Migrating to Australia

Why bother with an agent who will likely charge more. Just make an appointment at the Australian Embassy in Vietnam.

Agents on the whole are pretty dodgy here, any whiff of a chance to make a few hundred extra bucks and they do it.

veenaga wrote:

My husband (Vietnamese) and I (Australian)   are looking at him migrating to Adelaide South Australia.  My husband is in Hanoi whilst I am back in Australia for the last 2 years.

Due to the enormous cost of the visa process we are now ready to apply for the visa for him.

Does anyone know of a genuine visa agent in Hanoi that can help us with the Spouse visa process? And what would that cost be (i already know the application cost).

We got married in Bankok in 2019 and I have our marriage certificate in Australia.  We do not have any children and only my husband will be on the visa application. We do not have any personal assets or joint assets as well.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I did my wifes application. Save your money and time and do some research regarding the process. You will do all the collection of paperwork and organising photos and correspondence, the agent will basically submit it and charge you a fortune.

If your husband is wanting to come to Australia, you can lodge the onshore application with an 820 visa. Read up on it, its a slow process but at least he will be with you in Australia.

Read this link, you may find it helpful.

Evidence for visa

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Why bother with an agent who will likely charge more. Just make an appointment at the Australian Embassy in Vietnam.

Agents on the whole are pretty dodgy here, any whiff of a chance to make a few hundred extra bucks and they do it.

The embassy will do squat, they will refer you to their money making side venture VFS global. We paid 8k AUD and they processed here in VN at a fraction of the cost of Australia. Not happy.

colinoscapee wrote:

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Why bother with an agent who will likely charge more. Just make an appointment at the Australian Embassy in Vietnam.

Agents on the whole are pretty dodgy here, any whiff of a chance to make a few hundred extra bucks and they do it.

The embassy will do squat, they will refer you to their money making side venture VFS global. We paid 8k AUD and they processed here in VN at a fraction of the cost of Australia. Not happy.

Bloody hell.. that's expensive.
What is is they say.. if you are overseas and need help go to your country's embassy..

Jlgarbutt wrote:

colinoscapee wrote:

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Why bother with an agent who will likely charge more. Just make an appointment at the Australian Embassy in Vietnam.

Agents on the whole are pretty dodgy here, any whiff of a chance to make a few hundred extra bucks and they do it.

The embassy will do squat, they will refer you to their money making side venture VFS global. We paid 8k AUD and they processed here in VN at a fraction of the cost of Australia. Not happy.

Bloody hell.. that's expensive.
What is is they say.. if you are overseas and need help go to your country's embassy..

Exactly. They are about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

colinoscapee wrote:

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Why bother with an agent who will likely charge more. Just make an appointment at the Australian Embassy in Vietnam.

Agents on the whole are pretty dodgy here, any whiff of a chance to make a few hundred extra bucks and they do it.

The embassy will do squat, they will refer you to their money making side venture VFS global. We paid 8k AUD and they processed here in VN at a fraction of the cost of Australia. Not happy.

i do not understand you exactly.

applying in AU for so-called permanent spousal AU visa is about $S8000 now (i haven't checked for about 5 years) (plus health checks etc)

(btw, but unless something radical changes, 'you' will basically never get it ... the queue and and the delay just gets longer and longer into infinity  ... mainly because of that bastard Morrison and that bastard Govt.  it is now receding into the past, but not so long ago it was about $A275 from memory, but by the time i applied some 5 years ago, it was up around $A7,500 from about $275 just two years before- at the same time as they made delay ever longer  - they say two years, and then after two years,m they say three years, and when three years, they say four years .... basically you are paying $A8,000 for a permanent 'temporary' visa)

but i don't understand what you say about "they processed here ...at a fraction of the cost"? the above fees are Govt fees. i can't believe that the AU Govt do in VN "for a fraction of the cots"? can you please explain?

veenaga wrote:

My husband (Vietnamese) and I (Australian)   are looking at him migrating to Adelaide South Australia.  My husband is in Hanoi whilst I am back in Australia for the last 2 years.

Due to the enormous cost of the visa process we are now ready to apply for the visa for him.

