Does a payment-related RFE stop us from filing I-129?

[metinspain 0]

(um, sorry for the long rant below...but it felt good! i promise, there is a question at the end!)

**********

Ok, I am seriously frustrated with HSBC.

I woke up today and was not only thrilled to find our NOA-1 for our I-130 had arrived, but my husband and I also got several other bits of great news. We couldn't believe our luck all in one day!

Well, just as I was about to go to bed, blissfully at peace with our application process, I got an email from my mom back in the States...it said that another envelope had arrived from USCIS. Curious, I called and told her to open it. It was our I-130 petition, enclosed with a letter saying our payment was unacceptable.......all because HSBC INSISTED on dating our money order as they do in the UK (day first, then month) and they did it in numbers...so to the USCIS, the date looks like July 2, 2006 and therefore couldn't be cashed yet!!

I AM FURIOUS WITH HSBC OVER THIS!!!! I told them REPEATEDLY when I first saw the money order that no US government agency (or bank, for that matter) would accept payment of a check with a date that APPEARS (to Americans) to be months away from now. BUT THEY REFUSED TO CHANGE IT!!!! Their excuse was, "Well, we have to write it this way, and we can't change it because the money orders are written offsite. We have money orders cashed in the US all the time and they are always written this way and are accepted."

BULL(insert expletives here)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stupidly, we let them persuade us. Never again! On top of it, we were charged a whopping GBP 15.00 for the privilege of them writing us a money order which is now USELESS. Oh yes, and thanks for delaying our application, HSBC. GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! Thankfully, my mother is bailing us out and sending a US check to USCIS today.

Now that I'm done ranting, I can pose my question:

Does this "RFE" of sorts delay our ability to file I-129F? Since we got NOA-1 this morning, we were going to mail our I-129F tomorrow.

GRRRR, I am so annoyed.

Thanks for listening!

Edited March 3, 2006 by metinspain

[aussiewench 9]

Damm.......I'm sorry that happened.......I'd be mighty pissed too

I am surprised that you got NOA1 when your petition was returned. A blunder on their part I'd say. It has been accepted by them (NOA1), but perhaps the bank rejected it, hence now the return. I wouldnt use the NOA1 to file the I-129F as the receipt number is now null and void. You will get a totally new number when you refile the I-130. The NOA number stays connected to the I-129F (K-3) so if you use the one you have now it would cause you problems later on I imagine.

[zyggy 9]

Damm.......I'm sorry that happened.......I'd be mighty pissed too

I am surprised that you got NOA1 when your petition was returned. A blunder on their part I'd say. It has been accepted by them (NOA1), but perhaps the bank rejected it, hence now the return. I wouldnt use the NOA1 to file the I-129F as the receipt number is now null and void. You will get a totally new number when you refile the I-130. The NOA number stays connected to the I-129F (K-3) so if you use the one you have now it would cause you problems later on I imagine.

Yep... your I-130 is not accepted until the fee is paid... I suggest that you write a personal check instead or have a relative who has a US Bank account write the check for you...

[Yodrak 7]

aussiewench,

What's the blunder? The Receipt Notice means what it says - the submittal has been received.

And as we can see in this case, NOA2 is not necessarily an Approval Notice.

Yodrak

Damm.......I'm sorry that happened.......I'd be mighty pissed too

I am surprised that you got NOA1 when your petition was returned. A blunder on their part I'd say. It has been accepted by them (NOA1), but perhaps the bank rejected it, hence now the return. I wouldnt use the NOA1 to file the I-129F as the receipt number is now null and void. You will get a totally new number when you refile the I-130. The NOA number stays connected to the I-129F (K-3) so if you use the one you have now it would cause you problems later on I imagine.

[aussiewench 9]

Well thats a bit silly then!! I know what it means.....Just that it would of created an unnecessary mistake had she sent the NOA1 off already with the I-129F prior to getting the whole package back. One would think they would at least check that an entire package wasnt going to be returned first. Not very efficient in my book.

aussiewench,

What's the blunder? The Receipt Notice means what it says - the submittal has been received.

And as we can see in this case, NOA2 is not necessarily an Approval Notice.

