HELP PLEASE! DURHAM PASSPORT OFFICE

[twinsplusE]

Long shot but does anyone have a direct contact number for Durham Passport Office or the Upgrade Team?

I applied for my twins' first passports almost 10 weeks ago and we're due to travel on Tuesday (5 days' time). I applied for an upgrade over 10 days ago but haven't heard back from the upgrade team. I've chased a few times but still nothing. I've tried to call the customer service number over 150 times in the past 2 days but it keeps saying "due to high call volume we're unable to take your call". I'm at my wits end! No one gets back to you!

Any help greatly appreciated!

[Gajan]

@Viviennedluca

@Gajan join passport help
and advice page group on Facebook a lady has just walked away with her passport no appointment that was an hour ago. Join that group I don’t be responding now I’ve tried to help see my photo of the post.

Dear @Viviennedluca I totally appreciate all your kind help, could you please kindly send the link to the FB group. Thank you so much.

[ActualMadness]

@Viviennedluca today I had my call back, it took a lot longer than the 24-48 hours stated. Well what you suspected was true the helpline lied to get me off the phone all applications have not not yet been looked at and are certainly not waiting for or been printed. The system is an absolute joke, I have contacted my MP and I will be making an official complaint as all calls are recorded. This government are outrageous getting employees to lie to customers on the phone.

[Majorboy]

Hi we are due to travel on Thursday our children 1 st passport been in Durham for over 10 weeks upgrade team not phoned back and to many calls too with nothing do you think I should go to Peterborough Monday morning with proof of my holiday and will I get them

[Gajan]

We had similar situation. Our application was in Belfast, we went to Peterborough 3 working days before travel date and collected.

[Majorboy]

Thanks I will go to Peterborough tomorrow morning and hope I get them anyone else in same situation

[Majorboy]

Hi how long did you wait at Peterborough

[LOSTladyscarlett]

I had to wait 7 months for my sons passport. I miss our holiday and lost our on any refund. I hope you get this sorted though

[feefifofum]

Hi everyone. I thought I'd post an update from my experience earlier up the thread in case it's helpful for anyone still caught in the backlog. Once we were two weeks from travel I emailed all of the upgrade teams listed on the thread with our flight details. Initially I heard from Newport who later said Belfast would need to deal with it since our application was there. I chased Belfast a couple of times and eventually received the email acknowledging receipt of the travel documents and date of travel. A couple of days later, on the Tuesday 4 days before travel I had a phone call from NoCaller ID at about 7pm and it was someone for the Belfast team letting me know they would arrange to print the passport and have ready for my to pick up in London first thing Thursday. I of course had to pay the extra £102 to upgrade the application which was irritating given it had been in the system 9 weeks, but I was thankful to have my daughter's passport. All was smooth from then on. Collected within 30 min on the Thursday.
Good luck to anyone reading this!

[hazzlebean]

That’s great news although as my husband pointed out when we were going through all of this a couple of weeks ago the additional payment is something that really needs to be looked in to as what other company could consistently move the goal posts re timescales and insist on additional payments? Goodness knows how much money has been made by upgrade payments of the £100 or so! Just hope that with all this additional money the government are receiving is being put back into something that will make a difference x

[feefifofum]

Agreed @hazzlebean, it's outrageous!

[np1900]

Sorry if someone already posted this and I missed it. It's regarding the email address list posted earlier in the thread, I hope it will be useful.

These addresses don't work:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

They all come back with "The email address you entered couldn't be found. Please check the recipient's email address and try to resend the message."

I got one response of "Please note, this inbox is for internal emails only and your email will not be actioned.", so I imagine that's a reply for

[email protected]

The other upgrade team addresses seem to work, and the only one who replied was Newport saying the application wasn't with them and they forwarded my email to the relevant office (kudos to Newport, at least they reply).

[email protected] also works (it's the Complaints team) and the response is: "We will investigate your complaint thoroughly and aim to reply to you within 15 working days. However, we are currently experiencing a high volume of contact and therefore our response to your e-mail will take longer than usual."

[Gellybelly1]

If your travel date is within two weeks time and you've been waiting longer than 10 weeks for your passport you can email these... (be sure to include date of travel, photo or copy docs of travel booking, name, application no, DOB, Address & contact details.

[email protected]

or

[email protected]

The use of capital letters is a foreign thing to me but it DEFINITELY helped get the email address to be accepted. Not had any progress but at least I feel I'm doing what I can. Daughter applied for first adult passport 29th April, still not issued 13th August. First foreign holiday booked and now realising she might not be able to go. It's very stressful. This advice came from the 0300 222 0000 line.

[anna77uk]

Saw this post not sure if its relevant for anyone else but details for Durham office are here: https://www.passports-office.co.uk/passport_office_durham.asp

They advise if you are travelling within 4 weeks to book an urgent service, as apparently once you send the postal one and if its delayed there's nothing they can do, so i wouldnt risk it for the extra £50