EI Update (Conclusion)

My posts about my dealings with EI (employment insurance) seem to be popular as lots of people have emailed me with questions about the issues I had.

So here is my last update that details how things got resolved. To recap, getting my ROE (record of employment) was a nightmare and didn't happen until mid August (finished work at the end of June). I finally got everything sorted and submitted close to the end of August (24th) to be exact and was supposed to get a decision on September 16th.

What ended up happening was that there was no decision made on September 16th. In fact, it took them nearly a week to finally make a decision and in order to that, they needed to clarify some stuff with former employer. I found this out because I was calling the EI office every single day.

The EI office calls my company in the USA but leaves a number only available in Canada... so my old company can't call back... I had to play middle-man and get the EI rep's number from my old company, call them and leave a message that to call back and if a message is left, use a number that works.

Turns out that all happened and they finally approved my application and I got the funds 2 days later.

So let me summarize my lessons to anyone in a similar situation:

1) If you know you are going to leaving work before it happens, ask for your ROE as soon as you can so that you can leave the office with it on your last day OR have it processed ASAP after you leave. Ideally, you get a paper copy and walk out with it on your last day. If not, be sure to ask for it before you leave and have them process it and send it to you. It can be submitted electronically but have them only do that if they know how to do it. Otherwise you are best going and handing it in.

2) Fill out your EI application immediately when you finish work. You can do it online or you can do it in person. Personally, I had an account with Services Canada because of my e-Taxes that made doing it online really easy.

3) Continually monitor the status of your application. That said, it does take about three weeks for things to be processed.

4) Be prepared to wait for everything to happen. For example, when I dropped off my ROE it took about 5 business days for it to show that it arrived. When they were suppose to call me, it took two business days to get processed.

5) Don't expect to be getting a large sum of money. At best you are looking at 450 dollars a week so be sure to have some savings to fall back on.

6) The good news is that you can be eligible for a good number of weeks of coverage... so rest assured that you will be given some time to find a new job.

Now I have to get back to my job search!!!