an impressive Canadian consultancy that many can learn from. They already have multiple offices located in Bangalore, India; Hyderabad, India and Ontario, Canada. Much of this success is attributed to Ms. Monika Shah, the CEO, MD and Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC), RCIC #R518199, of Astra. Monika has had over seven years of experience in the field of immigration. She is clearly the face of the company. You will find her portrait across many of the pages of their website. As a Canadian citizen, she has personal access to the ins and outs of the Canadian immigration process. We checked her Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) membership and she is clearly found on the organization’s registry. Monika also has a very good grasp on the importance of being in good standing with the ICCRC. In brief, membership with the council ensures that you are dealing with legitimate consultants who have the legal authority needed to assist you with your immigration case. In this video below she clearly explains the finer points of ICCRC membership:

Astra Immigration Services’ website is great to look at and explore. All the links work and the information is ordered in a logical and consistent manner ensuring a seamless and enjoyable user experience. On the site, you will find up-to-date information on nearly all the different visa and immigration programs to Canada. The list is comprehensive, plenty of useful and clear explanations of the immigration programs and their respective requirements. We are quite disappointed with their blog section. Typically, you will find numerous articles posted on a company’s blog about the latest Express Entry draws or changes to specific programs. Unfortunately, on Astra’s, there are only five articles. Unfortunately, the website is not secure, leaving client open to third party hackers and we could also not find a terms and conditions, privacy or refund policy.

 

Astra Immigration Services uses many different social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. After a quick look, we realized that the first two on the list are their main accounts. On Facebook, the company only has 4,283 likes. This is not an impressive number by far, but remember this is a really new company. Their account was only opened in 2017. It seems as if they are very responsive to comments on their posts which is always a good sign. The review function is still enabled, which is also a good sign. Currently, they have a 4.8/5 score; however, this is only based off of eleven opinions. It is therefore not the best indicator to determine the company’s credibility. The content they post on this platform leaves much to be desired. Seeing as they do not regularly post to their blog, the majority of their content on Facebook is advertisements, infographics, and outsourced news articles. On Twitter, they have quite a small following of a mere 19. Here they share similar content as on their Facebook page however they seem to have abandoned the account, with the last post dating to March 2018. Their Linkedin account has 56 followers, however once again it is a relatively new account and there are no post yet.
 

In general, we are quite pleased with what they have to offer potential clients. It is clear they are professionals with the correct credentials that will lead you to trust them. That being said, as a new company, there is much they can improve on. To start, they really need to make more use of their blog section. It leaves the impression that Monika and her team are not as up-to-date with Canadian immigration as they would like you to believe. Their social media can also benefit from more relevant and original content. Once they get more users to their pages we will have access to a more clear picture of the nature of Astra’s services. It is too early to leave you, our readers, with a clear recommendation of this company’s services. Perhaps with time, it will become more clear if they can be trusted. If you have had any experience with Astra Immigration Services please let us know in the reviews section below.