anyone obtained police fingerprint/name check in NSW for K-1 visa?

[KPea 0]

Hi! Please if anyone has any advice that would be greatly appreciated to clear some confusion..I've been reading through all the forums on visajourney but even still have noticed conflicting advice...

I live in NSW, appyling for K1 visa. I have the case number (waiting to receive Packet 3).

For the police check, do I apply through local NSW police (on here: http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/about_us/structure/specialist_operations/forensic_services/criminal_records_section

Fill in this form online, print, take to local NSW police station, have fingerprints taken, police send to Criminal Records in Parramatta, who then send to me?

Or through AFP website (and have fingerprints taken at local NSW police station, to be sent to Canberra then back to me)?

And when I went in to ask at my local station, he asked me to bring a pre-stamped envelope as I am not to receive them but they will get sent directly to the consulate...is this right????

[razspaz13 30]

My understanding is that you need the Australian FEDERAL police check, it depends on what state you live in if the results are posted to you or to Canberra

your local police station can do the fingerprints, however, as we were told "our police station is not always manned with those that can do the fingerprinting"

cheers

[chestnutt 10]

Hi KPea,

I got the AFP police check done, I downloaded the form off the AFP website, http://www.afp.gov.au/what-we-do/police-checks/national-police-checks.aspx, if you are getting a fingerprint check done you have to print the form out and it has to be sent in the mail along with the fingerprints. I went to the AFP Perth office to get my fingerprints done (my impression was that the fingerprints had to be done at an AFP office instead of a local police office, I may be mistaken though) , the fingerprints and form were sent to Canberra and then the police certificate was mailed to the address that I had specified, took less than a month for it to get to me .

Hope this helps!

[dodgyJim73 6]

Hi! Please if anyone has any advice that would be greatly appreciated to clear some confusion..I've been reading through all the forums on visajourney but even still have noticed conflicting advice...

I live in NSW, appyling for K1 visa. I have the case number (waiting to receive Packet 3).

For the police check, do I apply through local NSW police (on here: http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/about_us/structure/specialist_operations/forensic_services/criminal_records_section

Fill in this form online, print, take to local NSW police station, have fingerprints taken, police send to Criminal Records in Parramatta, who then send to me?

Or through AFP website (and have fingerprints taken at local NSW police station, to be sent to Canberra then back to me)?

And when I went in to ask at my local station, he asked me to bring a pre-stamped envelope as I am not to receive them but they will get sent directly to the consulate...is this right????

Hi KPea.

This can be a bit confusing because the police will always tell you a different story, they aren't consistent.

Here's what I did and it worked fine.

1. Start here. https://npcoapr.police.nsw.gov.au/aspx/dataentry/Introduction.aspx
2. Fill out the form and make sure you get the fingerprint check, it costs more but there's so many discrepancies with this process that you don't want anything to stuff it up. There's posts on here of people only getting a name check and being sent away to get a fingerprint check.
3. Take a print out of the invoice, the only thing you really need is the document ID which is a 6 digit number but always good to take everything. They use your document id to look up your record and process payment etc
4. Call your local police station to see if it's ok to come up and have your prints taken. Every police station can do ink prints but only some of them have capacity for digital prints. If you are having digital prints done then you need to call before you go to make sure there's no prisoners in the holding cells, otherwise you have to go at another time or you have ink prints done. I had digital prints taken first but the criminal records department rejected them because the scanner didn't pick them up correctly, even though I had the green light during the scanning process. So I had to get ink prints re-done.
5. This is where it gets messy. What happen's is that the police are supposed to send these via their normal secure delivery method out to the Criminal Records department in Parramatta. Apparently Criminal Records are then meant to send this straight to the Sydney consulate. I had all kinds of problems with the coppers over this, I'll try and find the post I made that goes into detail about it. At the end of the day, the police send your prints to Criminal Records and then my certificate was sent to my home address. I then forwarded this with my packet 3 info and everything was fine.

I hope this helps. My whole process took about 6-7 weeks IIRC but that was because I needed the second copy of ink prints.

Cheers

Jim

Edited December 18, 2013 by dodgyJim73

[KPea 0]

Hi KPea.

This can be a bit confusing because the police will always tell you a different story, they aren't consistent.

Here's what I did and it worked fine.

1. Start here. https://npcoapr.police.nsw.gov.au/aspx/dataentry/Introduction.aspx
2. Fill out the form and make sure you get the fingerprint check, it costs more but there's so many discrepancies with this process that you don't want anything to stuff it up. There's posts on here of people only getting a name check and being sent away to get a fingerprint check.
3. Take a print out of the invoice, the only thing you really need is the document ID which is a 6 digit number but always good to take everything. They use your document id to look up your record and process payment etc
4. Call your local police station to see if it's ok to come up and have your prints taken. Every police station can do ink prints but only some of them have capacity for digital prints. If you are having digital prints done then you need to call before you go to make sure there's no prisoners in the holding cells, otherwise you have to go at another time or you have ink prints done. I had digital prints taken first but the criminal records department rejected them because the scanner didn't pick them up correctly, even though I had the green light during the scanning process. So I had to get ink prints re-done.
5. This is where it gets messy. What happen's is that the police are supposed to send these via their normal secure delivery method out to the Criminal Records department in Parramatta. Apparently Criminal Records are then meant to send this straight to the Sydney consulate. I had all kinds of problems with the coppers over this, I'll try and find the post I made that goes into detail about it. At the end of the day, the police send your prints to Criminal Records and then my certificate was sent to my home address. I then forwarded this with my packet 3 info and everything was fine.

I hope this helps. My whole process took about 6-7 weeks IIRC but that was because I needed the second copy of ink prints.

Cheers

Jim

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your reply. It seems like both AFP checks and local NSW police checks seem to be acceptable judging by the posters on this thread! I'll go ahead with the NSW police check as I have already filled in the online registration and work very close to my local police station. I can imagine though that I will have some difficulty convincing the police officer that the prints are to be sent to Criminal Records and then to my home address (not to the US Consulate) and that I do not have to provide a pre-stamped enveloped addressed to the Consulate...

Any advice on how to tell the police what to do !?

[dodgyJim73 6]

Maybe tell them you spoke to the criminal records dept Actually, you could call them and confirm what happens, like I said mine came to my house but I was under the impression it was supposed to go straight to the consulate in Sydney.

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/about_us/structure/specialist_operations/forensic_services/criminal_records_section

Another problem I had was the police kept assuming I needed an FBI police check, which requires different steps. I had to keep correcting them on this point that it was a local police check that went straight to the consulate, nothing to do with the FBI.