Email from GZ

[Phil & Ningning]

Yesterday I sent another email to GZ after several inquiries without response from them. I was simply asking to get an idea of when she might recieve P3. Today, I got this response:

 

Dear Sir,

 

Thanks for your email. XXX, Jie Ning's case has just been started

processing. The instruction packet will be sent to XXX, Jie Ning today.

 

If you intend to respond to this email, please again use the web form at

www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzhou/iv/email.html. You cannot respond

directly to this email by using the 'reply' function, because this email

address is not a receiving address. Please only use the web form to email

the Immigrant Visa section. Thank you for your cooperation.

 

Sincerely yours

 

Immigrant Visa Unit

 

 

 

I suppose I am one of the lucky ones that gets certain notices that others don't get. For that I am grateful. I know she should expecrt the P3 in a couple of days.

Without CFL I would not know anything about how to do this process and surely would spend more time wondering than I do now. Thank you all.

Phil

[mari]

Congrats Phil, just make sure your fiancee sends back those forms as soon as possible.

[Phil & Ningning]

How do I go about finding out when they get her P3 entered?

[Guest Gene]

Phil,

I think it will show on the computer at DOS when it is entered, so give it a week after she sent it back and call.

[jkobman]

I think that's right, I found out when the P3 was entered by calling DOS. The DOS computer seems to be a worldwide database. I think it opens at 8.30 am EST. I was able to get through fairly quickly at about 8.45 am - everyone finished their ciffee and ate their donut by then. Midday is a real time consumer - "hurry up and wait."

 

I had Sarah turn the forms around ASAP - maybe 2-3 days. I think Darrell got her to do it in 1 day. I think you return it via EMS - China Post's version of Priority Mail.

 

GO! GO! GO!

[oregonknl]

Don gives good advice...

 

We are living proof about the returning the p-3 in a timely manner.....

 

We are on the same time line with Turtle and Portland Jim --- until the p-3

 

Then in May my SO returned the p-3 with a question left unanswered, and when I heard that, I told her to expect that it could cause delays.... She managed to retreave the document undelivered to the Consulate, and make the addition... but by the time we got it back to the Consulate it was June ...... so here we wait.......

[John & Hai Yan]

Phil,

I am very happy to hear that GZ is sending out the P-3 to Jie Ning. I am beginning to worry about my fiancee's P-3 however. My petition cleared NVC six days before yours, and cleared customs eight days before yours. My fiancee has still not received her P-3. I was expecting it to come about a week ago. I think I will try to contact GZ or the DOS. Does anyone know the phone number to call the DOS?

[Trigg]

John, I just saw this on another post. DOS: 202-663-1225 Option 1 then option 0. You do not need to listen to the messages at the beginning

[John & Hai Yan]

Thanks Trigg, I 'll try calling this morning.

[frank1538]

Phil,

I am very happy to hear that GZ is sending out the P-3 to Jie Ning. I am beginning to worry about my fiancee's P-3 however. My petition cleared NVC six days before yours, and cleared customs eight days before yours. My fiancee has still not received her P-3. I was expecting it to come about a week ago. I think I will try to contact GZ or the DOS. Does anyone know the phone number to call the DOS?

Jingwen and I encountered a similar problem. Others were getting P3s, but Jingwen did not, After a couple of e-mails to GZ, I discovered that, for whatever reason, the consulate did not have her address in Chinese.

 

Finally got the address thing fixed, but it set her back a few weeks.

 

PS. When I would send an e-mail to GZ, I never used one of the canned subject matter headings. I always used "other". This seemed to get more attention, and GZ was responsive to all of my e-mails.

[John & Hai Yan]

Thanks Frank and Trigg. I just called DOS this morning and had a 3 minute wait to get through. They told me the P-3 was mailed today from GZ. Hai Yan said it might take three days to get to Zhanjiang from GZ. You both know where Zhanjiang is. I'll just wait and hope it comes on Monday.

[mtbdude]

our p3 was sent by chinese ems on may 25, but i never checked to find the date that it was officially received by gz until today. we did follow up on it by ems tracking and emails to gz. ems said gz received it a few days after it was sent, but gz kept saying it wasn't received yet. emailed with gz several times, and twice they said to fax the info again. finally they said they had it. since i'm now calling dos daily henceforth about our interview, this morning i asked and found the p3 was rec'd by them on on jun 4.

 

the first couple of the emails with gz seemed like they were answered by real people, and after that they seemed like the canned responses. so i sent one basically begging them in a follow-up to please look into our matter and see what was going on, and i got a reply that seemed real saying that it was received. i didn't know you could check w/ dos at the time.

 

i guess the moral of the story (oft repeated here) is to promptly & persistently verify every step of the process. if we hadn't kept faxing the p3 to them we'd probably be sitting here thinking our p4 is comng soon, and eventually wondering why it didn't.

 

here's a sad story from 001: yan zi said one girl has an interview on aug 30, but her fiance sent his stuff by regular mail, and it still hasn't arrived. she is really stressing and said she wants to kill him!

 

under the "would be nice" category -- if our gov't resources would automatically give feedback for every action on a case, so you know if you haven't heard from them, something's up. a case tracking website would cure so much unnecessary anxiety.

 

incidentally, dos says yan zi has all of her clearances and is just in queue waiting for an interview.

 

hope this info helps someone. everything i have gotten from you all is so appreciated. maybe if someone has some ideas on how i could have done it better, you could post them for those who haven't gone through this yet. i feel we lost a week in that returning-the-p3 monkey business, and that could mean not being in the nearest p4 batch and having to wait another month.

[bobmal99]

It's been a while since I have seen a P-3. From what I remember the two most important documents are the OF-169 and the DS-230.

 

Your fiances should already have these filled out and ready to go. Once you hear they are sending or have sent out the P-3 you should fax and EMS them to GZ, ASAP.

 

Nothing really officially gets started until GZ has these two documents!!