Astonishing! USCIS will use the *wrong* receipt date and ignore my "priority date"

T

TheBlueGod

Registered Users (C)
Hi everyone,

My N400 receipt and priority date (as printed on my NOA) is 25th July 2007 - but when I checked online it said " your application was received on Aug 1st 2007" - It's obviously an error, so I called in to cutstomer service, just to confirm that they would be using the real priority date printed on the application: Now hold on to your seats....

The woman absolutely insisted that the priority date printed on my receipt was irrelevant and they would go by the Aug 1st receipt date!!! Then I asked her what the "priority date" means. She said she didn't know, but repeated they would be using Aug 1st for me.

This is ridiculous. Aug 1st is not printed anywhere on my receipt notice. Where did they come up with that? It does make a big difference because as we all know, huge numbers of people filed in the last week of July to beat the July 30th price hike.

The only thing I'm hoping is that since this customer service rep has no direct access to USCIS records she could be wrong - but then why was she so sure that that the date on her screen superseeded what's printed on my reciept notice???

Any suggestions of how I can find out what's going on?

TBG
 
TheBlueGod said:
Hi everyone,

My N400 receipt and priority date (as printed on my NOA) is 25th July 2007 - but when I checked online it said " your application was received on Aug 1st 2007" - It's obviously an error, so I called in to cutstomer service, just to confirm that they would be using the real priority date printed on the application: Now hold on to your seats....

The woman absolutely insisted that the priority date printed on my receipt was irrelevant and they would go by the Aug 1st receipt date!!! Then I asked her what the "priority date" means. She said she didn't know, but repeated they would be using Aug 1st for me.

This is ridiculous. Aug 1st is not printed anywhere on my receipt notice. Where did they come up with that? It does make a big difference because as we all know, huge numbers of people filed in the last week of July to beat the July 30th price hike.

The only thing I'm hoping is that since this customer service rep has no direct access to USCIS records she could be wrong - but then why was she so sure that that the date on her screen superseeded what's printed on my reciept notice???

Any suggestions of how I can find out what's going on?

TBG
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I wouldn't trust anything that the NCSC reps tell you. They are completely clueless and have no access to any real information. You should call back and tell them that your check was cashed in July, but you still haven't received your receipt. If you're lucky, you'll be transferred to an IO, who will then confirm that they will still use your priority date. The date that shows up online is the date they deposited your check for cashing.
 
Vorpal, thanks for the clarification. I hope you're right. My cheque got cashed on Aug 4th. So that still doesn't explain this Aug 1st business.
 
The online date is when they punched it into the computer, and is often days or even months later than the date on the paper receipt. Don't pay too much attention to the online date. Go by what you see on the paper receipt.
 
Are you worried they would reject your application as they would want to charge you the new fees?

I was just wondering since apart from the fee issue, it's only 6 days difference. With people waiting many, many months, I can't imagine 6 days making much difference.
 
Yes, the application rejection was initially a worry - but they accepted the application, cashed the cheque, and with a printed receipt date a full week before Aug 1st - any retroactive decision to reject the application now on fee grounds would be downright bizarre. That's highly unlikely.

However, I beg to differ on the effect of the 6 day difference in priority date. While I agree that 6 days at any other time doesn't make that big a difference, July 2007 in particular saw something like 300,000 N400s filed, I'm willing to bet that 80% of that is skewed to just before the deadline - ie the last week.
 
TheBlueGod said:
However, I beg to differ on the effect of the 6 day difference in priority date. While I agree that 6 days at any other time doesn't make that big a difference, July 2007 in particular saw something like 300,000 N400s filed, I'm willing to bet that 80% of that is skewed to just before the deadline - ie the last week.
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I agree with that. Considering the fact that it took some service centers months just to get through 3 days' worth of applications, a week's worth of difference between priority dates can quite possibly translate into months of waiting.
 
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