Anyone turned up at passport office and been successful?

[DottyLittleRainbow]

As it says really.. any success stories with people turning up at office where their application is and getting the passport sorted?

Getting the runaround about lost documents and an upgrade, now we travel in 10 days. Applied on 3/4. I’ve now spoken with 8 different people over the past 2 weeks and all have given me wildly different information.

People are having success doing this. Go onto Facebook and join the passport chaos 2022 group. There are loads of stories/tips there. Good luck!

Yes went to the London one with sil. Had to prove flight was within 2 weeks and miraculously passport was available next day 🎉

Worth a try I suppose.

I turned up at the passport office after stupidly taking passport advice off some Karen off Facebook. I travelled to my nearest office ( Peterborough ) which was 3 hours away, only to be turned away. My own stupid fault for booking a holiday before sorting my passport. Like everyone else,I sat on an expired passport all of lockdown, even though the offices were all open throughout, thinking it would all be fine once the world could travel again. Guess I wasnt the only one. The staff I spoke to were all really lovely and clearly stressed but it seems now that they are becoming unable to cope with the volume of people simply rocking up expecting them to print one off like its a library ticket. My advice..... have a staycation this year, sort your passport and go abroad next year

My son did. He got his passport eventually after spending 2 days at Peterborough. He was handed his passport at 5:15pm and his flight left from Manchester at 6am the next day.

When was this if you don’t mind me asking?

It’s Peterborough that it’s at, they made a cock up with the application and it’s over 10 weeks since we applied, but they asked for an incorrect document and now I have had to send another document that they already had but sent back. It’s a straightforward renewal as well so they are asking for stuff they don’t even need - quite clearly the person dealing with it has no idea what they are doing. I was told I could pay an upgrade fee but every time I speak to the upgrade team I get hung up on - wish I could say that was a joke.

As they have made such a monumental cock up I was hoping it may be worth a try turning up the day before travel with extra copies of documents and my own passport. We have a ferry booked for Thursday evening, going to a wedding.

Were you over the 10 week mark and due to travel imminently @DevDis?

We applied in April and it’s been over 10 weeks now, they made a mistake with the application and have exceeded their time scale as a result. Keep getting hung up on by the upgrade / progress team even though I’ve been repeatedly told I am eligible for an upgrade for the past 2 weeks.

We are travelling to a wedding planned at short notice, rather than a holiday so not something that can be rebooked for another time.

I’m frustrated because my DC hasn’t seen their best friend since 2019 as they moved abroad and would have done on this trip, and of course it’s their passport that hasn’t arrived. It’s been crap on top of crap.

I know I’m not alone by any means, but it’s such a shite service and there is no accountability, if I was this bad at my job I’d get the sack but when it’s passports anything goes apparently.

For anyone who was wondering - I did drive up to Peterborough passport office this morning, and they did approve an urgent upgrade and issued me the passport by the end of the day today. This was because it was more than 10 weeks since we applied, we had less than 48hr until planned travel and I had proof of travel. They were really strict with the proof of travel. It’s quite clear that they just don’t have enough staff, all the staff I did meet were lovely and very helpful.

Ah well done you ! Worth a gamble then