soap

Just a note of warning on photos for UK passport applications.I got an email today from the UK passport people in Liverpool.

It advised me that the photographs I had supplied were not suitable and

they asked me to send replacements.They failed on two counts--my eyes could not

be seen and my face had some expression not allowed--This latter was, in my view, on looking at

copies, simply a pleasant.not-in-pain look--certainly not a teeth flashing smile,not even a little grin

or even a smirk--so beware chaps, this may be the Land of Smiles but remember where you came from.The eye thing is reflection. from spectacles-- so get the photo person to do a bit of

Photoshopping or similar if necessary.

A bit late when its in Liverpool, I thought it was the idea that those smart people at "trendy' checked the applications.

Unfortunately not, this is a common misunderstanding; trendy do not check documents, they just make sure the papers are present then post them to Liverpool, who do the actual document check.

Indeed, Trendy's only declared function is to force you to wait weeks for an 'interview' and travel to their offices rather than send your application direct. Whether the whole process is motivated by financial incentives to someone within the UK bureaucracy is a matter of conjecture. (Occam's razor perhaps suggests that the system was simply designed by mental defectives.)

I agree with BritTim

There is no logical reason to have a person travel thousands of kilometres to present passport documents that take 5 minutes to check.It gives room for thought that this contract was won on the back of financial incentives or free Kuoni exotic holidays.

As Maccraw says the HMPO sent his photos back after being accepted by the Trendy most probable after waiting weeks for an appointment,would it not be as quick to send the documents direct to HMPO on the understanding that if you have made a mistake on your form the documents will be returned to you to be rectified.

Or god forbid common sense prevailed and you wanted to be sure your documents were in order you could have the likes of the British consul in Chiangmai check your documents nearer to your home or the same system set up in different provinces.The same system that most post offices in the UK have in place for a fee of about 7 pound. I doubt very much if any of the post office staff inthe UK have masters degrees in checking passport documents or do all the Trendy staff have these qualifications

The difference between inefficiency and efficiency

A last update on my friends daughters 18 week wait for a 5 year child passport

My friend paid 125 pound ( before the changes) for his daughters 5 year child passport Who was born in England, after 10 weeks of waiting HMPO asked for more proof of address from a 13 year old child.

HMPO finally accepted a simple letter from her school saying that she attended this school and her address

was etc,if the HMPO would have stated this simple letter would be accepted in the first place there would have been no delay.The passport was issued after 14 weeks but gathered dust at the Trendy office for just on one month before they bothered to inform the family .Total time 18 weeks

It took the child's mother ( who speaks with a Brummie accent) 7 weeks for her to receive a visa for the uk .

They were ready to board the flight,and when asked for her passport she produced a nice brand new UK passport only to be asked to show her Thai passport. OMG with all the stress and hassle they had forgot to renew her Thai passport ( easy done) and could not board the flight.

Distraught and distressed after this nightmare saga they went to stay with friends while they applied for a Thai passport,WITHIN ONE WEEK at no extra jumping the queue cost she had received her Thai passport through the normal channels

I think the HMPO should take note of their own inefficiency and the Thai efficiency when dealing with passport renewals

After reading through the horror stories on this thread I applied for a new passport with considerable trepidation. Exactly six weeks later (as per the time quoted at Trendy) my passport has arrived. I sincerely hope this indicates an appearance of a light at the end of the tunnel for those of you still waiting, but maybe I was just lucky.

Does your six week figure include the waiting time for your appointment at trendy?

Agreed, it does represent an improvement compared to previous, however 6 weeks is still an appallingly bad level of service for the renewal of such an important identity document.

Most civilized nations offer < two week turnaround for overseas passport renewals and some still offer a next day service - so HMPO are still performing very poorly indeed.

Next July we will probably be reading about the massive bonuses being paid to HMPO staff for having 'improved' the turn around on the service during 2014.

Let's not forget that the new 'service' has now already been running for five months, if there was no improvement at all, then lots of heads would have to roll..