Does anyone know of a genuine visa agent in Hanoi that can help us with the Spouse visa process? And what would that cost be (i already know the application cost).

We got married in Bangkok in 2019 and I have our marriage certificate in Australia.  We do not have any children and only my husband will be on the visa application. We do not have any personal assets or joint assets as well.

Any advice would be appreciated.

two years apart! very not good.

without some more bg info, it is difficult to know exactly best advice.

do you work or retired?  does husband work or will work? do you receive any AU pension?

directly regarding visa app, as mentioned elsewhere, i can confirm that you can do yourself. but it is a bit of a slog getting all the documentation together - IT'S A LOT! and you have to write all about your 'story'. expect it to take the best part of a month to complete. longer if you have to post docs back and forth to Vietnam

the health checks i think you can arrange in Hanoi at doctors approved by AU embassy (prob much cheaper than AU if they haven't jacked their prices accordingly)

personally, depending very much on your circumstances alluded to above, i would go to Vietnam! :-)

but if you both need to work, then yes, AU is prob the better solution, despite the much higher costs here of course - unless you can get some sort of professional expat type job here - then you're laughing. and everything would be very easy for you here. but i am assuming you can't do that so working in VN would be pretty problematic for you, espec with no Vietnamese? a English teacher would be by far the best option then - Cert is easy to get and not too expensive and salary for expat teacher, quite good - a lot better than Vietnamese.

and you save $A8,000   prob total actually closer to $A10,000 :-) that goes a long way in Vietnam.

finally, pls note my other post above - $A8,000   will basically just get you (husband) a permanent 'temporary' visa - you will prob die waiting for an actual permanent one

but the 'temporary' spousal one, DOES mean you can work AND you get health benefits. but note there are restrictions about travel overseas incl Vietnam. before, at the very least, overseas travel made your visa wait longer - but that hardly matters now.

hope this is some help

fred2796 wrote:

colinoscapee wrote:

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Why bother with an agent who will likely charge more. Just make an appointment at the Australian Embassy in Vietnam.

Agents on the whole are pretty dodgy here, any whiff of a chance to make a few hundred extra bucks and they do it.

The embassy will do squat, they will refer you to their money making side venture VFS global. We paid 8k AUD and they processed here in VN at a fraction of the cost of Australia. Not happy.

i do not understand you exactly.

applying in AU for so-called permanent spousal AU visa is about $S8000 now (i haven't checked for about 5 years) (plus health checks etc)

(btw, but unless something radical changes, 'you' will basically never get it ... the queue and and the delay just gets longer and longer into infinity  ... mainly because of that bastard Morrison and that bastard Govt.  it is now receding into the past, but not so long ago it was about $A275 from memory, but by the time i applied some 5 years ago, it was up around $A7,500 from about $275 just two years before- at the same time as they made delay ever longer  - they say two years, and then after two years,m they say three years, and when three years, they say four years .... basically you are paying $A8,000 for a permanent 'temporary' visa)

but i don't understand what you say about "they processed here ...at a fraction of the cost"? the above fees are Govt fees. i can't believe that the AU Govt do in VN "for a fraction of the cots"? can you please explain?

My visa application was processed in Viet Nam, the cost of labour in Viet Nam is around one-fifth that of Australia. We are paying 8k and the processing is done in a country with cheap labour rates. Disgusting!

veenaga wrote:

My husband (Vietnamese) and I (Australian)   are looking at him migrating to Adelaide South Australia.  My husband is in Hanoi whilst I am back in Australia for the last 2 years.

Due to the enormous cost of the visa process we are now ready to apply for the visa for him.

Does anyone know of a genuine visa agent in Hanoi that can help us with the Spouse visa process? And what would that cost be (i already know the application cost).

We got married in Bankok in 2019 and I have our marriage certificate in Australia.  We do not have any children and only my husband will be on the visa application. We do not have any personal assets or joint assets as well.

Any advice would be appreciated.

You are the Australian citizen therefore you must make the application. Reading through some of this the only thing I think might be problematic is the long time you have been separated.  I'll try to paste a link for you.

https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/g … er-onshore

Good luck and be patient. Do not pay someone else to do what you can do using the official channels.

