Sad to learn of your bitter experience, mate. It is alright if people hold different opinion on a subject. As long as both thought process hold merit, it is okay. There is no one right way of doing things, as life teaches us all the time.
Abhinav has sent 'Office Shifting Notice' to all it clients and I am in receipt of such a letter. They have moved from a 2500 to a 5200 sq. ft. place in New Delhi within the same building. Similarly in Bangalore they are moving to a much bigger 2500 sq. ft. office from the earlier two tiny spaces they had in the same complex as their current office. In Hyderabad they are renovating that place completely as their letter says.
Not only have they sent this over e-mail but also via postal (aka snail) mail. If they weren't doing their job well, they wouldn't be growing is what I think. Can't fool people all the time and get away with it. Word of mouth feedback catches up soon. My experience with them has been alright so far.
As many other forumites have said here, my opinion is to always go for a professional immigration expert, one that can actually fill the representative form (if budget is not a constraint at one's end). This way we get a sanity check, from a seasoned professional expert, on our application.
Why do we earn money? I believe to be able to spend it on important activities in life, is my take. And this is one of the bigger decisions in life. Manish, the guys definitely never signed up for running around to get one's reference letter, or transcripts from university or to take us to the IELTS test center.
No point mixing that!! But it is entirely up to an individual (as in their comfort) to decide what works best for them, so going either way is absolutely okay. It's not just my way or the highway LOL. Cheers!
PS - CIC doesn't treat applicants differently based on whether they do the application themselves or take an expert for this
