thank you David. Worried mum can stop worrying

Just to let you know to wef 3/9/09 the renewal fee for a British Passport (Adult) goes up to £77.50. I have been meaning to renew mine, and left it too late to do at the £72.00 fee.

PLEASE HELP!

Can anyone offer me some advice.
I applied for my husband and 5 childrens passports on Wednesday 26th August, by attending the London passport office and paying for the 1 week fast track service. This is a guaranteed service.
I rang them today Wednesday 2nd September to check on progress of my application, I thought they may need an extra day because Monday was a bank holiday.
When I called the advice line, I was passed from one office to another (London to Durham) and back again. Nobody could give me any information. The kept telling me someone from the correct department would ring me back. No-one rang me back so I kept calling and I was told I would be rang back within an hour, but this did not happen.
I rang back at aroung 4.45pm and was put through to the Durham office and the advisor from the call centre told me that the London office has sent my application to the today to be processed by them. This is 1 week after I made the application.
My application has not been checked etc. I asked to speak to a senior member in the processing dept but it was now after 5pm and I was told they had all gone home.
The call centre have told me they doubt I will have my passports in time for travel.
How can this happen when I paid for a guaranteed service?
Can anyone advise me what to do? I am willing to travel to Durham if I have to, so that I can collect the passports. Can I get them to issue them to me? I need them by Saturday 5th.
I know that I could not make a same day application as they were for 1 st child applications, but my husbands is a renewal and they have had them for a week now.
Please help, I can't afford to lose out on my holiday, we have worked so hard all year to pay for it.
Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks!

Hi on their website http://www.ips.gov.uk they have a telephone number 0300 222 0000 for passport queries between the hours of 7am - 11pm you could try that.

loulou,

You will probably recieve a refund on the Fastrack fee (the difference between a standard renewal price and what you paid, around £20ish per passport)

In terms of your holiday, the IPS would correctly argue that travel arrangements should not be booked before you have your passport, regardless of any ongoing application.

You are better off ringing them but stay calm and explain the situation. They may be able to issue the passports at Durham if you collect them but you'd need to discuss this with them.

I'm struggling as to why the application was sent to Durham unless they are quieter than other nearer offices. It is feasible that Durham could print your passports within its own offices then courier it down to London in time.

im not too impressed with things at passport office either, both my friend and myself needed our daughters passports renewed as we were all going on holiday together, she decided to send it off normal first class, i was a bit worried about doing this as we are going on holiday in 6 wks, so i paid the post office to check and send it special delivery and i was told it would be given priority at passport office, it cost around £7 i think and it was sent the same day as my friends, and i couldnt believe she got her daughters back before i did, so i feel ive been conned with this post office service, somewhere along the line this hasnt worked as was told , so i dont think ill be doing this again ,anyone else had this happen

Hi, Thanks for your replies.
Thought I'd update you. We now have our passports, phew!
We had to travel to Durham on Friday for an interview. We were asked to take as much ID as possible for my husband, going back as far as we could, even to his school days. When we arrived my husband was asked a few questions then presented with a photo of a man, my husbands birth certificate (a copy) and an application for a passport in his name. When we confirmed we did not know the person in the photograph, it was explained to us that an application had been made for a passport using my husbands details. Luckily my husband already had a passport.
After checking through all the ID, we had to go away and wait for a phonecall to find out if they could isue our passports, 3 hours later we were told to come and collect them.
We are off on a well earned holiday tomorrow!
I would like to say the staff at Durham were extremely helpful and went out of their way for us. It would have been nice however, if they had informed us of the problem instead of us finding out like we did.

Many thanks for the update, it is appreciated.

luci

Hi loulou ... it must be a relief that you have your passports, but that is a worrying development regarding the potential identity theft. Has your husband been given advice as to any further action he may need to take, as there is obviously the possibility that this individual may have applied for or obtained other documents, products or services in your husband's name.

You may find some useful info HERE.

It is perhaps understandable that the IPS could not disclose details of the problem to you during phone conversations, as with two passport applications bearing your husband's personal details, they may not have known which was genuine or who was attempting to commit the identity theft, and they would not wish to alert the criminal by phone. I hope that the other person has also been called in for a personal meeting, and has not already been issued with a passport.

David

My sister is thinking about taking my niece to Tenerife in mid-March 2010 - my niece's passport expires in April - is she ok to travel on this, or does she need at least 6 months left on it?

A minimum of 6 months passport validity is an entry or immigration requirement for some countries, but not for mainland Spain or its islands, where passports require to be valid only for the duration of your stay.

Unless your airline or tour operator stipulates different passport requirements in its booking conditions, there should be no problem. However, if you do wish to renew beforehand, a passport can be replaced up to 9 months before expiry, with the unexpired period being transferred to the new passport.

David

A bit of positive info for a change after reading of those whose renewals took so long.

I started the process by filling in the questionaire at http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Passports/index.htm

A week later I received the form I could have got from the Post Office but with my details already filled in, plus an envelope addressed to the Newport office (it doesn't seem to matter where you live for this). I attached new photos, old passport and cheque for basic service and sent it off "Special Delivery" Monday afternoon last week. The new passport arrived Friday morning - 3½ days later! I'm quite impressed with that!!

My wifes passport expires next April,but we are going to Tenerife end of Nov this year.Enquired in a Thomas Cook was told passport needed to have 3 months validity.Enquired in a Thomson was told 6 because we are going to Canaries not mainland Spain.Who is right.Is it because each tour operator sets their own conditions

Hi pipefitter ... check out my recent reply just a couple of posts above yours.

David

Our passports expire in February 2011. We are going to Croatia in September 2010. There seem to be conflicting opinion as to whether we should have 3 or 6 months left on the passports for Croatia.

Would it be advisable for us to renew them before we go?

Pippa

You need 3 months remaining on your passport to enter Croatia. SEE HERE

If you renew your passports now you will get any remaining validity, up to 9 months, added to the new passports.

luci

My husband has sent off his application for his first British passport and has juts had his suppoting documents returned and a no saying the application is being processed.

Would that mean that everything is correct and that he now just needs to wait or is there still a chance it could be returned saying something is wrong. He is just a bit unsure that everything was correct even though I thought it all looked fine.

Kedi, yes.

Everything else should have been taken care of.

Your husband should expect a letter inviting him to book his interview in the next few days.

He got the letter yesterday and has booked his interview

Kedi