You're right about the appointments at Trendy. It took them three weeks to see me after emailing them. When I finally went, I was really miffed. Why?

Well, the place was almost empty and it took them about 2 minutes to check my stuff, get me to sign a form and...that was it! There seemed to be plenty of those little booths with staff in and only one person (me) was being dealt with.

You should be able to just turn up and sort it out. Three weeks for an appointment to start the ball rolling is a disgrace and a complete joke. Including travelling around sorting it out (and an ETD is being sorted next week) my passport will end up costing me a small fortune.

The ETD (on the internet anyway) looks a bit like a UK passport, just a different colour. The Embassy can issue you with one on the same day. If it's just about money, why not just charge 15,000 baht for a same day passport at the Embassy (or within a week)? My hunch is that this is just about p..ssing off Brits living abroad. Concerns have been raised in parliament about the 'brain drain'. I'm not suggesting I'm part of that, but a good way to make them come back is to make it impossible/difficult for employees abroad to stay there.

You are right Dizzy

There is no logic or common sense or reasoning in this day and age to compel anyone to make a 2,000k journey to present passport documents that takes 2 minutes to check.

You can imagine the uproar in the UK if you were compelled to travel from lands end to John O'groats to present passport documents that take 2 minutes to check.

The only conclusion I can come too is whoever sanctioned this contract with Trendy must be a complete and utter DIMWIT who did not bother to do any homework on the travel difficulties people would face for a 2 minute check,and still persist in going hand in hand with the Trendy to enforce these stupid rules in order for their finance sheet to show a healthy profit.

Some good news! Bouses? OK, from last year.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29073232

Should this report not be in the "Jokes thread"

Not sure if this has been mentioned ..

I applied for my daughter's passport in April before the new regulations and fee reduction , which included return of the passport to my home address in Samui ..

I have just been informed that the passport is ready for collection in Bangkok .

I suggested that they should at least refund the difference in fees charged to compensate but no .

Same has been reported by others - new passport applied for prior to 26th march, returned to Trendy BKK, no refund.

New passport application system started in Thailand on 26th March, so if you sent yours to the UK in April, you were really lucky not to get bounced.

I have just been informed that I will receive a refund

'Thank you for your e-mail regarding your daughter's passport application.

As you will be aware, we have been experiencing unprecedented levels of passport demand and I apologise that it has taken us longer that usual to address your complaint.

I have now reviewed your daughter's application and can confirm that we received the application onto our system on 24/03/2014. The changes in Thailand took effect from 25/03/2014 and therefore our examiner followed the correct procedures in place by the time your daughter's application was received into an examining section. It is unfortunate that your application was submitted at the same time that our arrangement with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was drawing to a close and I apologise that this does not appear to have been made clear to applicants at that time.

It is Her Majesty's Passport Office (HM Passport Office) policy to reimburse out of pocket expenses incurred by customers as a direct consequence of operational errors or omissions by its staff by means of an ex-gratia payment without accepting any legal liability. As the fees for applying for a UK passport were reduced on 7 April 2014 from £128.00 to £83.00 (a reduction of £45.00), I have authorised a refund for this amount which will be sent to you separately.

Please accept our apology that HM Passport Office did not achieve its usual service standards on this occasion, we do genuinely aim to provide a high standard of service to customers. This has been a challenging few months for HM Passport Office, trying to meet the exceptional demand we faced and I am genuinely sorry that your experience was not typical of that normally enjoyed by the vast majority of our customers. We will be carrying out a review of our procedures in the near future and any lessons that we can learn from this review will be implemented to improve our service to our customers.'

All the HMPO are trying to do here is exonerate themselves from the bungling incompetence that they created in the first place.

Who would have believed that an institution like the HMPO would have left it up to the OP on this thread, for a Mr Bassett ( who came and went like a thief in the night ) on the 26th March,one day after the stated changes were implemented to give the good news that peoples lives would now be thrown into complete chaos,with their stress,blood pressure levels rocketing to a all time high as they try to avert overstaying after reading and believing the lies on the HMPO web site that their passport would take no more than one month to be returned and having people knock their heads against a expensive brick wall ringing help lines and getting no sense whatsoever from the Trendy office.

