passport panic. What should I do?

[buggeroo]

DD is going on holiday with university friends in 1 week.
She asked me to send her passport to her, which I did, using the tracking service and being signed for, guaranteed 24hrs delivery.
I posted it on Tuesday. She hasn't got it yet.
So I track it and find it looks like it's been out for delivery, but returned back to the delivery office. Twice.
Then I realised….I got the postcode wrong.
So I phone up Royal mail (wait 44 mins in phone queue) and the guy says yes he can see it on the system but can't do anything about it. I have to hope that eventually it get returned to sender.
What do I do? I can't find the number for the actual delivery office (Warrington). Today's tracking has not been updated since this morning when it went out for delivery again. DD definitely doesn't have it. I addressed it to the University, but with the incorrect first part of the postcode.

What do I do? Any suggestions??
I'm panicking a bit.

Can she go and get an emergency passport from the passport office? She will have to log her old passport as lost or stolen to the police. Ring the passport office and see what steps to take to get her a new one

Can you or she actually go to the address you posted it and speak to someone?

Or arrange redelivery to that address and be there on the day?

I don't know why they can't just look at the address and see :"XXX University" and deliver it there rather than just hold on to it.
I will phone passport office and ask for advice. I might also call Royal Mail and see if anyone else there can be more helpful.
Good idea to send DD along to the delivery office. Hopefully they will be helpful. She obviously can prove her ID.

We did an emergency passport for my DD once. You have to book an appointment online and go in person. It's a massive pain in the bum but it can be done. I'd probably try finding out where the post office have it first though. They must know which delivery office it's being sent out from. Then your DD could go along in person with lots of relevant ID and beg. I have also done that before when something was urgent because we don't get post every day. I'm not sure if the wrong address might rule this possibility out though

OMG.
SO the passport is officially lost. It hasn't been tracked since early Friday morning and no one at Royal Mail can tell me where it is.
So we looked at the passport office site and saw you can do a 24hr service. DD cancelled her passport in order to use this service. then the site said she was unable to use the 24hr service as the passport is cancelled. (She said she just followed the instructions for using the 24hr service.)
SO now there is no way she can go on holiday next Saturday and it's all my fault. She is being very grown up about this and hasn't yelled at me.
I've told her to go to the 1 week passport service appointment on Monday, and plead with the passport person not to post it out, but ask if she can collect it instead. Luckily she is at uni in Liverpool so she can get to the pp office easily.
Even if it turns up in the post now she can't use it.
It's going to turn up now isn't it.
Ghaaaaa.

You did your best OP, perhaps it’s just me, but I would put that in the box, DD was not supposed to go on that particular holiday for some reason. Your DD sounds lovely, she hasn’t been cross with you so perhaps she wasn’t that keen on going.

Wow. You've got a fabulous DD

Did she give you the full address? Or did you have to look it up yourself and get confused by the different dorms?

I know, she's been really great with me. We are very close due to her upbringing being difficult (she has autism). Now she is older she appreciates all the time and effort I put into trying to get things right for her. Anyway that's a different thread.
I had a dyslexic moment writing the address and put L19 XXX rather than L16 XXX. All the rest of the address was correct. DD name, room number, name of University, street etc etc. You really thought that someone could work out where to deliver it to. AND it's supposed to be tracked, which it is now not being so they don't know where it is.

I've offered to pay her for her friend to change the name on the tickets if possible so at least her friend can still go.

Update.
she went online and cancelled passport.
went to the pp office to get a new one “which might arrive by Saturday if you’re lucky”
so we paid for her friend to change the names on the ticket for someone else to go instead of dd.
3hrs after names were changed, she got an email saying pp will be delivered on Wednesday. Also, original pp was delivered on Wednesday too. So she now has two pp (one cancelled) and no holiday. 🤷‍♀️

Can she book a place on the holiday as well?

@AmiShitsaline It's too much changing plans for her now. She's just not going. She could probably go as well, but with her autism, it's just been too much stress for her. Shame, but maybe it was meant to be.

Not much help bit really that’s very poor on the part of the Post Office. Surely if the rest of the address was correct they could work it out!

Your poor DD. What a mess!
You definitely need to treat her to make it up to her.

@Pottedpalm I know. 😳

I'm actually SO proud of her.
Not only was she prepared to go on holiday with a friend, (obviously she'd researched the destination already in preparation) she made - and attended - an appointment at the pp office, filled out the forms with the person there, and coped with the disruption of the postal fiasco.

That's a lot for her to manage. Yes there was a lot of FaceTime and phone calls home, but she did it all without shutting down, or going into a rage.

That's a long way forward from a couple of years ago. She's just doing so well.

And yes, we will do something nice when she's back. (Maybe not go to a Greek restaurant!)

The machines at the post office read the address from the bottom up. Basically they only really register the postcode. The rest is just to differentiate between the several addresses with that postcode. But that happens after it's left the depot.
Surely it must now be at the delivery office again. Could you get her to go there? And call the admin office of the University, if that's where you were trying to send it to? If it relates to student ID then it's part of their job to assist to done extent or offer advice?

What a shame but you tried your best. I’d be paying what it takes to send her after all but I appreciate it’s not that straightforward.

it was all my fault but I lost a holiday once due to a passport cock-up. I was absolutely gutted. I got over it though.

Couldn’t you have waited a few days before changing the name? Just to give it time to see if it turned up? The passport office will always give the longest estimate so as not to get hopes up or have complaints if they say it might come early. So you could have given it a couple of days.

@WarshipRocinante yes, I know that, but to most autistic people, if they are told something, then that is what they expect to happen.

@WarshipRocinante ALso, she had had enough of the not-knowing, and made a call.

@buggeroo I have an autistic dc at uni too. I totally know how you feel about these milestones. Wishing you and your daughter all the very best.

Yes, my son is autistic and very regimented. I would talk him through this one and explain that by waiting, you don’t lose anything because the name can still be changed if the passport didn’t arrive. But by not waiting, you definitely miss out on the holiday. I wouldn’t blame autism for this. Autistic people aren’t stupid; things can be rationalised:

@WarshipRocinante I know autistic people are not stupid. I have never even hinted at that. But for my DD, enough was enough, and she told her friend to change the names.