Chandigarh firm told to refund Canadian job permit fees

CHANDIGARH - An immigration company here has been asked by the consumer forum to refund, along with the cost of litigation, the processing fees it charged a customer for securing a Canadian work permit.

The district consumer disputes redressal forum Tuesday directed the city-based Canadian 4UR Immigration Services to refund Rs.322,340 and pay Rs.5,000 as litigation cost to Satvir Tandon, a resident of Ropar town in Punjab who had approached the company for securing a Canadian work permit.

I had applied for a Canadian work permit through this company in March 2007 and paid over Rs.300,000 that included retainer fees, approval fees and embassy fees, Tandon told IANS here Wednesday.

However, the company told me in May 2008 that it had converted my case to permanent immigration case. I had willingly not applied for permanent immigration as it is complicated and time consuming, he added.

Tandon, who holds a diploma in electrical engineering, said that after finding the consultants were not authorised to work as an immigration service provider, he approached the consumer forum.

Nobody from the company appeared at the hearing.

The forum, apart from directing Canadian 4UR to refund all processing fees and pay litigation cost to Tandon, also observed that the company was not competent to function as an immigration company.

Canadian 4UR, however, denied there was anything wrong in the services it provided.

“The applicant was hiding many facts from us and had submitted fake documents of his work experience and due to this his case was rejected, the company’s administration manager Jagdeep Singh Sangha told IANS.

We have all the proof and documents substantiating our point,” Sangha said.