Payment and US addres

[Paul's Mrs. 0]

Hi everyone,

i just finished completing our I-130 and am trying to figure out how I can make the fee payment.

Both my husband and I live in Australia. There is no option here to do a DCF. We have to send it to the Chicago Service Centre. The only problem is that the form says that the bank check or money order has to be drawn on a US bank. We don't have access to that here. It also says that they take credit cards but I can't find any way to make a credit card payment. Does anyone know how to make a credit card payment? This is so frustrating.

The only thing I have found reading through other posts is that I should sent it to someone in the US to file for me. Should I do this? It seems like it might be worse in the long run.

Can anyone help?

[Ryan H 3,790]

The I-130 fee cannot be paid by credit card.

If you are unable to pay the fee from a US financial institution yourself, then send the package to someone you know and trust in the US and have them enclose the fee. You can reimburse them at a later time.

The Chicago facility is a document intake facility, not a service center.

[katze101 4]

We filed from Australia as well under similar circumstances. We sent the package to my parents for them to enclose a check and then mail it on to the Chicago lockbox. It didn't cause any issues at all.

[Paul's Mrs. 0]

We filed from Australia as well under similar circumstances. We sent the package to my parents for them to enclose a check and then mail it on to the Chicago lockbox. It didn't cause any issues at all.

That is so helpful. Did you use their address for your contact address or your address in Oz?

The I-130 fee cannot be paid by credit card.

If you are unable to pay the fee from a US financial institution yourself, then send the package to someone you know and trust in the US and have them enclose the fee. You can reimburse them at a later time.

The Chicago facility is a document intake facility, not a service center.

I was wondering about that because I was trying to look up the timelines and there were none. So then they forward to a service centre? Likely California, I assume.

Thanks for the info.

[katze101 4]

That is so helpful. Did you use their address for your contact address or your address in Oz?

I was wondering about that because I was trying to look up the timelines and there were none. So then they forward to a service centre? Likely California, I assume.

Thanks for the info.

We used our address in OZ. Unofficially USCIS will sometimes (most of the time?) expedite cases where the USC is living abroad. If your case is sent to California this has most likely happened. That seems to be what happened in our case as we got our NOA2 in 40 days. So definitely use your address in OZ! Just be aware that it will take about 2 weeks to get hardcopies of the NOA1 and NOA2.

Here's a bit more info about the unofficial auto-expediate. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/357465-usc-petitioner-living-abroad/