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Canada IMS (canadaims.com) offers lackluster information about the owning company, other than a name, a phone, and an email, which nowadays is simply not enough. There is no office address and no information about the time in business, but more importantly, there’s no information about the RCICs used by the company.
According to the Terms Of Service available on the website, Canada IMS offers an assessment of your visa options, provides a list of Authorised Representatives (as defined by Canadian immigration law), and additional services that are not directly related to the client’s application or the immigration procedure (IELTS preparation courses, programs to improve the client’s English/French proficiency, etc.).
The company can be contacted by phone or at email support(at)canadaims.com. It’s important to note that Canada IMS is not affiliated in any way with the Canadian government and does not decide who will receive a Canadian Visa. In other words, do not assume for a moment that paying for their services will automatically grant you a visa (this is true for all private immigration consultancies, not only Canada IMS).
Compare to Top Alternative Immigration Consultants:
- UIS Canada is a professional immigration consultancy that upholds a spotless and proven track record of providing the highest quality customer service. They make sure that clients have all the most up-to-date information, thus avoiding any unnecessary delays in their immigration process.
- UIS only works with RCICs and they specialize in permanent residency and temporary visas.
- Great North Visa is a top-tier, solution-driven consulting firm committed to facilitating their clients’ main objective of receiving the Canadian visa they require by providing a wide range of immigration services and settlement solutions designed to simplify your immigration process.
- Great North Visa puts an entire team of selected Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants (RCIC) at your disposal.
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Canada2036 Canada IMS Review
A company’s website is its calling card and also the first thing a client sees, so it’s only fair to start with our opinion of it. Aside from the fact that it doesn’t contain enough information about the company and its location, the website looks clean and the information is relatively well organized.
However, there’s some conflicting material on it: the home page advertises “we have 17+ years experience in immigration consultation”, while their About Us page reads “Since 2014, we have helped thousands of people […] to succeed with their Canadian immigration process”.
Maybe Canada IMS started operating in 2014 but the combined experience of the team is 17 years? Even if that’s the case, how can we know for sure that Canada IMS started operating in 2014… after all, we only have their word and there’s no trace of this consultancy dating back to 2014. Maybe Canada IMS should do a better job at offering clear information.
Canada IMS Fees
The company offers two types of “programs” as they call them: Basic and Gold but the latter will only become available if you complete the former. For clarity: the Basic program is used to find out if the client’s qualifications meet the eligibility requirements for Canadian Visa and only eligible individuals will be given access to buy the Gold program.
If clients decide to pay for Gold, they will receive (among others) a personal manager, the application will be managed by a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC), and the required documents will be verified (however, it’s not specified by whom). But if they mention that the application will be handled by an RCIC, they should also provide information about the credentials of the RCIC… but more on that later.
As far as costs go, we have absolutely nothing… nada. It’s yet another piece of the puzzle that Canada IMS leaves out. And… you know, some of us would like to know the price upfront. We understand that some cases may be more complicated than others, thus the price may differ but at least an estimation would be nice.
All we can say related to costs is that the website of Canada IMS has some astonishing similarities with PROICC’s website and especially the pages about services and costs are almost the same, word by word, image by image. PROICC’s Basic program costs $495 and the Gold will set you back between $1000 and $50,000. That’s quite pricey compared to Canada2036’s approved RCICs.
Keep in mind that we do not claim that the two websites are part of the same group, or related in any way, or that Canada IMS’ costs are the same as PROICC’s. We are just saying there are a LOT of similarities, including the two pages we’ve just talked about, the Blogs available on the two websites (which have the exact same articles), and more.
RCICs – The Backbone of All Immigration Consultancies
It is paramount that your chosen immigration consulting firm works with at least one Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC). That being said, it is common practice for the majority of respectable consultancies to offer clear information about the names and credentials of the RCICs they work with. Unfortunately, Canada IMS is as transparent as a brick when it comes to this type of information
There is absolutely nothing about the RCICs they use and we don’t know if they even employ the services of one. All we’ve managed to find out from their Terms of Service is that Canada IMS provides “a list of Authorised Representatives (as defined by Canadian immigration law) for you to engage with in order to obtain their services related to the visa application procedure”.
According to Canadian immigration law, to legally offer immigration advice or services for a fee in Canada, individuals have to be members of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC), lawyers (registered with one of 13 provincial or territorial law societies), or notaries registered in Quebec.
In other words, an Authorised Representative as defined by Canadian immigration law is an RCIC, a lawyer, or a notary. According to Canada IMS’ Terms of Service, they will provide clients with a list of such Representatives and then you – the client – will have to contact a person from the list and engage with them in order to obtain their services.
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Canada IMS Services
- Express Entry
- Provincial Nominee Program
- Family Sponsorship
- Investor & Entrepreneur Visas
- Citizenship
Online Canada IMS Reviews
It looks like Canada IMS likes to keep a very low profile, as this consultancy is nowhere to be found on social media and their online presence is almost non-existent. Pretty weird for a company that’s been active since 2014…
The company doesn’t have a Facebook profile or at least not one that we can be sure belongs to them. All we could find was a profile named Canada Immigration Services (Canada IMS is an abbreviation of Canada Immigration Services) but the description reads “travel company” and there’s no link to the actual website of Canada IMS, or other relevant information that ties that profile to the consultancy in review.
A Twitter search returned scarce results and no clear user profile but we did find a post that mentioned the huge similarities between Canada IMS and PROICC, a thing we’ve already mentioned above.
Turning to Google for any trace of Canada IMS, the same trend of full-stealth emerged: our search returned zero results. This could be due to the very generic name used by this immigration consultancy (typing Canada Immigration Services will return hundreds of results but none relevant about this specific firm) or could be due to their irrelevancy on the immigration scene.
The only place where we did manage to find Canada IMS and confirm its profile (due to the website address seen in the upper right corner), was Trustpilot:
Look at all those reviews… exactly what you would expect from a company in business since 2014, right? Joke aside, it’s actually weird that no one bothered to leave a single comment anywhere on the Internet but it is what it is. We can assure you that we will keep monitoring and will update our review as soon as comments and/or user reviews emerge.
Editor’s Note: The Bottom Line
We are dealing with an immigration consultancy that is below our standards and we consider that people who wish to immigrate to Canada have better choices than the ones they can find on our top recommended RCIC list. To sum it up:
- There is mixed information about the company’s experience: allegedly 17 years of experience, allegedly in business since 2014;
- There’s no information about their RCICs;
- There’s no information about the costs involved;
- There’s no information about the offices;
- The company doesn’t have a prominent online presence.
The recurring phrase is “there’s no information about…” so I ask you, why would you use a consultancy that you know almost nothing about? If they don’t give me even basic information, then I will not give them my trust and money! And that’s the bottom line!
