British Embassy - Passport not received yet, help!

S

Speedwell

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Hi all

I am wondering can anyone help me or point me in the right direction. I mistakenly washed AND dried my boyfriend’s British passport 2 weeks ago and we are due to travel on Monday 3rd September to Egypt for a week.


We sent it off to the British Embassy in Ballsbridge. The day they received it they sent everything back asking for his birth cert and an extra €35. This took a further 2 days to reach us. So we sent it off again, which of course took another 2 days to reach them. All in all a week was wasted. So they have now received it since last Friday.

The only way we can contact them is through the call centre in Cork (at €7.50 a phone call). The call centre can only tell you if the passport has been processed and either ready for posting or already posted. They cannot tell us if it has even been looked at.

I am at the end of my tether. I don’t know what else we can do except phone every day to check has it been processed. Today is the last day that they can post it out as it seems to take 2 days in the post and we are leaving on Monday.

Has anyone any suggestions? Does anyone know if we can go to the Embassy and queue like I could for my Irish one?


Please please can anyone out there let me know if they have had a similar experience or do they know anyway we can get this sorted??

Thanks!
 
Hi Veron,

when you send in the passport for renewal, did you let them know it was needed urgently, and provide a copy of your flight tickets?
Does the British embassy have an Express Passport service, where you pay extra, but they can process it one or three days.

You need the passport tomorrow, if you fly on monday. I would get onto the call centre in Cork, ask to speak to a supervisor, and let them know your predicament. They might have it ready and you could get it courriered to you (not posted).
Or maybe if its not ready, you would have to go to Ballsbridge with all your documentation and flight tickets, and apply for an express one and get it the same day.

Ragazza.
 
Hi ragazza,

Thanks so much for your response. On the form you have to say when you are flying, which we duly did.

We didn't send a copy of the tickets, as to be honest I never even thought of it. The call centre staff are not bothered when I told them what happened. What I can't understand that even if it was a medical emergency (which it is not) we have no way of contacting the Embassy to see how the passport is doing? He had only renewed it in Dublin last November so naively I thought that it would not take as long this time, seeing as it had only been done last year and I had posted the washed passport with the application.

If we go up to the Embassy, we're not sure if they can even deal with us? I am hoping that they issue the passports and that it has not gone to the UK to be done.
 
I presume there are procedures in place to get emergency passports. Get your boyfriend to ring the embassy and talk to someone. He is a British citizen in a foreign country looking for consular assistance. They will have to talk to him.
 
Hi Sunny,

We are told that we are not an emergency, which technically we're not I suppose. Feels like one to me though! We stand to lose €1500, which cannot be ignored.

I have forwarded the direct line number of the embassy to my bf, so I am hoping they will speak with him and not tell him to phone the call centre.

Why they could not pick up the phone in the first place and tell him to send the extra money I will never know. A complete waste of a whole week.

Our lovely postman said that if it posted out tomorrow (which means that it won't arrive till Tues) that he knows someone in the Cork sorting office that might be able to retrieve it for us. Some people are just so kind.
 
If you can make it to the British embassy today or tomorrow, I'd be doing so...Wouldn't risk having anything put in the post.
 
Hey,

Ye I know. But for him to get time off is a nightmare. Looks like I'll have to convince him to pull a sickie!

Why oh Why did I wash the bloody thing...............
 
veron01 said:
Hi Sunny,

We are told that we are not an emergency, which technically we're not I suppose. Feels like one to me though! We stand to lose €1500, which cannot be ignored.
Click to expand...

Can he not make up a little story. Tell them you sent in the passport not expecting to need it soon but due to a family emergency, your boyfriend is required to travel on it this weekend. They should be able to sort it out. Going forward, you should probably marry him and get him a decent passport!
 
Im not sure if you can still go to the British Embassy in Belfast and wait for a passport to be issued on the day. I did this many years ago, having applied for an Irish passport, however due to a postal strike it never arrived and I was due to go on hols the following week. Went down early in morning with documentation and had one at the end of the day.
 
He rang Glasgow yesterday but because he has applied to Dublin they will not allow him apply there. They said that he could have flown over and got it issued in 1 day, so we are now in the hands of the Embassy.

As for the emergemcy, I was told by the call centre that we would have to have a death cert or a medical cert to explain why he needed it in a hurry so that is a no go.
 
So what position are you in now?
Are you waiting for the embassy to get back to you to see if you can go there tomorrow and get an emergency passport?

No-one at the embassy/call center seems to be taking your issue seriously.

If I were you, I'd want to know :
- where exactly is the passport in the process now?
- shall it be ready to be posted by tomorrow? (so that you could arrange a courier)
- if not, can you go to the embassy tomorrow with all documentation and get an emergency passport (paying the extra emergency fee).

I'd ring the call center and insist on being escalated to the supervisor's supervisor until I got concrete answers to these questions.
 
Hi,

We are in the same position today.

There only seems to be 1 guy constantly answering the phone in the call centre. He gave me the Embassy's fax number yesterday and my bf sent a fax pleading (basically) with the Embassy to give him a call and let him know what is the story and if he can come and collect it. The call centre say we cannot go up and wait for the passport.

It is really starting to look like it will not be done. I just cannot get my head around the fact that we can do nothing but wait. It is just ridiculous that are only point of contact is with the call centre.

I am starting to believe now that there is little hope of him getting it by Monday.

Anyone out there know anyone in the Embassy??!! Not much chance I know but I am feeling fairly desperate. Say a prayer that when we call the centre after lunch that they might have good news.......
 
I just checked the embassy website. They operate a passport counter at the embassy from the hours 9.30-12.00 and 2.00-3.30. They just don't take phone calls. I think your boyfriend would be better off calling in person and talking to someone at the counter rather than going through the call centre
 
oh my God, I never saw that on the website. He is based on Cork so he will have to leave it till Monday if we don't hear anything today.

What a nightmare....
 
Hi all,

Just to let you know that we got the passport. I wrote a begging email and my bf wrote a fax to the Embassy and it must have worked as we are on our way to Egypt.

Thank you to all who posted on this thread.
 
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