"Damaged" passport - define "Damaged"

24

Comments

  • barron_2
    barron_2 Posts: 460 Forumite
    Hi Jammy,
    Not knocking what you say,you know what your on about,but exactly what i said they charge for making sure the right paperwork is enclosed.
    For a bit extra I would be more happy knowing the p/work was correct,than ending up you guys writing back and forth.
    4 clients and families in past 3 weeks have used P.O.
    One for same reasons above,put in covering letter as well explaining how it happened.
    All got them back within 10 days.
    Nuff said,not an expert just going by experiance.
    But will defo use your experiance if needed.
    Happy Hols
  • jammybunn
    jammybunn Posts: 64 Forumite
    barron wrote:
    Hi Jammy,
    Not knocking what you say,you know what your on about,but exactly what i said they charge for making sure the right paperwork is enclosed.
    For a bit extra I would be more happy knowing the p/work was correct,than ending up you guys writing back and forth.
    4 clients and families in past 3 weeks have used P.O.
    One for same reasons above,put in covering letter as well explaining how it happened.
    All got them back within 10 days.
    Nuff said,not an expert just going by experiance.
    But will defo use your experiance if needed.
    Happy Hols

    sorry if i sounded a bit nasty there, i know the PO are only doing there job but the letters that get sent out are usually (80%) for things that the PO cant detect and that is countersignatorys. plus its just that we get a number of people coming into the counter saying " the post office told us we would have it by blah blah". now I know most of you dont do that but there are a few, and that causes grief frustration and missed travel, plus as this is a saving board i thought id save them £7..
  • RedBooties_2
    RedBooties_2 Posts: 49 Forumite
    Murphy_The_Cat wrote:
    & if you renew it, it'll be good for another 10 years (rather than the 5 that it has/may have left)

    Just to add to this, for what it's worth, the passport office will add up to 9 months of the remaining validity from an existing passport onto the new one, if applying for a renewal or an update.

    Not a whole lot in comparison to five years, but every little helps I guess; I had 7 years left on mine when I had to apply for a renewal :rolleyes:

    As for the level of damage, sorry I can't be much help there, but I think as others have said, so long as the data page is in good nick it should be fine. Might be worth calling the passport office to make sure though, if for nothing other than the peace of mind. :)
  • jammybunn
    jammybunn Posts: 64 Forumite
    RedBooties wrote:
    Just to add to this, for what it's worth, the passport office will add up to 9 months of the remaining validity from an existing passport onto the new one, if applying for a renewal or an update.

    Not a whole lot in comparison to five years, but every little helps I guess; I had 7 years left on mine when I had to apply for a renewal :rolleyes:

    As for the level of damage, sorry I can't be much help there, but I think as others have said, so long as the data page is in good nick it should be fine. Might be worth calling the passport office to make sure though, if for nothing other than the peace of mind. :)


    please see one of my previous posts, i work for the ppt office and it is damaged if its been through the wash, the bio page is irrellivant
  • lancsman_2
    lancsman_2 Posts: 93 Forumite
    they rarely even check your passport if you travel to Europe and back,

    I thought that having been to France several times in the past few years and Barcelona the year before last. However we have just come back from Berlin and the German passport control thoroughly checked the passport both going in and coming out. They used a scanner too which suggest they were looking for fakes.

    Even the passport control at Nottingham airport took a few seconds to look at them when we came back. That must be a record for a UK passport control desk :cool:

    D
  • jonesMUFCforever
    jonesMUFCforever Posts: 28,898 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Post First Anniversary
    The imprtant information is on the laminated (page with picture on).
    If you are friendly terms with your local bank you could ask them to put it through their security lamp to see if the water marks are undamaged.
    As other posters have advised if going to USA I would get a definite answer from the Passport Office.
  • my2234
    my2234 Posts: 2 Newbie
    My passport never went near the wash, all the pages were in good condition, everything was totally legible. The corners of the laminated page were a bit dog eared and after the Thomas Cook check in staff had finished “examining” it you could just see the very tip of the bottom left hand of the picture. This according to them makes it damaged to an extent where they would not allow me to go on the flight to Spain. I think they are getting tougher because passports are now read by machines rather than just examined by humans.
    So what is the result :-
    1. A replacement fast track passport at a whopping £114.
    2. Loss of as many days of my holiday as it takes them to find an alternative flight because they refuse to change the date of the return flight.
    3. An extra payment to them of £70 as they are now supposedly doing me a favour by getting me a standby flight, if a spare seat comes up which they can't otherwise sell 24 hours prior to departure.
    Do I feel ripped off ? Yes I do as they did part of the damage to the passport. Even though I offered indemnify them against the £2500 fine they said they would have to pay if I was not allowed into Spain they still would not me fly. Frankly I think the passport was OK and have seen ones that were in much worse condition.
    But when the people that make extra money are also the people that decide if the passport is damaged I would say it is hard to win. As far as I am aware there are no guide lines on what constitutes a damaged passport. Certainly my 8 year old UK passport was not fit for purpose as it is supposed to be carried with you at all times and was never designed to stand up to wear and tear of being used on extended periods abroad.
    I would like any advice or thoughts from other members of the forum.


    Mainly I post this as a warning to all of you that it is an unfair system open to abuse by any unscrupulous travel operator.
  • BernadetteN
    BernadetteN Posts: 845 Forumite
    Nearly every UK passport control point now uses scanners and 99.9% of passports now have to go through these scanners which read the smart chips and the mahcine readable code and also the entire data page. It's a fallacy to say no[one looks at passports when travelling to the UK.

    Personally, I'd change the passport, as you are only losing 4 years and 3 months validity and that's really no much money in comparison to how much people spend on their overseas holidays. If the passport is damaged as described, you risk being refused entry to any country in the world, including Portugal, because the passport is damaged.

    Personally I'd also neve use the PO service as they are only verifying the form is filled in correctly and correct accompanying documents are submitted. It's more cost effective to seek advice from IPS helpline (use saynoto0870.com if necessary) than pay the PO money to help you. Many people wrongly assume that the PO service is faster - it's not and your application goes in the post the same speed as an application form you post yourself. With 6 passports to renew, we have renewed 11 times in the last 12 years. We have had passports back in the post on average 10 days later - one was recently held up because the person processing it at IPS insisted on seeing our original marriage certificate and phoned us to tell us (I never changed name so the kids have a different surname from me) despite having seen it 5 years earlier, and still we had the renewed passport back in less than 14 days.
  • jammin_2
    jammin_2 Posts: 2,461 Forumite
    BernadetteN wrote: »
    Nearly every UK passport control point now uses scanners and 99.9% of passports now have to go through these scanners which read the smart chips and the mahcine readable code and also the entire data page. It's a fallacy to say no[one looks at passports when travelling to the UK.

    EU citizens don't even need a passport to enter the UK. British citizens do (unless they're entering from Ireland), but a British passport is usually not scanned, and is likely to be glanced at by an immigration officer, but nothing more.
  • sooz
    sooz Posts: 4,560 Forumite
    jammin wrote: »
    EU citizens don't even need a passport to enter the UK. British citizens do (unless they're entering from Ireland), but a British passport is usually not scanned, and is likely to be glanced at by an immigration officer, but nothing more.

    That used to be the case - particularly when coming into the country by ferry. However, I was very shocked (but in a good way ;) ) when we came back by boat and were on the UK side last week that not only were all our passports scanned, I was made to remove my sunglasses, & the kids were asked their names (as they still have baby photos). Each car with 4 or 5 occupants took about 7 minutes. Quite different to my previous experiences when usually waving 4 unopened British passports was quite enough.
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