This whole episode as been an absolute disgrace were common sense and logic have gone right out the window to be replaced with dinosaur thinking rules,when these changes were first implemented,that gave no option for a elderly or disabled British citizen but to travel a possible 4,000 kilometer journey to renew their passport.

What a deleted,deleted ,deleted,deleted

A facebook friend is now royally screwed. 12 weeks into application, had 2 etd's issued, works as a teacher. Running around like a blue arsed fly trying to get info about her passport finally has been told further information is required as her supplied address details are unacceptable. She is desparate and will be going to Immigration to 'fess up. Any suggestions guys?

The same info was requested of my friends daughter after about 12 weeks of no contact they told her they wanted further proof of address, it was only after someone from the HMPO had the common sense to disregard the standard proof of address requirement form and handwrote at the bottom of the form that a simple letter from her school saying this was the school she attended and her address with the school is so and so that they accepted that this was proof of address.

Mind you it did take another 6 weeks before she finally received her passport after it gathered dust at the Trendy for nearly 1 month before they bothered to contact her it had arrived.

If your friend wants sight of the simple school letter they accepted off my friend daughter you can PM me with a email address

I too collected my passport today. Flew from Chiang Mai yesterday and was diverted to U-tapao due to severe storm at Swampy. Flew back today.

Agree, interview conducted in cubicle, and girl spoke very good English. She had no objections to me taking the DHL envelopes. Passport was applied for on 7th May, it was issued on 14th July and arrived at Trendy on 18th July. Trendy notified me on 22nd July. My submitted documents arrived back at Trendy yesterday, 29th July even though I had told them at the application that I didn't want them returned.

My proof of address was a Residence Certificate issued at Thai Immigration and English translation.

Approximate cost:

Translation 400 baht

Return flight to Bangkok for application 3,200 baht

Return flight to collect passport 3,200 baht

Taxis/train/MRT fares 1,350 baht

Hotel for 1 night 1,600 baht

2 phone calls at normal rate & skype call 620 baht

Passport cost 5560 baht

Total nearly 11,000 baht

Not including meals, as I have to eat no matter where I am, or the added cost of taking my wife on the journey to collect the passport.

It's not really about the money for me, as it is for a lot of people, or getting time off work, as I am retired. It's mainly about all the ****ing hassle, stress, and inconvenience the UK government puts its citizens through to save a few bob.

Once again another disgrace .

The only thing I can think of to cause people so much hassle and inconvenience, is that when the VFS tendered and won this contract off the HMPO it was on the understanding that they get paid per appointment,and the VFS not giving two monkeys what hassle anyone goes through decided that two appointments to present and collect your passport in person are better for the balance sheet.

Then you have the instigater of this shambles Paul Pugh who as proved on this thread that he does not know his rectum from his elbow and thinks Thailand is about the same size as Hong Kong or Singapore.

My passport is not due for another 5 years but my sons passport is due August 2015,he will be 16 then but there is no way I will let him go down to Bangkok on is own and I'm not taking him down there.

I will make sure I have the correct documents and EMS them down to a friend who lives ten minutes from the Trendy to hand them in and pick them up when the passport arrives back.

What the VFS and the HMPO are telling you to do is the same as telling you to put your hand in the fire because for those living in the vicinity of Bangkok,good luck to you its easy and no problem but there are many many living in the north and south of Thailand and as far as I am concerned its a liberty that in this day and age they don't want to come up with a better option than to travel up to 4,000 kilometres to renew a passport.

It's the principle of the matter,the HMPO and the VFS from the start of this thread have fine tuned these rules to suit themselves,without giving any regard to common sense or logic.And it's only thanks to the Whingers on this thread that the HMPO and the VFS are starting to get some kind of act together.