If you need any help, you can call me on an internet app like Viber. Send me a message if you want.

Thank you for the advice. I am working age and we do not have any assets nor any university qualifications. In 2015 the law in vietnam required foreigners to have university degrees to work in vietnam. Alao I hate teaching English. It is very boring.

I enjoy my job in Australia and we prefer to live in Australia. Also I have a health condition which I prefer to be treated in Australia for it.

Many years ago I applied for a visa with a previous partner and it got rejected because we couldnt prove an ongoing genuine relationship. This caused me much distress and I nearly ended up suiciding because my fiance decided he couldnt wait anymore and married someone else while I processed his appeal. Needless to say I dont want to go down the same path so this i why I want to get the application right from the get go and I am willing to get and agent to do that. But i am trying to finds somone in hanoi instead because it is a little bit cheaper.

Also i have sponsored twice before but one pre 1990's and one in 2000's the new rules say only max 2 sponsorshops but according to the current immigration records they only says i sponsored once. I got fio on my file to check. So this is also why i am willing to pay an agent as it is a bit complicated.

Unfortunately My husband and i havent been able to spend much time together due to the pandemic and my work commitments in Australia and the aust government wont allow me to leave or come back when i want..

interesting. very strange.

so you have this long history of sponsorship so i don't know why you ask us.

and i don't quite understand if you are AU resident why AU Govt not let you travel freely (apart from virus now)?

(as mentioned in prev, if you are the visa applicant, then they make certain restrictions on travel back - part of checking if bona fide relationship.)

and you say your husband in Hanoi for two years w/o you. well, that is pretty problematic, knowing Viet men. two years? two months if you're lucky.

and all this will again make establishing an "ongoing" bona fide relationship difficult again - as you must know from previously

i really don't understand all this, but i guess you know what actions/steps you have to do

nothing i/we can really do to help if we wanted

fred2796 wrote:

and you say your husband in Hanoi for two years w/o you. well, that is pretty problematic, knowing Viet men. two years? two months if you're lucky.

Sowing a seed of doubt in someone's mind about her marriage is not an appropriate advice. 

Saying "that is pretty problematic, knowing Viet men. two years? two months if you're lucky" as if it's a well known fact that the men in this country are cheaters and womanizers is a rotten thing to do especially when it's completely unfounded.  Vietnamese men are neither very faithful nor particularly unfaithful.  The value of their faithfulness in marriage is comparable to men in other countries. 

I think you should keep your advice to the visa questions only.  She never asked for your thoughts on her marriage, why are you trying to poke holes in it?

My close Australian friend went through all this in the 2 years before lock down, here is his story:-

He met a VN girl that he then sponsored to go Aus, she came back to VN he kept coming over to meet her and they got married.

He tried numerous times to get her back over to Aus for 2 weeks and failed they didnt belive she would go back.

He did partner app and she moved over last Feb, the whole process whas a nightmare, stressfull and the biggest hurdle was proving their relationship, they printed out over 2,000 photos and screen grabs of online chat app conversations, along with every piece of info they had, he also had sponsored before, I think that went against him.

He did all the applications himself it was an up hill battle, with out hard proof of calls, video chats, whatsapp/zalo/viber records etc you are going to have a very hard battle.

If you have records of the on going contact then you MAY get your application through but without, I would say be realistic about your chances.

My friend came over every 3 months for 2 years, had records and photos and still spend a small fortune in applications.

His wife found a facebook group for partners that had loads of advice about applications etc, maybe your Husband can try online to find and see if there is any good advice about agents etc.

I hope you manage to get him over, It is a nightmare going through the process though.

Andybris2020 wrote:

My close Australian friend went through all this in the 2 years before lock down, here is his story:-

He met a VN girl that he then sponsored to go Aus, she came back to VN he kept coming over to meet her and they got married.

He tried numerous times to get her back over to Aus for 2 weeks and failed they didnt belive she would go back.

He did partner app and she moved over last Feb, the whole process whas a nightmare, stressfull and the biggest hurdle was proving their relationship, they printed out over 2,000 photos and screen grabs of online chat app conversations, along with every piece of info they had, he also had sponsored before, I think that went against him.

