hi, all:

another request for a quick question.

i've finally received my NOA2 (yayyy!), now i'm in the process of gathering all supporting documents for I-134. one of the required documents for I-134 is the bank statements. on 134, it states:

Statement from an officer of the bank or other financial institutions where you have deposits

my question is that does the statement(s) have to come from an office at the bank? can i just print the statement straight from my bank's website? i don't have problem driving to my bank and asking someone to give me a statement (thus "statement from an officer"), but what's the difference? also, my problem is that the bank i have the most money deposited in is a "internet-only" bank. it's the Citibank online branch (i.e. e-saving). it's not possible for me to drive to their branch and ask for a copy from an officer. so what do i do now?

any help would be appreciated.

thanks!

I am in the same situation. I have money/assets in a few banks, and I called each one and sent them the I134 form and asked them to look it over and write a letter affirming the amount I have in each bank and the appropriate information (llike how much I deposited in the last year). Also, a laywer reccomended to me to make an excel to organize the information.

I just did this yesterday. I bank with Wachovia and HSBC (but this one is an online bank only). When I went to Wachovia, they were very helpful. The man told me that they have templates saved for these sort of situations and he's had to do affadavit of support letters before. He just had to change the names and the banking information to be specific for me.
The only problem was that he couldn't give me a "average annual deposit" he couldn't put a number on it for me, because although it lists all my deposits into my account, some may not be "income" but may instead be, refunds, rebates, or something other than "income" (i hope that makes sense he made it very clear to me and I understood his point).

So instead, he wrote me a letter with the two other specifics needed and said that I should just get all my statements from the past year because those lists my deposits, it just doesn't add up the numbers for the consulate. He says that he's seen other people do that before and just bring in the statements with the I-134 form and it was okay.

But he did the letter within like 10 minutes for me onto a letterhead, and ordered a year's worth of statements.

I don't have any advice for the online banking situation. I'm still working on that one. I figure I'm just going to call them up and ask for a letter over the phone and if it costs money, it shouldn't be too much. =/

I hope that helped somehow.

hi, serendipitous, did you have to pay for your statements? i just got a reply from my local bank. they want to charge me $5 for each statement. that's $60 total just for whole bunch of paper i can print online. alhtough they've agreed to sign each page for me, but do you think it's worth the cost?

I asked the guy that helped me with my letter if I had to pay for all 24 of my statements (checking/savings) from last year + 6 for this year and he said no. He said that he'll be happy to pull them all up for me and have it ready for me by tomorrow.

I thought they would charge me for them, but I was lucky that Wachovia does these kind of services for their customers. Yay! One reason I will be staying with them (I was going to change to another bank for no reason at all, but now i have a great reason to stay). They were extremely helpful. The guy gave me two printouts on letterheads one as a copy and pulled up all 30 statements for me from the past year all all within less than 24 hours time!!

I couldn't thank him enough as I walked out the door.

I asked him yesterday if it was okay if i just printed out all my statements from the Internet and he advised against it, he says that "they'll know you can print those out online so it may be a bit iffy as solid evidence, but it's more reputable and better evidence if you got all your previous statements from the bank(us)" But yeah, when I asked if i was going to get charged for it, and if he had said yes, I would have paid for it anyways. I'm just a very careful person when it comes to important situations like this, I just like having all loose ends tied, and everything double checked. I want to make sure that I at least did all that I could to make sure there were no mistakes to delay this process. So from my compulsive side of things, I would pay for the statements, but if other VJers respond and say that it isn't necessary to buy those statements, then it may be okay to go ahead and print them out? I'm not really sure about that since I'm going through the process right now as well.

Who do you bank with that is going to charge you for all those things?

Are you primarily relying on assets for your proof of support or income?

It doesn't matter how much you make per year. The bank statement is to generalize your debit vs. credit . You can make 6 figures but if you have nada in the bank, it shows that an additional dependent would put a strain on your current life style.

Getting this letter is fairly simple, call the your banking institution and let them know that you are requesting a statement on company letterhead indicating when you opened your accounts, last years average and current deposits. Tell the bank that this is a third party request from the Departement of Immigration which they should put attention to in there letter to you.

I would dispute this statement, it is the only thing that matters.... What is the source of this need to show debits and credits?

All we read is that you must 100-125% of the poverty level for your household..... Is the Consulate Officer a Certified Financial Planner or CPA who can interpret this and make such a determination?

If all they want is to make sure that you exceed the poverty level for your household then your W2's or tax returns would be sufficient. The banking statement goes further by letting them know what you do with that money....

I could make 600% over the poverty level, but if my banking statement shows my average balance is $10 in the bank in the past year, it would reflect that I am not spending my money wisely and a second financial burden, such as my fiancee, would put me into debt.

While that might be true, a CO will not make that determination and deny a petition based on piss poor spending habits. Period.

You're right the banking statement is not going to make you or break you but it's part of the big picture. It's hard to support your fiancee if you only have $10 left over a month after your mortgagee, car payment etc....

Let's all realize here that the financial support ability determination is a consulate specific item. In MY consulate I do not have to present an I-134. All I am required to present is my most recent W-2, latest tax return and a recent pay stub. That is all.... no assets, no personal financial statement, nothing......

Very true fwaguy. I'm going thru HCMC (highest case load) and up there for fraud too. So yes, I have to provide them the entire kit and kaboodle if not a promissary note to give them my first born...

Yes, you do need paper statement from your bank sealed by them and signed by someone there. I don't know what's the story behind the office thing, but I never needed to go to one, I just walked into the bank and asked one of the workers for a bank statement of my bank account.

There's nothing like you can't get a bank statment in papers from your bank beacuse you only have an online bank. I am sure if you go to your bank and ask them they should have a solution.

Good luck,


R.

--