Yodrak

Damm.......I'm sorry that happened.......I'd be mighty pissed too

I am surprised that you got NOA1 when your petition was returned. A blunder on their part I'd say. It has been accepted by them (NOA1), but perhaps the bank rejected it, hence now the return. I wouldnt use the NOA1 to file the I-129F as the receipt number is now null and void. You will get a totally new number when you refile the I-130. The NOA number stays connected to the I-129F (K-3) so if you use the one you have now it would cause you problems later on I imagine.

[Yodrak 7]

aussiewench,

I suspect that you were correct in the 2nd sentence of your original post - the USCIS thought the payment was OK when they opened the submission, and so sent out the Receipt Notice. Then they got the check returned by the bank and had to return the submission for an acceptable (to the bank) payment. (In my experience, if the USCIS thinks that the payment is incorrect when they open the submission, they will return the submission immediately and NOA1 will be a Rejection Notice.)

I still wouldn't say that the blunder was on the USCIS part - the payment looked OK to them and so they sent out the Receipt Notice. Can you imagine the noise that would be made if the USCIS procedure was to hold off on sending the Receipt Notice until the checks cleared? There's enough worry and complaining now when they're a bit slow sending the notice.

I'd say that the people who blundered are the banks, especially HSBC for not at least showing the month by name. I wonder what it's like trying to do other international business with that outfit from America if the dates on both sides never agree?

Yodrak

Well thats a bit silly then!! I know what it means.....Just that it would of created an unnecessary mistake had she sent the NOA1 off already with the I-129F prior to getting the whole package back. One would think they would at least check that an entire package wasnt going to be returned first. Not very efficient in my book.

aussiewench,

What's the blunder? The Receipt Notice means what it says - the submittal has been received.

And as we can see in this case, NOA2 is not necessarily an Approval Notice.

Yodrak

Damm.......I'm sorry that happened.......I'd be mighty pissed too

I am surprised that you got NOA1 when your petition was returned. A blunder on their part I'd say. It has been accepted by them (NOA1), but perhaps the bank rejected it, hence now the return. I wouldnt use the NOA1 to file the I-129F as the receipt number is now null and void. You will get a totally new number when you refile the I-130. The NOA number stays connected to the I-129F (K-3) so if you use the one you have now it would cause you problems later on I imagine.

Edited March 3, 2006 by Yodrak

[metinspain 0]

Thanks you guys. (Especially for reading my rant!) I agree, the blunder is on the part of HSBC...and they claim to be "The World's Local Bank"??!? HA! I bet Yodrak is right and that USCIS glanced at the check, thought it looked ok, and sent NOA-1.

We have not mailed our I-129F today, because I thought I'd better see what you all had to say.

Yodrak, is it your opinion that our current NOA-1 is ok to use alongside our I-129F? Aussiewench, would you agree based on this discussion?

Would love to know what you both advise as a next step. Maybe I should call USCIS and ask..... ?

Thanks for your help and understanding, as always!

Mariel

By the way...if it helps to know this bit of info, the "RFE" type letter that USCIS sent rejecting our check DID carry the same Receipt Number as was on our NOA-1. That leads me to believe that very same Receipt Number will follow our application all the way through (vs. them issuing us a new one after my mom's US check is cashed.)

Thoughts?

Cheers.

M

[scy 0]

I have never seen an RFE where they sent the whole petition back. Whenever a petition has been returned, it's been rejected outright, so no RFE. Your case is different, and only USCIS can tell if you will receive a new case number. And that 1-800 number is useless so don't bother calling them.

Personally I would wait to make sure. It's only a two weeks wait anyways. But the choice is yours.

[aussiewench 9]

I believe you will be issued an entirely different receipt number when you resubmit with a correctly dated check or money order. Your entire petition was rejected based on the non acceptance of the check. You didnt receive an RFE requesting the correctly formatted check....it was a rejection wtih the entire package being returned. Submitting the NOA1 you have now is too bigger risk when you no longer have an active I-130 petition at the service center. Wait for the new NOA-1. I will be very surprised and will eat my hat if the receipt notices are the same

PS.....I sure hope I dont have to go looking for a smiley eating a hat

[cmartyn 0]

This is why you should send a personal check and not a money order but I digress.. You know, there seems to be no concept of a post dated check here. I send my mortgage company a post dated check and it clears way before the date on it. I think the USCIS is just being goofy and if they put that check in the bank it would clear without issue.

