Passport Renewal Service for Expats

[Dutch Uncle]

Absolutely diabolical

10 years ago I took a 45 minute train ride to Amsterdam and got a renewal on the same day. Now they have closed down the Passport Renewal services in many countries' Embassies/Consulates, including the Netherlands (I know GB itself now only has 6 or 7 Passport Offices as well). My nearest is now Paris. I sent the old Passport off nearly 4 weeks ago and the money was taken from my Credit Card a week ago. Have an important trip coming up so rang the helpline - 10 pounds later all they could tell me was that the process has just begun (when the money was taken) and it could be another 3 weeks. 200 Euros (plus my postage to them) and 7 weeks is unacceptable - I feel trapped. 

Any other Exiles with similar problems?

[BobG]

It's bad enough renewing them when you're based in this country Brian. I did Alex's 12-18 months ago. I almost gave up. It's part of the price we pay for the holy cow of 'low' taxes.

BobG

[BillyStubbsTears]

Dutch

Hope you get it sorted.

Our Borders Agency is an utter catastrophe - no political point to make here; Labour f**ked it up and the Tories have made it worse: as Bob says, that's what happens when you want A1 public service and low taxes.

At Xmas, I came back from a family visit to Italy on my own with the bairns. My wife's granddad had died while we were over there and she had to stay there to help sort out the funeral details. Got to Manchester Airport and it took THREE HOURS to process 180 people from one small Airbus through passport control. After a 1hr 45 min flight...

Middle of winter. Everyone togged up. It's 30C in the passport hall. No ventilation. No drinks dispensers. A dozen families with young children going berserk. An Italian bloke in front of us in the queue summed it up. "I thought you lot were supposed to be an advanced nation? We're third world these days, but at least we can organise a f**king passport check."

[not on facebook]

Got my  10 year passport re newed about october november time.

Had to post me application off to Düsseldorf in germany.

Iam Now Been told that When i need to renew me kids
5year passport i need to apply to Liverpool.

5year passport for me son,the photo was taken When he was 6month old and we have Been using his british passport upto last xmass as his noggy passport only lasts a year.

How can a new born 6month old kid have a 5 year
Passport as are you not supposed to look somert like
Yer passport photo?

[Dimples-D]

Got my  10 year passport re newed about october november time.

Had to post me application off to Düsseldorf in germany.

Iam Now Been told that When i need to renew me kids
5year passport i need to apply to Liverpool.

5year passport for me son,the photo was taken When he was 6month old and we have Been using his british passport upto last xmass as his noggy passport only lasts a year.

How can a new born 6month old kid have a 5 year
Passport as are you not supposed to look somert like
Yer passport photo?

My son is 5 days old on his passport photo. He was born near Barcelona. We had to send to Madrid for his passport which was much more expensive than it would have been if we had got it in the UK. He is now 3 years old and as you can imagine looks nothing like his passport pic.
The service out there was pretty good though. It took about 3 weeks to arrive.

[Dutch Uncle]

Passport still apparently 10 days away. So have arranged to get emergency travel papers for one week from the British Consulate in Amsterdam (another 125 Euros).

Easyjet Helpline (in India by the sounds of it) say they will only accept 'a valid passport', and the Consulate says their travel papers constitute a Passport and will be fine. I will not be a happy bunny if Easyjet turn me away this weekend at Schiphol     

[Dutch Uncle]

This saga has gone from bad to worse

The good news is that I successfully made the trip to the UK last week on the Emergency Temporary Passport. As an aside, a couple of days after I got back to Holland again the EasyJet Helpline sent me an email saying they had decided they would accept my temporary passport - thanks a bunch - shows how good the EasyJet helpline is 

The bad news is that my normal Passport has still not arrived from Paris after 6 weeks. Next Tuesday morning we have another trip planned to the UK to visit our youngest daughter at Uni (booked months ago I thought 7 weeks would be plenty to get my passport). The Government Passport Helpline says it will be about another 3-4 work days before I can expect it - so it looks like Monday or Tuesday next week then.

The problem is that Monday is a UK Bank Holiday so the UK Consulate in Amsterdam is closed (don't understand why - it is not a holiday here, and they always close for Dutch Bank Holidays when it is not a holiday in the UK). So my last chance for another emergency passport is Friday. My normal passport certainly won' t be here then and it is absolutely not guaranteed to be here in time for our flight.

Sod's law says that if I go and get the emergency Passport on Friday the proper one will arrive just in time on Monday, but if I don' t get the emergency one the proper one won' t arrive either.

So I am just going to have to spend another 125 Euros and lose another day of my life in Amsterdam all because they can' t turn a passport around in 7 weeks.

This passport will end up costing me about 500 Euros   

[not on facebook]

For life Of me i Cant understand why if i require to renew my or me Sons british passport that i Now have
To apply to Liverpool in the uk.

There is an british embassy in Oslo Why the fcuk can they not deal with the process FFS like they used to do?

Are the british embassys around the world not There to Help you as and When ?

[BobG]

As you presumably have no MP to write to Brian, I should write to The Times, the Telegraph, the Independent and the Guardian. Tell a pithy ditty.  Embarrass the buggers into actually doing something.  I gave up complaining to the online or the telephone helplines of absolutely everybody a few years ago now. They're all useless. And I can tell you why they're uniformly useless if you're ever interested. No. I write to the Chairman of whichever is the latest company that has failed to keep its promise. Don't always get redress, but it does, almost always, get proper attention. Without an MP, or a Chairman in your case, the press is about the next best thing. You haven't sworn an oath or anything have you that's still extant?

Cheers

BobG