Good luck to anyone renewing a passport

rolls636363

I did an online application, sent my old passport the next day via the secure post office expensive method, and it was signed for received the following morning.   So far so good..... not for long.  Now they are spamming me with text and email saying to send it my old passport.  OK, lets give them a phone call.  Good luck with that, been trying all day, they cut you off at various stages of waiting.  I must have tried well over a hundred times.   Oh, the online chat, lets try that.........oh thats down due to high volumes.  There is now no way left to contact them and query the loss of my old passport by them.  The system is a joke, shambles, laughing stock, there are no other words for it.  Looks like my daughters might be going on holiday without me

daveyjp

If you have sent it back just ignore the reminders!  You will get an email telling you it is received.

You are blocking the system with frivolous calls.

diystarter7

daveyjp said:

If you have sent it back just ignore the reminders!  You will get an email telling you it is received.

You are blocking the system with frivolous calls.

Last year I got my new passport within a few days.
Then message to send back the old which cost me money and time.
What if I had not bothered and just destroyed and disposed of it myself

bagand96

I'm sure I saw on one of the other threads that the messages you will have received are automated because your old passport hasn't been logged into the system yet.  One of the many delays is between passports being delivered and being processed into the system, so I wouldn't worry too much at this stage.

Not making excuses, but it's the perfect storm of nobody renewing passports for the last two years "I'm not going anywhere so don't need it" causing a sudden surge in applications over normal volumes, coupled with passport office not being at full capacity with working from home, ongoing covid sickness, staff shortage etc.

In the meantime if you haven't already you can keep an eye on your application to see if it progresses here Track your passport application - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

olgadapolga

I sent my two sons' passports back at the same time but to different offices.

One of them was processed really quickly and we received an email within a couple of days stating that it had been received and the new one was being processed. 

The other was wasn't processed for almost two weeks and we had frequent messages to return the old one. It was eventually done and the new one processed.

Neither was sent back via SD, just regular post so no idea whether the delay was due to Royal Mail or the Passport Office.

daveyjp

diystarter7 said:

daveyjp said:

If you have sent it back just ignore the reminders!  You will get an email telling you it is received.

You are blocking the system with frivolous calls.

Last year I got my new passport within a few days.
Then message to send back the old which cost me money and time.
What if I had not bothered and just destroyed and disposed of it myself

If you had destroyed it it would show you hadn't read and understood the detail during the application process to return your old passport to the address they supply as part of the process.

diystarter7

daveyjp said:

diystarter7 said:

daveyjp said:

If you have sent it back just ignore the reminders!  You will get an email telling you it is received.

You are blocking the system with frivolous calls.

Last year I got my new passport within a few days.
Then message to send back the old which cost me money and time.
What if I had not bothered and just destroyed and disposed of it myself

If you had destroyed it it would show you hadn't read and understood the detail during the application process to return your old passport to the address they supply as part of the process.

True but I did destroy it as per my post but you have failed to answer my question

Anyone else - what if I was not to send it back, what would have happened?

Sandtree

rolls636363 said:

I did an online application, sent my old passport the next day via the secure post office expensive method, and it was signed for received the following morning.   So far so good..... not for long.  Now they are spamming me with text and email saying to send it my old passport.  OK, lets give them a phone call.  Good luck with that, been trying all day, they cut you off at various stages of waiting.  I must have tried well over a hundred times.   Oh, the online chat, lets try that.........oh thats down due to high volumes.  There is now no way left to contact them and query the loss of my old passport by them.  The system is a joke, shambles, laughing stock, there are no other words for it.  Looks like my daughters might be going on holiday without me

Was lucky, today it took just 12 calls to get through to them but it was frustrating when sometimes they tell you that you are in the queue with an average wait time of 10 minutes and then after 4 minutes change it to the we are too busy try again later. We did get though on the 12th time of trying though!

Have you tracked the application online? Whilst the Royal Mail tracking may say HMPO have physically received your passport even a couple of months ago before it got as bad as it is now they were saying it was taking 2 weeks to process received post and you'd expect that to be longer now.

Westin

I thought you had to send in your old passport with the new application. The passport office then return it to you (with corner clipped) after they have finished with it and cancelled it.

diystarter7 said:

daveyjp said:

diystarter7 said:

daveyjp said:

If you have sent it back just ignore the reminders!  You will get an email telling you it is received.

You are blocking the system with frivolous calls.

Last year I got my new passport within a few days.
Then message to send back the old which cost me money and time.
What if I had not bothered and just destroyed and disposed of it myself

If you had destroyed it it would show you hadn't read and understood the detail during the application process to return your old passport to the address they supply as part of the process.

True but I did destroy it as per my post but you have failed to answer my question

Anyone else - what if I was not to send it back, what would have happened?

I would expect you create problems for yourself and then get stuck in a loop of correspondence between you and the passport office.  Surely the system is creaking enough at the moment without you not following instructions from them. Little wonder the renewal wait times are slow for some people.

katejo

Westin said:

I thought you had to send in your old passport with the new application. The passport office then return it to you (with corner clipped) after they have finished with it and cancelled it.

diystarter7 said:

daveyjp said:

diystarter7 said:

daveyjp said:

If you have sent it back just ignore the reminders!  You will get an email telling you it is received.

You are blocking the system with frivolous calls.

Last year I got my new passport within a few days.
Then message to send back the old which cost me money and time.
What if I had not bothered and just destroyed and disposed of it myself

If you had destroyed it it would show you hadn't read and understood the detail during the application process to return your old passport to the address they supply as part of the process.

True but I did destroy it as per my post but you have failed to answer my question

Anyone else - what if I was not to send it back, what would have happened?

I would expect you create problems for yourself and then get stuck in a loop of correspondence between you and the passport office.  Surely the system is creaking enough at the moment without you not following instructions from them. Little wonder the renewal wait times are slow for some people.

That is what happened with mine when I last renewed in Dec 2018.

Robin9

rolls636363 said:

I did an online application, sent my old passport the next day via the secure post office expensive method, and it was signed for received the following morning.   So far so good..... not for long.  Now they are spamming me with text and email saying to send it my old passport.  OK, lets give them a phone call.  Good luck with that, been trying all day, they cut you off at various stages of waiting.  I must have tried well over a hundred times.   Oh, the online chat, lets try that.........oh thats down due to high volumes.  There is now no way left to contact them and query the loss of my old passport by them.  The system is a joke, shambles, laughing stock, there are no other words for it.  Looks like my daughters might be going on holiday without me

No problems with my recent renewal -  online form Sat April 24th, sent old passport by post the next day.. New passport came last Friday May 6th