Guillermo Zieglers and his family emigrated from Argentina and they currently live in Ottawa. His blog, Los Zieglers En Canada, is very popular with the Spanish-speaking community. However, he must pay a price to fame: he occasionally gets what he calls the WFT questions. Non-native English speakers, note: WTF stands for “what the fuck”. And my… what the fuck indeed when I see some of the questions he gets!
Apparently, I’m also famous enough to receive my fair share of WTF questions. These questions generally revolve around immigrating to Canada, preferably using the faster and most illegal way possible. The person who asks the question or the favor typically comes out of the blue and never offers more explanations.
I don’t mind answering questions from readers, but some really make me raise my eyebrows.
And this WTF question certainly did:
Subject: SAMPLE FILL -UP FORMS
I have read your post and I would like to ask your help about applying for permanent residence in canada. Is it ok if you can give me fill up form so that I have a reference in filling up the forms for skilled worker I mean forms that already been filled out. Thanks. Hoping for your response.
Er… no, it’s not okay. Let me get that straight: you want to immigrate to Canada. Sure. Now, you have to fill out the forms. I’m following you. Yet, you can’t do it yourself and you want me to provide you my own immigration forms that I must have filled out when applying for permanent residence to help you.
This is wrong on so many levels.
First, I did not apply for permanent residence in the skilled worker category but in the family category, since my partner is Canadian. So my forms wouldn’t be much help.
Second, I did not keep a copy of the forms – yes, I know, stupid. When I applied for permanent resident in 2005, it took me a few months to gather all the paperwork I needed, such as my security clearance, emails, pictures, bank statements etc. Filling out the application forms took a while too: I wanted to do things right to make sure my application would be processed as fast as it could (turned out it was processed very fast, so maybe spending a while on the application is a good thing). Anyway, by the time I was done and everything was ready, I just wanted the big ugly file out of my sight (and off the living room table). I made a backup of all the Word files I attached to my application and I send it. I didn’t make a copy of the forms I filled out because I was in a gambling mood – all or nothing.
Finally and above all, I would never let a stranger see my permanent residence application for one very good reason: it contains all kind of personal information. An immigration application is a lengthy and thick file that includes your date of birth (nothing to be ashamed of yet, I’m “only” 27), your social insurance number (even if mine was temporary at the time), all your work and personal history, possibly banking information and medical files, copies of various IDs such as passport… I’m not being paranoid, but handing this out to someone (who requested it out of the blue via email) would be pretty dumb. Identity thief, anyone?
I still replied to the email saying basically that. I wasn’t mean and I didn’t say no out of spite, because I assume the person asked the question a bit lightly and in good faith. Yes, at one point, you must realize that immigrating is a serious matter and they are just too many scams around for a random person to give you access to such personal documents.
How about you? How would you have reacted? Ever got some WTF questions on your blog?
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OMG! I never got one of those… But you never got one asking you money to buy a house! Take that! 😉
have a good weekend
WTF questions like that are simple to answer. Read, Delete, Next?
.-= Tulsa Gentleman´s last blog ..Monochrome Weekend – ONEOK Field, Let’s Play Ball ! =-.
Estie qu’il y a du monde drole…
Lazy people ask for crazy stuff!
.-= Delph´s last blog ..Si seulement… =-.
Hey, since you’re not up to filling out a PR form and sending it to me. Could you empty out all your banks accounts and send all your money to my secret Swiss bank account. Much appreciated. Thanks. Hoping for your response.
You are such an expert in immigration matters that some people think you might be their ticket to a visa! And as Delph pointed out… lazy people ask for crazy stuff !
When I worked at the place who offered services to immigrants, I constantly had to deal with this kind of emails via our Website. I didn’t want to be mean or impolite because I considered that I represented the Canadian side in some way, so I composed a general text that I saved in my Drafts files and copied and pasted it whenever I needed it. Basically, I was saying that regrettably we couldn’t help but I added one or two links to the official Website containing all the informations about how to immigrate to Canada. Curiously enough, I received many ‘Thank you’ emails after that. Sometimes people just don’t know were to start…
.-= Yasmine´s last blog ..Message From the Past =-.
It was extremely nice of you to reply because that was definitely a WTF? question!
.-= Beth´s last blog ..Escape =-.
I used to receive some emails asking me to search an appartment and job for them but to be honest, I didn’t bother in replying them back.
But since last year, no more WTF emails!
.-= Cornflakegirl´s last blog ..I´m sorry by Evergrey =-.
@Guillermo – I’m sure I will eventually. I mean, you said, no, so there are still looking for someone to buy them a house, aren’t they? 😉
@Tulsa Gentleman – Sure, but sharing them is also tons of fun!
@Bluefish – Drôle… et bizarre.
@Delph – True! This is a new level of laziness though.
@Rich B – Sure! What’s your bank account number? I may use Western Union if you don’t mind 🙂
@Sidney – I’m sure that’s what goes through their minds.
@Yasmine – I can relate to the “not knowing where to start”, yet people should really do a reality-check. Because frankly, the paperwork is about the easiest part of immigrating.
Like you, I don’t want to be too impolite. Yet I got so many of these questions lately I thought I’d share this one!
@Beth – Better reply than risking another similar email!
@Cornflakegirl – I don’t reply to all of them… not when they are obvious scams anyway. I think this one is mostly ignorance.
Sounds like the poor fellow needs your help. Just like the guy who needs my bank account info so he can then access his millions.
.-= Seb´s last blog ..Two Drawings =-.
I definitely have but now I just ignore them and don’t even read those types of questions anymore.. It’s a funnier thing to read about these days though! Thanks for making me laugh!
.-= expatraveler´s last blog ..My Lucky Day =-.
I’m sorry that’s so funny. No one asks me those sort of questions, I just get weirdo’s wanting me to go to their online sex sites, or buy lots of viagra, or send them money to Nigeria, as once again I have won a ton of it when I send them some!!
That is why I moderate all my comments!!!
Great post Zhu……
Gill
.-= Gill´s last blog ..Column and other odds and ends……… =-.
Oh dear, I cannot believe he would ask you such an idiot question?!
Not only that, he even had this audacity to do so!
Way to go, lassie…
.-= London Caller´s last blog ..Abstract playground / 抽象的游乐场 / Taman kanak-kanak yang abstrak / 抽象的な遊び場 =-.
@Seb – Yes, but remember, you will get a huge cut out of these millions of dollars! I don’t get anything 😆
@expatraveler – I ignore some but I reply to some as well. Depends on my mood… I think some questions are just naive, that’s all.
@Gill – Ah yes, Viagra… I get a lot of spam for that too on Yahoo. When are they going to understand I’m a female?! 😆
@London Caller – Some people are a bit…er… naive?
[…] to get the process started. The lazy immigrant expects people do to the work for them. Much like this guy who wanted me to give him a copy of my own immigration application so that he could copy the […]