Passport office lost toddlers birth certificate

[StressedOutMama15]

Hello! I’m looking for some advice.

I sent my daughters birth certificate to the uk passport office for her first passport and they’ve lost her birth certificate. They are claiming it wasn’t in the envelope, despite providing plenty information and a tracking number which shows it was signed for.

I’ve requested compensation, having had to order a new copy and pay for postage of this but they are refusing.

As you can imagine, I’m fuming as this is her original birth certificate and she’s only a toddler so her birth certificate was precious to us.

Any advice on how to handle this situation and make them pay?

Thanks!

Did you use the Post Office Check and Send Service? Is there a chance the post office worker didn’t put it in?

If the envelope received by the passport office was damaged or tampered with you could claim from Royal Mail, many of their postal services are insured but you’d need the envelope back as evidence.

Otherwise I would just order a replacement birth certificate (easy done online), send it off again and get your passport. There’s nothing else you can do as it’s your word against theirs at the end of the day.

@Pineapplewaves I sent it myself so unfortunately no one to blame other than the passport office :( I’ll try requesting the envelope and see what they say!

I’ve ordered a replacement so I can send it back off to them but I was insisting they pay for this as they’ve lost the birth certificate.

thanks for your response!

I can see that it’s irritating OP but is it really worth pursuing any further? Life’s too short so just forget about it and move on

I tried to pursue a complaint with them when they said I hadn’t submitted my marriage certificate for my new passport. I paid for a new marriage certificate and sent it to them and when I got my documents back there were two marriage certificates!! I got nowhere with them and gave up in the end. An apology or acknowledgment would ultimately have been enough but that wasn’t forthcoming either. Very frustrating.

It’s what £11 for a certified copy of a birth certificate? Is it worth hours of your time and pissing off the Home Office for this?

Her birth certificate isn’t precious, it’s just a document. She is the precious thing. You should move on from this.

@painauchoc512 oh gosh! Sorry to hear you had the same struggle! Fingers crossed the same happens for us 🤞🏼

Im just wondering if that birth cert has been sold to someone by some dodgy employee and they could use it as identification for something they shouldn’t do….

Yeah that’s definitely it. People working in the passport office risking those jobs for a £12 public document. You have cracked it.

In the UK a birth certificate is a public document. Anyone can order a copy for about £12. It's not going to be a big money making scheme.

It's most likely just a simple mistake by a passport office employee. A criminal wanting to misuse one in some way could just order their own.

You need info that random people don’t know to order a birth certificate apparently. Like mothers maiden name amd address etc so it’s not that easy to get one.

Google says:
“People steal birth certificates primarily to commit identity theft and identity fraud. The birth certificate is a crucial "breeder document" that provides the basic personal information needed to fraudulently obtain other forms of identification and access services.”

So that’s why I’m suggesting it could have been stolen. For fraud. And the government employs hundreds of short term temp staff. It would be difficult to narrow down who stole it and perhaps lucrative for someone to sell a bunch of them on at once to criminals….

I'd be very annoyed too OP, but you've ordered a new one and hopefully you get the passport back quickly.

It might be worth taking photos of all the forms going inside the envelope, but if it gets 'lost' at their end, still nothing you can do.

I had to re-send an entire application for a professional qualification once, when page 5 of 12 was suddenly missing at their end. They somehow had page 6, but not page 5- despite them all being printed back to back and ALL pages being checked before sending. It also took them 4mths to tell me and by then, I had to get another person to countersign all the documents again 😡