He did all the applications himself it was an up hill battle, with out hard proof of calls, video chats, whatsapp/zalo/viber records etc you are going to have a very hard battle.

If you have records of the on going contact then you MAY get your application through but without, I would say be realistic about your chances.

My friend came over every 3 months for 2 years, had records and photos and still spend a small fortune in applications.

His wife found a facebook group for partners that had loads of advice about applications etc, maybe your Husband can try online to find and see if there is any good advice about agents etc.

I hope you manage to get him over, It is a nightmare going through the process though.

Must be a bit more to this. His gf came to Australia and returned to VN, this in itself makes the next visa application much easier. There must have been an issue somewhere.

It took my wife and I 6-months to do all our paperwork, it's not an easy process. It's also very costly around 8k aud.

colinoscapee wrote:

Andybris2020 wrote:

My close Australian friend went through all this in the 2 years before lock down, here is his story:-

He met a VN girl that he then sponsored to go Aus, she came back to VN he kept coming over to meet her and they got married.

He tried numerous times to get her back over to Aus for 2 weeks and failed they didnt belive she would go back.

He did partner app and she moved over last Feb, the whole process whas a nightmare, stressfull and the biggest hurdle was proving their relationship, they printed out over 2,000 photos and screen grabs of online chat app conversations, along with every piece of info they had, he also had sponsored before, I think that went against him.

He did all the applications himself it was an up hill battle, with out hard proof of calls, video chats, whatsapp/zalo/viber records etc you are going to have a very hard battle.

If you have records of the on going contact then you MAY get your application through but without, I would say be realistic about your chances.

My friend came over every 3 months for 2 years, had records and photos and still spend a small fortune in applications.

His wife found a facebook group for partners that had loads of advice about applications etc, maybe your Husband can try online to find and see if there is any good advice about agents etc.

I hope you manage to get him over, It is a nightmare going through the process though.

Must be bit more to this. His gf came to Australia and returned to VN, this in itself makes the next visa application much easier. There must have been an issue somewhere.

It took my wife and I 6-months to do all our paperwork, it's not an easy process. It's also very costly around 8k aud.

He had sponsored before, she went over for 2 weeks, then they married here in VN, they must have thought if she is married easy yo go Aus and stay there not come back? He spent 2 years trying to get her a travel visa and then partner visa.
He spent a small fortune and hundreds of hours travelling to see her, closest she got was NZ for a ski holiday before getting the partner visa, they just had a baby in march so no problem her staying perm.

As i said this was 3 years ago, Aus had tightened up because of boat people numbers so they were scared of  overstayers due to normal channels taking a long time.
When did you do your app?

Andybris2020 wrote:

colinoscapee wrote:

Andybris2020 wrote:

My close Australian friend went through all this in the 2 years before lock down, here is his story:-

He met a VN girl that he then sponsored to go Aus, she came back to VN he kept coming over to meet her and they got married.

He tried numerous times to get her back over to Aus for 2 weeks and failed they didnt belive she would go back.

He did partner app and she moved over last Feb, the whole process whas a nightmare, stressfull and the biggest hurdle was proving their relationship, they printed out over 2,000 photos and screen grabs of online chat app conversations, along with every piece of info they had, he also had sponsored before, I think that went against him.

He did all the applications himself it was an up hill battle, with out hard proof of calls, video chats, whatsapp/zalo/viber records etc you are going to have a very hard battle.

If you have records of the on going contact then you MAY get your application through but without, I would say be realistic about your chances.

My friend came over every 3 months for 2 years, had records and photos and still spend a small fortune in applications.

His wife found a facebook group for partners that had loads of advice about applications etc, maybe your Husband can try online to find and see if there is any good advice about agents etc.

I hope you manage to get him over, It is a nightmare going through the process though.

Must be bit more to this. His gf came to Australia and returned to VN, this in itself makes the next visa application much easier. There must have been an issue somewhere.

It took my wife and I 6-months to do all our paperwork, it's not an easy process. It's also very costly around 8k aud.

