Ahmedabad has one of the highest concentrations of visa and immigration consultancies in Gujarat, clustered heavily around CG Road, Navrangpura and SG Highway. Walk down any of these stretches and you'll see dozens of signboards, all claiming decades of experience, all promising smooth processing, and most of them looking more or less identical from the outside. Most people end up choosing between them based on Google ratings, a relative's referral, or which office happened to answer the phone first — none of which tells you anything about whether the specific person who'll handle your file is actually qualified to do so, or whether your fee is going toward genuine expertise or just a well-decorated waiting room.
The good news is that you don't need to become an immigration expert yourself to tell the difference. You need to ask the right ten questions, in the first consultation, before any money changes hands — and pay close attention not just to whether you get an answer, but to how specific and how comfortable that answer is. A consultant with nothing to hide will usually welcome these questions. One who deflects, hedges, or gets visibly irritated is telling you something important, whatever the actual words are.
This guide walks through those ten questions, why each one matters, and what a red-flag answer typically sounds like — whether you're applying for Canada PR, Australia PR, the Germany Opportunity Card, a UK or Schengen visitor visa, or study abroad admission.
- Are you personally registered or licensed for the country I'm applying to?
This is different from asking if the company is "experienced." A firm can have decades of history while the specific person advising you has no formal registration at all — a common gap that most first-time applicants never think to check. For Canada, ask if they (or whoever handles your file) is a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC), licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC). For Australia, ask about MARA registration. For the UK, ask about OISC regulation. Note that these registrations are country-specific and role-specific — someone registered for Canadian PR advice isn't automatically qualified to advise on Australian points-tested visas, and a consultant who's vague about which registration applies to which service is worth pressing further. A consultant who deflects this question, or answers about the company's history rather than the individual's credentials, is a red flag. - Who exactly will handle my file from start to finish?
Ask this before you pay, not after. Many Ahmedabad consultancies have you meet a senior counsellor during the sales pitch — someone polished, reassuring, and clearly experienced — then quietly hand your actual file to a junior processor you never speak to again, sometimes based in a different city or even a different country entirely. This is one of the most common, and least discussed, sources of frustration in this industry: applicants feel like their consultant "went silent" simply because the person they built trust with in the first meeting was never actually going to be the one managing their case. A clear, specific answer ("Your case will be handled by [name], and here's their direct contact") is what you want. A vague answer ("our team will take care of it") usually means no single person is accountable for your outcome. - Can you give me an itemised fee breakdown, separate from government fees?
Genuine consultants separate their professional fee from visa fees, biometric charges, and (where relevant) third-party service charges like VFS Global's. If someone quotes you one bundled number and resists breaking it down, they're making it harder for you to compare their price against anyone else's — which is usually the point. Ask specifically what happens to each component if your application doesn't proceed: government and biometric fees are typically non-refundable regardless of outcome, but a consultant's own professional fee is a separate matter, and their refund or partial-refund policy (if any) should be spelled out clearly, not left to a verbal assurance. - Based on my actual profile, what's my realistic eligibility — not just "yes, you qualify"?
A consultant who reviews your specific points score, CRS ranking, or skills-assessment category before answering is doing real work. One who says "yes, you're eligible" within the first five minutes, before seeing your documents in any detail, is running a sales script, not an assessment. Ask them to show you the actual calculation, whether that's a CRS score for Canada, an Australian points-test tally, or a German Opportunity Card points breakdown — and ask what the current competitive threshold looks like for your specific category, since a technically "eligible" score can still be far from competitive in practice. - Can you guarantee my visa or PR will be approved?
The correct answer is always no. No consultant — however experienced, however many decades in business — controls the final decision, which rests entirely with the consulate or immigration department of the destination country. This is arguably the single most useful trick question on this list: anyone who says "yes" or "we have a 100% success rate on this exact category" is telling you something that isn't true, regardless of how confidently it's said, and regardless of how many testimonials are displayed on the wall behind them. - What happens if my application is rejected?
Ask specifically whether they'll review the rejection reasons with you in detail, and whether there's any follow-up support built into their fee — or whether the relationship simply ends the moment a decision comes back negative. A consultant who's thought this through in advance, and can describe a clear process for it, is usually one who's actually been through rejections with real clients before and learned from them. One who brushes the question aside as unlikely to happen is either inexperienced or simply avoiding an uncomfortable topic. - How will you keep me updated while my application is in process?
Specific answers — a shared online tracker, scheduled fortnightly check-ins, direct access to your case handler's phone or email — are far more useful than a general "we'll keep you posted." Going quiet for months at a stretch after the first payment is one of the most common complaints levelled at consultancies generally, in Ahmedabad and elsewhere, and it's worth setting concrete expectations on this upfront rather than discovering the communication style only after you've already committed. - Do you have recent experience specifically with my visa category, not just "immigration" broadly?
