Very difficult to renew Public Services card online

T

Tintagel

Registered User
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562
Our Public Services Card expires next month. Got an email advising us to renew online. My good wife spent several hours trying to upload a new photograph online......nothing worked.

We decided to renew the old way and call to one of their offices to renew manually.

We were told by the official behind the counter that the system is not working and you cannot renew online. You have to call to an office to renew.

Why are people being told that it is possible to renew online?
 
Sums up a lot of the dysfunction in the public sector doesn't it.

I understand some people have managed to renew with photos in 4:3 aspect ratio, but there seems to be an element of luck, could be phone\camera specific. Very fussy.
 
One of our Public Services card expires at the end of November. We failed miserably trying to upload a new picture online only to find out later that the system is not working.

We called to Dunlaoghaire office two weeks ago and had the photo taken etc.......only to be told that our existing card with one month on it would be cancelled immediately and the new one would not be posted out until a few days before the expiry date on the old card.
This means that we have nearly 4 weeks without a card.

Is it not possible for these people to post out the new card as soon as it is applied for rather than holding on to it until the old one expires?
 
They seem to make simple things complicated for the client/customer and complex things impossible. Where would we be without them?

A simple thing like a notice on the website saying "the tech is broke, go talk to a human being" seems to be beyond them, and I'm not sure if it's the idea or the execution is lacking - probably both!
 
I remember having the same issue and it taking literally hours for so many attempts to upload a photo before it was eventually accepted. It seemed to have even more strigent criteria than a passport photo. Hopefully they'll have it fixed before the next renewal date!
 
 

Update. This morning a card belonging to someone else arrived at my home.

I have no idea where my card has been posted to!
 
No idea about renewal but I ordered one as I thought it might be handy had to do the photo validation and it worked fine.

I find most of these photo validation work best in good natural light, well lit subject with a while background. They don't like shadows. Also work best using just one device at a time like a phone.
 
SlugBreath said:
Update. This morning a card belonging to someone else arrived at my home.

I have no idea where my card has been posted to!
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Is that not a major breach of gdpr? , that's there goto excuse for not doing anything yet they still manage to breach it anyway
 
AlbacoreA said:
No idea about renewal but I ordered one as I thought it might be handy had to do the photo validation and it worked fine.
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As yours was not a renewal, presumably it was a first application for a public services card.
Can that be done on line or ordered ? I thought you had to attend in person at a PSC office and have your photo taken in there for first application, or has that changed ?
 
joe sod said:
Is that not a major breach of gdpr? , that's there goto excuse for not doing anything yet they still manage to breach it anyway
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This is a major breach of established protocol! GDPR only applies if you want the full name or the email address of an individual public servant rather than the generic "sean_or_sheila@some_deepartmint_someplace_else".
 
I recently managed to renew my mothers public servies online in September and the photo upload was so painful. I honestly took at least 20 photos of her before it woudl accept one. The new card did arrive pretty promptly but I could not believe how stringent the photo acceptable criteria were. Like I am no dope and ws taking good head and shoulders shots against a plain wall in good light, but even the slightest hint of a shadow or light mismatch side to side causes the upload to be rejected. Eventually, I brought my mother out to the back garden to a wall, and it finally accepted the photo. It felt like we were taking photos for hours.
 
Curious81 said:
Eventually, I brought my mother out to the back garden to a wall
Click to expand...
I was honestly worried how that sentence was going to end... Visions of Romania 1989 and all that.

Would the various passport photo apps help at all in this context? They've always helped me when doing passport photos using the phone and avoided rejections once uploaded. But maybe the PSC photo criteria are different and even stricter?
 
Alas, the PSC seems about 100 times fussier than passport or driving licence. It is absurd.
 
my poor elderly mother against the wall, what is my phrasing like

Honestly, I didn't know such apps existed, so maybe they would have helped. Have taken baby passport photos before on my phone with success, though So maybe the criteria are stricter.
 
If you ring the PSC helpdesk on 0818 837000 and ask nicely they can extend your card for 3 years. We did that for my husband's renewal after numerous photo uploads failed. Hopefully in 3 years time they will have a system that works!
 
I took my parents to the office in Nutgrove to renew their cards. They couldn’t get up the stairs. So the manager there contacted the office in Tallaght and I took them over there and a couple of very nice people sorted it all out for us and the new cards arrived a couple of weeks later.

On the phone they said to do it online and I just explained that my elderly parents couldn’t do that, no smart phones, no email addresses and while they had no need for these cards they were without any other form of ID.

And that was the issue. Their passports expired, they aren’t travelling again, neither have current driving licences… we needed to set up EPA.. so step one is prove your identity… their old solicitor had retired so the new one needed to see ID. We could have done passports but these are expensive.

So anyone looking after elderly folks, keep some form of ID in date. It’s easy to see how it suddenly becomes an issue.
 
When renewing your public service (over 70's) card don't even consider doing it on line if you live within a donkey's screech of a social welfare office. Just pop in to them and hey Presto, all sorted in 10 minutes. Card follows in the post. Check the card on arrival to make sure the correct details are on it, in particular the PPS number

Same goes for renewal of (over 70's) driving license:- Fill up the form (available from libraries, garda stations or download) Add your Doctors certificate and pop it in the post. No photos required.
 
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