Passport delivered to wrong address

code-a-holic

My husband has been waiting for his passport to arrive. On Monday i had a phone call from a lady asking if 'husbands name' lived there. I nervously said yes then she told me the story that she was out gardening on Sunday and saw someone walk on the drive then went back to the car and drove off. She couldnt get to him in time. She guessed it was a junk mail delivery and there was nothing in the post box. She checked a old decorative post box that is sealed and there on the floor next to it was a letter. The address was hers but name was not - so she opened it and found a passport!

She works for the nhs so was naughty and did a quick search of the name to find contact details and found my husband lived at a address with the same house name and rang us. We happen to live 5 miles away, and dh picked it up on his way home from work.

I rang the passport office, and I spoke to someone who really did not care. Surely this is a serious matter and should not be ignored. I have signed for paspports in the past. This delivery man did not get a signature or even knock on a door. Not to mention the paspport office deleting a line from our address which then meant the address was the same as someone 5 miles away - post code is also just 1 digit different to ours also.

Should I ring around and make the complaint acknowleged or just be thankful it did not fall in to the hands of someone less honest?

biscit

I would write to them on paper.

http://www.ips.gov.uk/cps/rde/xchg/ips_live/hs.xsl/1093.htm

Heliflyguy

I remember a thing on Watchdog a couple of months ago I believe, were a lot of people had not received their passports.
When the passport service was confronted with the evidence the response was to supply a photo of the front of the house that the passport should have gone to and say that this was proof of correct delivery, they didnt seem to care.
Considering the fuss the Goverment are making about the Mossad/British passport situation you would think they would take more care of passports in the first place.

dampdaveski

Hope your hubby isn't of israeli descent -.-
Joking aside It is very bad form on the passport offices part

captainprincess

I got a new passport recently. First of all I received my old passport back in the morning, on a saturday then about 3 hours later my new one arrived, they was no knock at the door it was just posted thourgh so I looked out the window and saw the man get back into his car and drive away, thought it was a bit odd at the time and surely I should have signed for it!

Darksun

Who does the IPS use to deliver passports? I thought they used Royal Mail Special Delivery

taxiphil

I'd be equally concerned about this NHS worker's "naughtiness" in looking someone up using confidential medical records, then phoning them. And did she apply any security measures herself (e.g. verifying the identity of the person collecting it, or obtaining a signature) when she handed over the passport?

Butterfly_Brain

It is a Government department so report it to The Home Office
Tel: 0300 222 0000

Helix

Darksun wrote: »

Who does the IPS use to deliver passports? I thought they used Royal Mail Special Delivery

I think they use Secure Mail or now they seem to be called DX Secure http://www.thedx.co.uk/ourservices/secure/

Dr.Rock

Darksun wrote: »

Who does the IPS use to deliver passports? I thought they used Royal Mail Special Delivery

I think they also use Document Exchange (DX) who are unbelievably fussy about who they deliver to. Only during office hours, only to named person who must have ID, and if you go to collect it can only be at the pre-arranged appointment time.

I hope the original poster bought a nice present for the lady who risked her job and prosecution to eventually get the passport to the owner.

It's also worth mentioning to the Passport Office that they are in breach of the Data Protection Act and if anything similar happens again it will be reported to the Information Commissioner's Office. They might care a bit more then.

apollo1064

had a similar situation today.
all the details on the envelope were correct but was delivered to the wrong address .
i also paid for secure return delivery of my supporting documents. they came via normal post.
for all the fuss the passport office make about security you would think ALL document including passport SHOULD be signed for upon delivery.
i did call them to express my concerns and as a previous post says they appeared totally unintersted.

something should be done to rectify this issue.

thankfully my next door neighbour is an honest person and gave me my passport. the opposite could easily have happened.

k w luna