"Immigration consultant" covers an enormous range — PR, study visas, visitor visas, employer-sponsored routes, across dozens of countries, each with its own rules that shift regularly. Ask when they last filed a case in your specific category — for example, Canada's Express Entry healthcare category, Australia's Subclass 190, or Germany's Opportunity Card — and what the outcome was. General experience across "immigration" as a broad label doesn't necessarily translate to current, working depth in your specific pathway, and rules in most of these categories change often enough that even genuine past experience can go stale within a year or two if it isn't kept current. - Can you show me your registration number so I can verify it myself?
This is worth asking as a standalone follow-up to Question 1, because the willingness to be checked is itself informative. CICC's public register (for Canada), MARA's register (for Australia), and OISC's register (for the UK) are all free and searchable in under a minute, directly from your phone, while you're still sitting in the consultation. A consultant who's genuinely registered will usually offer this information before you even ask, sometimes printing it or pulling it up on screen unprompted. Hesitation here is one of the clearest signals on this entire list. - Will everything be documented in a signed service agreement?
Insist on a written agreement listing services, fees, and timelines — and never sign a form with sections left blank "to be filled in later." This single document is what protects you if the relationship goes wrong later, whether that's a dispute over fees, a disagreement about what was actually promised, or simply confusion about what stage your application is at. Any hesitation to provide one, or pressure to "just sign now and we'll sort the details later," is worth taking seriously and walking away from if needed.
What Nobody Tells You
Most people spend their entire consultation evaluating the sales conversation — how confident the person sounds, how quickly they respond, how nice the office looks and almost none of it evaluating the processing relationship they're actually signing up for. The questions above are deliberately weighted toward exposing that second, less visible part of the relationship, because that's where most genuine problems in this industry actually surface: not at the pitch, but months later, when the person who sold you the service is no longer the person handling your file.
The other pattern worth knowing: a consultant's registration status isn't permanent. Someone who was legitimately licensed two years ago may have since had it suspended. This is why Question 9 — verifying it yourself, on the current public register — matters more than simply asking if they're registered and taking the answer at face value.
About Winny Global
We're Winny Global, and we've operated in Gujarat since 1981. We're RCIC-accredited for Canadian immigration matters and listed on the NSE — which means our financials and governance are a matter of public record, not just a claim on our website — with offices in Ahmedabad and Pune.
We'd genuinely rather you ask us these exact 10 questions than take our word for anything. Here's how we'd actually answer them:
- On registration (Q1 & Q9): our senior consultants are RCIC-accredited, and we'll show you the registration details directly — no hesitation, no redirecting the question.
- On who handles your file (Q2): every client is assigned a named case specialist who manages the file from the first consultation through to the final decision. You'll know exactly who to contact at every stage, not a rotating cast of people.
- On fees (Q3): our fee structure is itemised upfront — professional fees, government fees, and any third-party charges (like VFS service fees) are shown separately, so you know exactly what you're paying for and to whom.
- On realistic eligibility (Q4): we calculate your actual CRS score, Australian points tally, or German Opportunity Card points before we tell you anything — not after.
- On guarantees (Q5): we won't ever tell you an outcome is guaranteed, because it isn't ours to guarantee. If that's what you're looking to hear, we're not the right fit, and we'd rather say so upfront.
- On rejections (Q6): if an application doesn't succeed, we sit down and go through the actual reasons with you before considering next steps — not a copy-paste resubmission.
- On updates (Q7): you get regular, scheduled progress updates and direct access to your case specialist throughout, not silence between the first payment and a final decision.
- On experience by category (Q8): we work across PR (Canada, Australia), the Germany Opportunity Card, study abroad admissions across multiple countries, and visitor visas — and we'll tell you plainly if a particular case falls outside our depth, rather than taking it on regardless.
- On documentation (Q10): everything is captured in a signed service agreement before work begins, with no blank sections left "to be filled in later."
None of this is a reason to skip asking us the same questions you'd ask anyone else. It's simply what you should expect the honest answers to sound like.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What's the most important question to ask a visa consultant?
Whether they (or whoever will personally handle your file) are actually registered with the relevant body for your destination country — RCIC/CICC for Canada, MARA for Australia, OISC for the UK — and whether you can verify that registration yourself on the official public register.
Is it normal for a visa consultant to guarantee approval?
No. This is one of the clearest red flags in the industry. No consultant controls the final decision, which is made entirely by the consulate or immigration authority of the destination country. Any consultant claiming a guaranteed outcome should be treated with caution.
Should I pay the full consultancy fee upfront?
Most reputable consultancies structure payment in stages tied to specific milestones (profile assessment, document preparation, filing) rather than requesting the full amount before any work has visibly started. Be cautious of anyone insisting on 100% payment upfront.
How do I verify if a consultant in Ahmedabad is actually registered for Canada?
Search their name or RCIC number on the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC) public register. If their status shows "active," they're currently authorised. If they don't appear at all, they cannot legally charge for Canadian immigration advice.
Does the consultancy need a physical office in Ahmedabad to be trustworthy?
Not strictly, but it makes verification and recourse considerably easier. A firm operating only through WhatsApp and phone calls, with no verifiable local address, is worth extra caution.
Sources: College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC) public guidance; Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA) register; Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) register guidance.
