online? I understand the thinking, but it’s flawed for the reasons set out below.

As far as my golf is concerned, after a few weeks or months of watching videos (depending on my pain threshold), I pay for a lesson with my golf coach, who provides me with a fix to my problem and tells me why the advice that I found on YouTube isn’t relevant in my particular case.

No matter how much I agree with my golfing coach and swear never to look at YouTube again, within a few weeks, the allure of free “quick fix” advice on YouTube has drawn me back once more. Before I know it, I’m looking at one golf video after another with no improvement to my golf game, and it’s often with cap in hand I’m back at my golf pro to unwind all of the incorrect techniques I’ve acquired from YouTube videos.

I suspect that you are no different with regard to your immigration advice. The idea of free immigration advice, which you can obtain from various sources, as opposed to having to pay for advice, is enticing, so where do you look for your immigration advice?

It seems that most people search for immigration advice in various places and often use registered/licensed migration agents such as myself as the last port of call rather than the first.

Some of the sources that people use are as follows:

• Friends who previously immigrated. The obvious danger is that some of these friends processed their own visa applications, and others used agents, and whilst they may have successfully obtained their visas, it doesn’t make them experts in the field. The visas that they used and the little bit of policy knowledge they may have acquired may have been applicable to their own circumstances but might not be applicable to yours. They may also have been applicable to immigration policy settings that have changed over time. There may also be other visa types that they have no experience in that might be more suitable to your particular circumstances.
• Family members – similar considerations apply to those under paragraph 1.
• Online chat groups – I’ve examined the advice shared on chat groups, and it’s often dangerous, incorrect, and misleading. One of my previous clients referred to this type of advice as “barroom advice. " It’s hardly expert in nature, and anyone who has actually looked at the immigration legislation for Australia and New Zealand will see that it is far from simple.
• Facebook and Twitter – The same goes for online chat groups. The unqualified information and advice given by those who have done it before won’t necessarily apply to your situation.
• The Department of Home Affairs website in Australia or Immigration New Zealand website in New Zealand. These websites are the best possible summaries of immigration legislation that I’ve seen, but they are still summaries, and every time legislation or policy is summarised, some of the essence of detail is lost. It’s also difficult to navigate your way through the vast array of visas that these websites contain. It’s like trying to navigate your way through a maze; you may enter one particular visa corridor, find a stumbling block (you may be too old, lack the right work experience or the right qualifications), and turn down another visa corridor only to find the same issues.

?You could be spending hours wandering in circles without being any the wiser.

• ?YouTube –You don’t know the qualifications, experience, or area of specialty of the person presenting the immigration advice, and similarly, that person does not know about you or your personal circumstances.

What you should be doing is obtaining immigration advice from a registered/licensed immigration agent/advisor, and I have several very good ones in mind, namely me or any of my colleagues working at IMMagine.

Before giving any immigration advice, we require you to complete one of our preliminary evaluation forms on our website and upload copies of your CVs. Once we have that information, we provide you with a free written response within 24 working hours advising of the most relevant visa options and give you the option of attending one of our free online seminars before proceeding to have a detailed Zoom consultation with us, which usually lasts 75 – 90 minutes. It’s all free advice up to this point, but all of this free advice is very general in nature, and what you really need is an individual consultation where we have sufficient time to be able to explain our advice to you so that you can make a well-informed decision regarding visa requirements, timeframe, cost, risks, and pitfalls before you embark upon one of the most life-altering decisions you will ever make.

The skeptics out there will be thinking that I make these comments because I’m in the business of selling immigration advice, and why pay for it when there are free sources to obtain immigration information? To these people, I say the best of luck, but your reluctance to pay for a consultation will ultimately result in tears, frustration, and more expenses, much like I have after trying golfing fixes I watched on YouTube.

Whilst incorrect advice that I obtain on YouTube may result in a poor round of golf, , which is admittedly upsetting and frustrating and can even reduce one to tears :-), the consequences for you of relying upon incorrect advice are so much more profound.

Until next week,

Myer Lipschitz, Director.