He had sponsored before, she went over for 2 weeks, then they married here in VN, they must have thought if she is married easy yo go Aus and stay there not come back? He spent 2 years trying to get her a travel visa and then partner visa.
He spent a small fortune and hundreds of hours travelling to see her, closest she got was NZ for a ski holiday before getting the partner visa, they just had a baby in march so no problem her staying perm.

As i said this was 3 years ago, Aus had tightened up because of boat people numbers so they were scared of  overstayers due to normal channels taking a long time.
When did you do your app?

Put ours in April 2020, visa was given November 2020.
Its a nightmare to do, especially dealing with govt agencies. VN govt gave us the wrong police check, even though we had an email confirming the correct police check. That cost us a month in delay, plus we had to pay for two new police checks. Australian police check had to be done twice due to the fact I use the shortened version of my name on Facebook, therefore they deemed I have two different names.

i was prev going to comment more, but here is a news item i just cane across. in fact, i will add two relevant.

(oh if the 'rules/system here allow of course. btw, just what is the sense of policing every link? what does  achieve?)

forget it. this site just makes it too hard. why do they go out their way to make it difficult for members to communicate easily & simply?

sorry i can't attach/upload this information for you

here i cut and pasted the text directly from the source ....
@karenandrewsmp
From 593 in March 2021 to 1,957 in June 2021, 1,000  more time bound expiring PMVs in 3 months without clearing the backlog of approved visas! Refunding of application fees to fiancé(e)s of Australians forced apart for 17 months is highly inconsiderate

this i couldn't copy the text, so i actually retyped by hand  ... but it was just posted in FB by Julian Hill MP.

"Under the Liberals, it takes on average 43.6 months for a partner visa to be processed for someone from Afghanistan. Yet only 7-9 months for people from Western Europe or the USA"

... as i hv said elsewhere, this AU Govt is blatantly in your face racist. that is why Vietnamese never get off the temporary visa queue. the promised PV is simply a mirage that is forever in the distance. the queue keeps getting longer and the 'promised' waiting period keeps getting longer, yet as clearly set out here, if you are 'white' Caucasian there is no problem,, South Africa np, German np, USA absolutely np ....  rushing it through, not even the previous supposed mandatory wait of two years.

(And of course just the upfront costs alone are now some $AU8000, up from about $A275 about 7 years ago .)

fred2796 wrote:

i was prev going to comment more, but here is a news item i just cane across. in fact, i will add two relevant.

(oh if the 'rules/system here allow of course. btw, just what is the sense of policing every link? what does  achieve?)

forget it. this site just makes it too hard. why do they go out their way to make it difficult for members to communicate easily & simply?

sorry i can't attach/upload this information for you

There are three basic reasons people find it difficult to share links:

1. On recently opened accounts, the site algorithm will automatically put most links under review.

You don't get special credit for having had a previous account here.

2. When your account is cleared to post links, there is a glitch in the system here, so that if you post something with a link, and then you go back and edit that post, the safety algorithm automatically puts the link under review.

3. Also, if the moderators have some reason for considering an account to be suspicious, even though they may leave the account open, they can limit the ability of an individual account to share links.

I still have problems with the second reason above.

fred2796 wrote:

... as i hv said elsewhere, this AU Govt is blatantly in your face racist. that is why Vietnamese never get off the temporary visa queue. the promised PV is simply a mirage that is forever in the distance. the queue keeps getting longer and the 'promised' waiting period keeps getting longer, yet as clearly set out here, if you are 'white' Caucasian there is no problem,, South Africa np, German np, USA absolutely np ....  rushing it through, not even the previous supposed mandatory wait of two years.

(And of course just the upfront costs alone are now some $AU8000, up from about $A275 about 7 years ago .)

Yet again flapping your gums about something you have no idea about. Firstly Vietnamese can get the permanent visa, my wife received hers within 7- months of applying. Secondly, the cost of the visa was not $275 seven years ago.
Finally, not sure Sanooku what makes your boat float, you keep bagging this site yet youve had more bans and usernames than there are days in a month. Give it a rest and seek help.

Offshore partner visa applications prices will have 122% increase in compare to December 2014 (in nearly 6 months). The Department first increased the fee from $3085 to $4630 from January 2015 and set another increase from $4630 to $6865 from July 2015.May 16, 2015