"Where did I leave my passport?"

MSE_Laura_F

Common-sense suggestions for where someone might have left their passport, please...

A few years ago the Home Office released the info that 400,000 passports were reported lost or stolen a year. It seems to be a very easy item to misplace. And since it costs £75.50-£85 to replace, the error is not a cheap one.

If you've misplaced your passport, here are my two suggestions for where to look (from personal experience):

• Inside the printer/photocopier. Did you have any cause to make a photocopy of your passport in the past few months? You may have left it sitting under the lid of a work or home printer/copier.
• Inside the zip-up extra compartment of a suitcase. There's a compartment on my suitcase I never use, but for some reason I chose to put my passport there after leaving the airport on my way home.

Any other potentially helpful ideas?

NoodleDoodleMan

We have a small house safe (£30 odd quid in hardware stores) bolted to wall and floor in clothes cupboard - both passports reside there except when needed for overseas travel.

Never understood why some people are so cavalier with the security etc. of such an important document.

JGB1955

Ours are kept, at home, in a fire-safe, alongside our wills and other essential documents. I used to think my father was being ridiculous when he had a 'Winding up orders' icon on his laptop... it turned out to be invaluable.  I now have the same, and it's updated and on a memory stick in the safe.

northwalesd

I lost my passport once, had to report it to the police and get a new one. Moved house since, never found it.

Savvy_Sue

No help with where you might have lost it, but before you do, take a photocopy and put it somewhere else. Then take the passport out of the printer.

I've also got passport nos, NINos and driving licence nos stored on the laptop. No need to find the original(s) to fill in on ticket details / car hire.

Also be disciplined. Passport needed for ID for a job / bank? Take it out, use it, PUT IT BACK!

Doshwaster

NoodleDoodleMan said:

We have a small house safe (£30 odd quid in hardware stores) bolted to wall and floor in clothes cupboard - both passports reside there except when needed for overseas travel.

Never understood why some people are so cavalier with the security etc. of such an important document.

I have the same. Such a cheap safe isn't going to put off a determined burglar or withstand a serious fire but they are useful for a dedicated place to keep important documents, cash and other items which are easy to lose.

Also, it's a good idea to scan your passport, driving licence, insurance documents etc and keep a copy on your favourite cloud service (iCloud, OneDrive, Google Drive...) so that you can access the details from anywhere. 

martindow

You've just got to be a bit organised and make sure you put it in the same place each time you need to take it out.  A safe is no help if you haven't put it back in there!

eDicky

I'm not particularly well organised, I can usually locate my passport by recollecting what I was wearing during the most recent inbound travel. It's there, in a pocket.

Siebrie

I accidentally left my passport at the Western Union desk. I had already reported it missing and obtained a new one, when I returned to the WU desk 3 months later. They had put a mark next to my name, apparently, that when I showed up again, they had my passport in the back. Why oh why not phone me? or send it to the Dutch Embassy? They had all my contact details, because I was a frequent user of their service and had a 'loyalty card'. Of all the places I could have left my passport, this one just never crossed my mind.

TELLIT01

We keep all our holiday 'stuff' in one drawer.  That's things like MP3 players, first aid kit, left over Euros etc.  The passports are in the same drawer.

Username03725

martindow said:

You've just got to be a bit organised and make sure you put it in the same place each time you need to take it out.  A safe is no help if you haven't put it back in there!

This. This applies to everything; car keys, wallet, phone, glasses, anything. Anything you regularly pick up and put down, just get used to putting it back in the same place. The number of times my two [almost] grown-up sons have lost their wallets is beyond astounding - they always find it in a coat pocket or wherever it last fell out of their hand.