I am happy to have had a consultation with Serge. He is confident in his work. The consultation will not be interrupted or stopped if the scheduled time is over; he will fully answer all questions before ending.

Recent experience with Polar Bear: 0 results, poor service, dodgy administration, definitely overrated We applied for a student visa with them last year. Based on the reviews and the price, we expected high-quality service, but the reality was disappointing — poor experience throughout and zero results. The manager handling our case, Anastasia, seemed disorganized. The application papers she filled out had multiple mistakes, and shockingly, even included names of other people. We had to double-check every line ourselves. Honestly, it would’ve been easier and safer to do it on our own. Their legal advisor, Sergey, was slow to respond. We often had to chase him up and repeat our questions just to get a reply. The answers normally were abrupt and lacked detail — no perspective, little guidance, just dry, narrow responses that left us piecing things together ourselves. It was hard to get a clear picture. Our first application was denied with no proper explanation by IRCC. The second attempt was “returned” because not all required documents were included — Polar Bear didn’t inform us about new IRCC requirements in time. The whole point of using an agency is to help you stay compliant, and they failed at the one thing that mattered most. Over $7,000 lost and nearly a year wasted as a final result. We tried escalating the issue to the director, Gleb. After several ignored messages, he offered a ridiculous $195 refund, about 30% of the second submission fee despite the fact that the failure was clearly caused by them. A company with any integrity would’ve at least refunded the second submission in full, given the circumstances. Instead, they dodged responsibility and offered pennies. An absolute shame. Very poor experience overall. They really don’t deserve the rating they have. P.S. Later it took us just about 2 months to successfully get a visa with another agency to a different English speaking country, so our case and documents were strong. We don’t recommend applying to Canada these days, and definitely don’t recommend Polar Bear as your legal advisors.

We (Sergey and Karina) reached out to Serge Ignatieff, a rep from Gleb’s team, eh, for a consultation on the Express Entry program. We sent a list of questions and all the necessary info ahead of time, giving them enough time to prepare, sorry. But, honestly, it was clear there wasn’t any prep done. We were hoping for a personalized approach, with advice and analysis tailored just to our case, but instead, we got pretty generic info, eh? We got interrupted a lot, and it felt like we couldn’t finish our thoughts, you know? It felt more like a monologue than a dialogue, really. We just felt unheard and dismissed, which was pretty disrespectful. After the session, we sent detailed feedback with constructive suggestions, but Gleb’s response didn’t show any recognition of any shortcomings, sorry. Instead, they put all the responsibility on us, and defended the consultant’s behavior like it was no big deal. Honestly, we don’t think we should have to justify ourselves when we were the ones feeling uncomfortable, eh? Whether the company decides to listen or not, well, that’s up to them, eh. Unfortunately, we just can’t recommend this experience.