Collected my Son's passport from Trendy today.........the time line of my ordeal -

29th April - documents submitted to Trendy and money taken off my card 2 days later.

Several phone calls made to the UK helpline with the promise of being emailed in 72 hours.....never happened.

1st week in July managed to obtain an email address for Liverpool HMPO where they replied informing me the application was approved and sent for issue at the beginning of June. Several emails sent to Trendy asking if the passport was there and ready for collection.......zero response.

Trendy phoned me this week on Wednesday 23rd July and I picked up the passport this afternoon.

The girl that handed me the passport was very keen on retaining the DHL envelope, I kept hold of it only to discover the passport left the UK on the 2nd June and was received at Trendy 4th June.

The issue date in the passport was 30th May and Trendy sat on it for over 7 weeks.

Although HMPO are taking a long time to process the applications in my case 5 weeks, things are not being helped by the dogs dinner of an operation at Trendy. We have paid for the DHL fee can they not deliver to our house? I live in Bangkok so relatively easy for me to collect but I spare a thought for those in the islands and up North.

If this was not happening, no one would believe you can have so much incompetence as you have from the posts on this thread concerning the HMPO and the VFS

My friends daughters passport gathered dust at Trendy for nearly a month until her father pleaded with the HMPO Liverpool to find out were the passport was as it was now 18 WEEKS since they applied to renew the passport .

It was only the HMPO contacted the trendy about the passport that they bothered to contact the child's mother to come and collect the passport from Bangkok that entailed two overnight bus journeys and a 2,000 k round trip.

An absolute disgrace

Digi

Glad you finally got sorted with your passport.

I would like to thank you for the help and advise you have given to your fellow British citizens on this thread and hope you stick around as I'm sure there will be many in need of your help in the coming months/ hopefully common sense will prevail and it won't be years until they have a better fairer system than expecting anyone to travel thousands of kilometres for a ten minute pop in,to present your documents and the same again to collect your passport when it finally arrives back.

Well after 137 days my mates 13 year old daughter as finally received her 5 year passport.

Her mother boarded the overnight bus on Sunday evening,arriving at 6 am went to the Trendy office and picked up the passport that took 10 minutes to collect,she then caught the 7 pm overnight bus back home arriving at 6 am this morning with a total journey time off 2,000 k and 36 hours without sleep.

Now the ONLY issue the HMPO had with this application was proof of address for a 13 year old child. To be honest i can't remember what documents they sent off as proof of address or if any proof of address was needed before these changes only to say that a fee of 125 pound was paid for a child 5 year passport that was the fee at the time. Paid in GOOD FAITH on the understanding that the passport WOULD be returned to the address that they had given all the time by DHL. Now common sense tells me that being returned to the address they gave all along by DHL would be proof enough of their address.

I know her father who was working in the UK contacted the HMPO NUMEROUS times trying to get any information on the progress of the passport.The HMPO had the email address of both parents and the phone number of the father.But the HMPO still had the cheek to contact the friend who countersigned the child's photo saying that if they had not received the information they wanted by the 20 th June ? they would consider canceling the application.

The HMPO sent two letters,the first one was a standard proof of address letter asking to have work records or tax records or Id cards or utility bills for a 13 year old translated into English.now I believe that the mothers proof of address would have been acceptable ,but that is not the way it came over on the letter that was addressed to the child's name asking the near impossible.

The 2nd letter was the same standard letter but this time handwritten at the bottom of the form it stated that if the school the child attends compiled a letter stating that the child attends this school and the address on record was of course the same address they had given from the start that they would accept this.Now what could' be more simpler than that,the school info was sent by fax and the original posted within 3 days.

Her father IN TIME was then told the passport had been issued and could shortly be collected at the Trendy office.

3 weeks later having had no contact from Trendy her father contacted the HMPO to ask "how long was shortly"

FINALLY nearly a month after it had been gathering dust at the Trendy someone bothered to contact them to collect the passport.

Now maybe Victor might think this is a smooth and professional service but my opinion is its a incompetent shambles