Post Office Passport Check & Send

jaylee3

Makes me hoot when people (like a few people featured on the news this week) have the temerity to whinge that their passport hasn't come and they go on holiday next week! Then it emerges that they only sent for it in mid May!

Why book a major family holiday before getting the passports first?! It tells you explicitly on the form 'DO NOT make any travel plans before receiving your passport.' They have only themselves to blame.

I think some people just like drama!

PaperPauper

lisa701 wrote: »

Has anyone else had problems with the post office passport check & send service? I'm really disapointed by them.

My wife used it for the first time recently on an application for our daughter and it was an absolute joke. We would never use it again. A mistake in our daughters name (we had entered her full name on the form as required, but on her previous passport, her names were not included as we were told that there was not enough space) meant that the application was rejected. This should have been caught but, well, mistakes do happen so I don't blame the PO for that, but then ...

• my wife phoned the number given on the receipt for the passport application, but was passed from pillar to post on the telephone, having to phone three different numbers, before being told to go back to the Post Office branch.
• the staff at the Post Office initially refused to accept their mistake, when this was clearly something they should have spotted.
• when they finally did, they then made it difficult for her to get her money back by telling her to phone a number rather than just refunding the money (it's funny, but when we paid for it, I don't recall giving them a number to call to get money from us)
• by this stage my wife was reduced to tears and was then obliged to send the passport back to the passport office with my daughter's birth certificate Special Delivery together with a cheque for return postage. The manager even said that he would wave the outward postage, but then told her (quite incorrectly) that
• she couldn't claim back the Check and Send fee because he was doing this 'as good will'

I wrote to the Post Office customer care department complaining about her treatment and asking for a refund. Today I got a reply that didn't even mention my wife and asked for no less than eight pieces of information in order to process the claim - seven of which were given in my original email to them. I wonder if anyone bothered to read it at all?

The upshot of this is that I would advise anyone doing this not to use this shoddy service but to check your passports regularly, allow plenty of time for an application and, if you feel the need to check it, get a competent adult to check it through. Pay them in flowers or a pint or offer to return the favour. It'll save you money and a good deal of hassle.

MrA2012

I second that advice. I used Check and Send the last time I renewed my passport. Not only was it a complete waste of money, it actually jeopardized my application's chances of getting approved.

I had checked my application form thoroughly and was confident it was ok, but for peace of mind decided to use the Check and Send service. After all, getting it double-checked by the post office couldn't hurt, right? Wrong.

To start with, the post office employee didn't actually check the form. She barely glanced at it before putting it in the envelope. Luckily I hadn't made any mistakes on it, but if I had they sure as hell wouldn't have been spotted.

She then went on to put everything I had handed to her into the envelope except for the required photos, which were left on the desk. As she sealed the envelope and put it into a tray to be posted I pointed out that she hadn't put the photos in the envelope, but she insisted she definitely had. By this time, she had put a clipboard down on top of the photos, so I had to persuade her to move the clipboard and look at the photos on the desk before she would admit they weren't in the envelope. She then seemed rather annoyed at having to open the envelope and do the whole thing over again, still without checking the form.

If I hadn't noticed, my application would have been rejected. Not because of a mistake I had made, but because of a mistake made by the post office during the Check and Send process. If I remember correctly, if your application is rejected you are only entitled to a refund of the Check and Send fee, not the passport application fee.

So, I basically paid £8 for someone to put the application in an envelope for me and to do so without the care it deserved. No doubt the quality of the service varies with who is doing the checking and sending, but from my experience I recommend avoiding it and just checking it carefully yourself.

steve99

I used it last week and was happy. They did check the form carefully and noticed that I had put in one number that was outside of a box and advised that I complete a new form. I did this and it was taken by them on Friday 6th February. I received a text from the passport office that it was received on Tuesday 10th February and my new passport arrived on Thursday 12th February. I know that it costs a little extra but some of that is offset by the fact that I would have wanted to send it recorded delivery anyhow.

NobodysChild

Gosh what a jolly flippin' nuisance. Must admit, when we sent for ours 2 years back, I just did it on my own so I could have full control IYSWIM.

It's actually pretty simple. Ours only took a week! But it was 2 years ago, and it was January, so I guess a very quiet time,

Sorry you had a bad experience. Don't have much advice really, but I do hope you get it sorted soon.