I doubt that the person you replied to has ever done changes to another persons visa application before.

Referring to this, which I think is the point.

General comments by people is one thing, making changes to their documents is totally another.

The RMA's on here often give very valuable free advice.

Many of us would not want them to stop doing that, because of unjustified comments made against them.

It has been a long time that we have had to pay for everything we need. It isn't something new.

But it would be good if everyone worked for free, so we didn't need to pay for things.

This visa process is very stressful, and we should make allowances for stress affecting us at times.

You are publicly making insinuations about my integrity and honest intentions.

I am not the one regulating the Migration Advice profession, the Australian government is.

When people start talking about money, I always wonder what professional services they provide for free. None whatsoever usually.

I have made it clear that I am not in a position to assist DIY applicants and it is no skin of my nose whether the OP seeks professional advice or not.

I am just warning unqualified people about providing hands-on
assistance with some else’s application.

No, that is categorically false. I never mentioned you or anyone else by name, never mind discussions of integrity or honesty. You responded to my post with indignation, as you have in past threads. Why bother if you are so firm in your belief. One would assume you are busy attending to applications.

There seems to be a common pattern here: a forum member generously offers their help, and a select few, veiled behind their righteousness, jump all over them. Maybe the forum should limit the number of posts per week, to prevent it from becoming a social network platform and allow other members to help each other.

Not at all. People are welcome to share their own experiences, compare what they have included in their applications, point out where in migration regulations they can find information, etc. And in this way, forum members are hugely helpful to each other and we encourage this.

But for someone who is not a registered migration agent to say "send it to me and I'll look at it and edit the content for you" (which is how I along with others interpreted the post) I think steps too far into the realm of offering advice. This is when people will caution both the person making the offer and also the person receiving the offer that not only does this step over the legal line, but really it puts the applicant at some risk of putting their application into the hands of an amateur (no disrespect to the person making the offer - even after spending many years on forums, I would never claim to be anything more than an amateur).

I think it was pretty clear in the context who you were referring to.

I am actually on holidays. Not that it is any business of yours.

Nick and Westly

Thank goodness for your input into this forum for without it, it would end up being another forum "sponsored" primarily by large Migration companies. You both are enormously generous with your time and advice and never once have I seen a post from either of you aimed at financial gain.

On behalf of the many on this forum that benefit from your advice and guidance - THANK YOU!

If you noticed my comment I submitted later on, I agreed that maybe the content, etc of the statement would be better clarified through a registered agent and I would instead offer to check the grammar/spelling of the statement as clearly this applicant has mentioned a bit of help was needed on the statement due to the applicant's limited English which they would otherwise have had to obtained from an agency at a cost.
Also, I'm definitely not encouraging anyone to "put their application in the hands of any amateur" or myself for that matter (I'm exhausted after my visa application process and I'm still waiting for my grant to come through:p). But thanks for being kind enough to caution this applicant against the offer to simply check spelling/grammar on their statement.

All advice provided by all agents and others on this thread are valued and welcome.

More importantly, @lephu20 -hope you managed to sort out your issue throughout all this drama:)

Cheers!

There are exceptions to this for parliamentarians and their staff, 'education' agents. legal aid officers, and various others and it is not beyond lawyers to blur the distinction between 'immigration legal advice' and immigration advice. If you are in Australia and you want to avoid the costs and regulations associated with OMARA registration, refer clients to your overseas office where your unregistered agents can do anything they please.

I used to know a little more than the average Joe on a few of the visa types and processing locations, I spent hundreds of hours possibly even a few thousand hours doing research while doing some of our applications (sometimes with a RMA).

I am very much not current now with what I then learnt.

A work college approached me a few weeks ago to look over his 820 application, I did but said I was not a RMA and way out of date.

They clearly had done a lot of homework (knowing 888's take a long time was one)

Other than sort your files better, they disagreed on relationship start date in the paperwork - again I stressed I was not a RMA they are fully aware what that means.

I did recommend a few RMA's but they were time short - no money changed hands nor ever will, but I get all the updates inc the BVB only took 3 days and we just uploaded x. I think he was more lonely of the visa process than incapable, once he could talk about it lots of stress was released.

So did I advise?

I think no - I proof read and found an error and informed the error.

I certainly did not advise 820 was a good or bad option or on what to supply or exclude.

My advice to all after the years I have played with visas is -

A) use a Registered Migration Agent if you can (afford)
B) use a Registered Migration Agent if a DYI goes pear shaped or a visa is refused.
C) use a Registered Migration agent to review a application (only a few do).
D) do a very lot of homework if you can not use a Registered Migration Agent.