[metinspain 0]

This is why you should send a personal check and not a money order but I digress.. You know, there seems to be no concept of a post dated check here. I send my mortgage company a post dated check and it clears way before the date on it. I think the USCIS is just being goofy and if they put that check in the bank it would clear without issue.

No, it's definitely because a bank won't cash it if the date is too far in the future. My mom works at a bank, so I know this is the case...banks cannot cash checks until the date on it has passed (or is the same day). Perhaps mortgages work differently? Anyway, that is definitely what our problem was...the date on our money order appears (to Americans) to be July 2, 2006 because it was dated 7-2-06, and therefore can't be cashed until then.

Believe me, we would have LOVED to send a check from my US account, but circumstances prevented that at the time, and our only way to get the process going was to ask HSBC for a money order. We're going to give them an earful on Monday morning!! We told them how to write the date correctly in the first place, and they not only refused to do it as we requested, they guaranteed us there would be no problem. Annoying.

[pri 0]

now when you file again please make sure chq or money order put the Month in words instead of Numbers

[metinspain 0]

now when you file again please make sure chq or money order put the Month in words instead of Numbers

Seriously! We no longer have to get money orders anyway, and we can use my US bank account, but I am going to always spell out the month name for USCIS from now on!

Thanks to aussiewench and yodrak (and everyone else) for their help on this. I'll have to keep you guys posted. I have scoured the USCIS website for any information that might clue us in on what to do, and it SEEMS like maybe we will keep the same Receipt Notice Number after the new check clears. (Though I could be wrong? ) Basically, they advise anyone with a payment problem NOT to submit a new application. So I can't imagine that THEY, themselves, would want to process it as a new application when we already have a Receipt number? (Again, who knows! )

Anyway, I'm going to try and ring them up Monday and see if I can get an answer from USCIS directly. Their letter does not state that the application is rejected. It literally says, "Please mail back this entire packet with this letter on top, along with your corrected payment." That doesn't sound like all-out rejection to me...but again, only they can tell us!

I'll post next week and let you know!

I sincerely hope that this fiasco has at least saved others out there from the same pitfall.

[aussiewench 9]

Their letter does not state that the application is rejected. It literally says, "Please mail back this entire packet with this letter on top, along with your corrected payment." That doesn't sound like all-out rejection to me...but again, only they can tell us!

I'll post next week and let you know!

Ahhhhhhhhh.........I take back what I said about it being a different NOA1 that you will be issued now that I know exactly what said. Will teach me not to ask Would take a bit of doing, finding a smiley eating its hat. IMO you have simply been given an RFE to supply the corrected payment. They still have you in the system???? Let us know what happens for sure with it. Out of curiousity, did you try checking online?

[metinspain 0]

Their letter does not state that the application is rejected. It literally says, "Please mail back this entire packet with this letter on top, along with your corrected payment." That doesn't sound like all-out rejection to me...but again, only they can tell us!

I'll post next week and let you know!

Ahhhhhhhhh.........I take back what I said about it being a different NOA1 that you will be issued now that I know exactly what said. Will teach me not to ask Would take a bit of doing, finding a smiley eating its hat. IMO you have simply been given an RFE to supply the corrected payment. They still have you in the system???? Let us know what happens for sure with it. Out of curiousity, did you try checking online?

Yes, I did check online. Our case is there.

It says: "Current Status: Your I130 IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR RELATIVE, FIANCE(E), OR ORPHAN was received on February 23, 2006. We mailed you a receipt with information about processing. It is taking between 990 and 999 days for us to process this kind of case. We will mail you a decision as soon as processing is complete."

Now, that RFE we got for payment was sent on Feb. 28, and when I login to USCIS's website, it says our case was "Last Updated" (touched?) on Feb. 28, 2006. (Probably the day they sent the RFE.) It doesn't give any further information about the status.

I sure hope we're not awaiting a new NOA1! That would be soooooooo great! Still, I'm going to call tomorrow and will let you guys know what they say. Here's hoping!