Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Other subjects

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Anyone had to have interview for first passport ???

46 replies

nutcracker · 13/02/2008 14:19

Decided today that I am going on friends hen weekend in 6 weeks time.

Problem is, I don't have a passport, and apprently I might have to have an interview as it is my first ever one.

Has anyone had to have an interview ??

What are the chances of me getting passport in 6 weeks ??

OP posts:

Bky · 13/02/2008 15:21

My DP got his first ever passport last year after the law had changed. It came through within about 10 days and he did not have to have an interview. This was without using post office check and send as am too tight to pay for something I can check myself.

Original poster

nutcracker · 13/02/2008 15:22

Thanks Bky, hopefully mine will be as quick then.

OP posts:

Bky · 13/02/2008 15:23

Hopefully, this was in around June last summer when they would probably have been a lot busier as well.

expatinscotland · 13/02/2008 15:26

i thought i was going to be called for one, but wasn't.

that was last year, though.

Original poster

nutcracker · 13/02/2008 15:28

Oh well will just have to cross fingers and hope.

OP posts:

expatinscotland · 13/02/2008 15:29

only took a bit over a week to get the passport, too.

fingers crossed for you, nutty!

HappyMummyOfOne · 13/02/2008 15:34

Hi, have a look on the site and see if there is an "interview centre" within an hour of you. If not, you'll be ok and based on applying for ours recently it took just under 4 weeks for them to come through as they were all first applications.

They did write to the person who counter signed it so that took a bit of time but luckily she replied pretty much straight away answering the questions they had.

Original poster

nutcracker · 13/02/2008 15:36

Yeah there is one within an hour. I don't mind if i have to have an interview so long as they are quick LOL.

OP posts:

bran · 13/02/2008 15:37

I strongly suspect (although the passport office will no doubt deny it) that if you look 'native British' (ie look anglo saxon/norman) and have an English/celtic name and your parents were born in the UK then you may well be one of the people who don't have to do an interview. Fingers crossed for you.

donnie · 13/02/2008 17:47

oooh a bit of an incendiary comment there bran!

bran · 13/02/2008 17:59

I would like to think that it's not the case, but I suspect that's the way it is. In the same way that stop and search was available for the police to use against any suspicious person, but in practice was used against young black males.

donnie · 13/02/2008 18:17

well quite - I did agree with your comment btw.

cupsoftea · 13/02/2008 20:03

load of rubbish bran

bran · 13/02/2008 20:18

Load of rubbish because everybody has to do the interview for a first passport? Or for some other reason?

CaptainUnderpants · 13/02/2008 20:24

Pick on something new Bran rather than stop and search > very 80's .

bran · 13/02/2008 20:36

Something new, um, well the passport interview thing is new but my theory there isn't proven. How about 'random' taken aside for an extra thorough search when flying to the USA? Never happened on my own, always (randomly) happened to Asian dh, happened (randomly) to both of us when travelling together.

I'm not commenting really on whether it's wrong or right, just that that's the way it is. If not everybody has to be interviewed for a first passport then I imagine that they interview those most likely to be not entitled to a passport, and that subgroup probably doesn't include nutcracker if she happens to be white with a surname that has been in the UK since the middle ages.

whomovedmychocolate · 13/02/2008 20:39

It's rubbish that everyone gets an interview. My friend didn't and he got his passport in five weeks so he was sort of expecting to be called in when it didn't come back promptly.

They don't have enough staff to call everyone do they.

They also seem to have cut back on the officiousness regarding child photos. I sent them four of DD which I didn't reckon they'd accept any of, she's 16 months, but they accepted the worst of the bunch

Perhaps they have realised that toddlers don't terrorise (much)

CaptainUnderpants · 13/02/2008 20:47

Bran - I think you need to brush that chip off your shoulder .

bran · 13/02/2008 20:51

No chip, I think you may be inferring a little too much. Well OK I was a bit pissed off at the US security search because I was wearing lace-up boots. But I have no real emotions about interviews for passports as I neither have nor want a UK passport.

CaptainUnderpants · 13/02/2008 21:00

Well Bran if you neither have or want a UK passport then you have nothing to concern yourself over interviews and to throw this 'stop & search 'into a very innocent question by the Op seems totally bizaaree except if you are traying to score some politcal points and have an axe to grind . But each to themselves ..

Geri2 · 28/02/2008 15:40

Has anyone actually been called for an interview?

My daughter has been called for an interview. Don't mind really, as least you know you'll get it within the next week.

Mind you was a bit put off when the woman on the end of the phone said, 'if she is successful' wtf, do they actually refuse passports to people who were born in this country? As are myself and her dad. Maybe am being naive?

Flip

1 2

Swipe left for the next trending thread