INZ in hot water

MotherBear · #1 (**permalink**) 10-03-2008, 07:55 PM

Immigration staff's ignorance appals migrants
5:00AM Monday March 10, 2008
By Lincoln Tan

As more New Zealand residents quit the country, wannabe Kiwis say the key obstacle to calling Aotearoa home is the Immigration Service.

Long delays, missing documents and a lack of general knowledge among immigration officers were just some of the things residency applicants who spoke to the Herald complained of.

Singaporean entertainer William David accused the service of incompetence and described his experience as "a nightmare you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy".

"They lost my medical documents and made me go through the entire process three times.

"My case manager didn't know where Singapore was, arguing that it is a small village and not a country, and he also said he couldn't view the DVDs I submitted to support my application because he didn't have a DVD player," said Mr David, who is applying for residency under the talent visa category.

More here .

Glenda · #2 (**permalink**) 11-03-2008, 08:32 PM

You ring their NZ information office and nine times out of ten get disconnected because "it is one of their busiest times". If you are lucky enough not to be disconnected to "call back later" you have to sit and listen to several songs before getting to speak to someone.

They lost some paperwork of ours when sorting out our residency which was bad enough. Now it seems they have lost our passports which we sent in for RRVs. They say they will contact me if they are found, but also wonder whether they actually got them through the postal service. I knew I should have taken a plane down to Auckland and dealt with them directly.

macfod · #3 (**permalink**) 11-03-2008, 08:55 PM

Ok, the other side of the fence.

Ok initially Immigration said that there was no way we could buy or start a business over here..
But, persistance and via the direct route to Business Migration got us in.

I must comment that I have nothing but praise for the people in that department.
Always prompt helpful and personal in their approach.
But thats Business Migration in Welly

MotherBear · #4 (**permalink**) 11-03-2008, 09:27 PM

Oh dear, Glenda

. That's just great. Haven't they got any record of receiving your passports? They really should log everything in as they receive it because there's such a lot of stuff kicking about there that applicants have sent in and they at least need to know whether it actually arrived with them. Did you send them registered post or whatever equivalent they have in NZ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glenda

They say they will contact me if they are found

If? IF?? That doesn't sound too hopeful. If it can be proved that the passports did arrive there and they are not found I'd hope that INZ would pay for new ones to be issued as I'd imagine replacing them is not a cheap matter.

Glenda · #5 (**permalink**) 12-03-2008, 07:02 PM

Hi Mother Bear.

The first mistake I made was sending it to the officer I was dealing with over the telephone and previously with the ex's RRV. I should have sent it to the main processing office and then they deal with it as a new application. Secondly, I wrote both the physical address as well as the post box address on the envelope - as you would see on their letter heads; apparently it should always be the just the post box address.

Immigration are not sure whether it is floating around their office, in transit between offices, or the postie made a mistake ... so NZ post are investigating as well.

Just in case of the worst scenario I think I had better now go and find out how long and costly having the passports replaced will be.

Wrekin Wanderer · #6 (**permalink**) 12-03-2008, 07:42 PM

I have it on very good authority that it takes one immigration office 5 hours just to open their post !!!!!!!!!!

alan&moyra · #7 (**permalink**) 13-03-2008, 01:48 PM

we did have a bit of a struggle to start with but i managed to obtain the NZIS direct telephone number in London and direct e mail addresses so I gues we were lucky.

But i do feel sorry for them, lets be honest they have a hard job and the forms are a nightmare to fill out, and prob lots of mistakes that they have to try to interprate themsleves........ or am I just being too easy on them

Glenda · #8 (**permalink**) 13-03-2008, 06:44 PM

Don't mean to hijack this thread ... but just thought I would say Immigration rang me today and told me they had found the application and passports! What an absolute relief!

So pleased they rang today as I was wondering when I had to inform the police, consulate and fork out in the region of $1,500 for new passports (can't believe UK passports are now GBP119.00).

I wish I could have understood the reason why it went missing but INZ is staffed by many accents, and the guy I spoke to certainly did not have English as his first language.