What did your FBI clearance "certificate" LOOK like?

[bonacker]

This will sound like a truly inane question, but: what did your FBI "certificate" LOOK like?

I got mine last winter, and it wasn't a certificate at all, just a simple letter stating "no criminal record was found." (The instructions from the FBI for applying for the certificate DO state that the results will come in the form of a "letter"; but the CIS instructions call it a "certificate.")

Mississauga did report back to me that my application was complete (other than medicals) . . . so I'm confident Mississuaga saw the clearance.

But then -- months later -- when the application was being processed by the New York Consulate in May, they claimed the FBI certificate wasn't with the application.

(It WAS with the application, and I'd xeroxed it, and had the receipt for payment, and I'd marked everything with a Post-It tab so it would be easy for them to see it -- and everything else -- was in place. etc.)

N.Y. insisted I had to apply for a new, original FBI certificate . . . which I've done, and I'm now waiting for it. (Tho, since it's just a letter, and not anything certificate-like or authenticated, I don't see the point in them not accepting a Xerox. But that's another issue.)

HOWEVER: My by-now-slightly-paranoid imagination is wondering if there was some issue with the NY Consulate recognizing that the required "certificate" is just the simple letter I included.

So: What did YOUR FBI clearance "Certificate" look like?

thanks a bunch, y'all! ;D

 

[CeeGee]

Yup, it just looks like a simple, mundane letter--no certification, no seal, no nothing. God, I hope that doesn't happen to me. FBI delayed my whole process, by the time it got here, the state certificates were out of date, but I'm sending them anyway and seeing what happens!

 

[AllisonVSC]

Mine was a cover letter stapled to my original fingerprint cards. On the back of one of the cards there was a stamp that said "no record found". The cover letter just referred to the stamp.

 

[plumosa]

Mine was a cover letter stapled to my original fingerprint cards. On the back of one of the cards there was a stamp that said "no record found". The cover letter just referred to the stamp.

they no longer send back the fingerprints because of security reasons. I honestly can't remember what mine looked like, but it was just a letter.

 

[jes_ON]

Alison, you got yours before the FBI changed its procedures last fall.

It is just a letter, but it's on special paper. If it is scanned or photocopied, a watermark appears that says "unauthorized copy." You can't see it at all on the original.

That's bad luck, bonacker. The only thing to do is what you have already done (apply for a new one).

 

[bonacker]

thanks so much, you guys!

i'm resigned to waiting -- what can you do? hopefull,y everything will be fine in the end.