Originally Posted by
tossbag
I've never heard of this. Sounds like another scam to me. Not one person I know that went through the E3 process did this. It's 100% not required and doesn't say anywhere in any documentation that it's required.
I got knocked back for my first renewal at the Sydney consulate in 2019. They handed me a piece of paper saying I needed to provide proof of educational equivalency to a bachelor degree. After that my visa went to administrative processing. A couple of us have had issues at the Sydney consulate in particular. The officer said "Your company needs to stop sending applicants without this document".
I got the educational equivalency done by one of the approved mobs and emailed it off. Got my visa back two weeks later. It's not a scam, it is occasionally nessesary. I would do anything I can to avoid consulates with known issues though. Never heard of any similar problems at Perth or Melbourne.