Anyone ever had an immigration office lose their passport?

[Jingthing]

Yes, this is a paranoid thought, but surely I'm not the only one that's wondered about this.

 

Sometimes we need to leave our passports with immigration for same day pickup, next day (or after weekend) pickup, or even much longer. 

I'm sure it's very, very rare for passports to be lost during these holds, but surely it must happen sometimes. Human error and all that.

 

I recall years ago reading a case of where an expat lost his passport at Jomtien immigration and went through major stress for awhile, but eventually it was found there.

 

What about if really lost?

 

Is it the same as if you lost your passport on the street?

 

What if you had just successfully applied for a extension ... once you managed to get a new passport would you need to go through the entire application again or would they have a record?

 

Has anyone reading this ever had this happen?

 

All I can think to do proactively is to have a copy of important passport pages before you leave it. But you won't have a copy of any new extension that you just got.

 

 

 

[Asiantravel]

yes I have worried about the same thing but more so about leaving your passport at an embassy or consulate although I do have a second passport from another country as a fallback position.

[ubonjoe]

I don't recall a confirmed case of immigration loosing a passport.

Some claims it was lost by them or kept for a long time but it was really an agent that caused the problem.

[darrendsd]

You could lose your PP anywhere, the process would be the same if it is lost at Immigration or in the street, report it as lost and apply for a new one, what else could you do apart from that?

[KhonKaenKowboy]

school admins, yes.  Imm., no.

[Morch]

Not exactly, but close enough. Twice.

 

Had another person's passport returned to me at immigration (the old one in Bangkok). Mrs. Morch noticed it and discreetly returned it to the officer, who was both angry and relieved. My passport was found on another stack, on a nearby desk. Seemed like a trainee error.

 

Embassy of India in Bangkok did lose track of my passport for 24 hours. That too was back before they outsourced the visa service, and everything was done in-house. The passport was apparently misplaced. Being an Embassy of India, sorting it did require a certain amount of raised voices. Notified my embassy right away, and once things were sorted.

 

Keeping copies of passports and other documents is a good idea. Will probably not be taken as a substitute, but may haste the process of getting replacements.

[chrissables]

Off track a little, but traveling in Vietnam every hotel wants to keep your passport. The time i have lost fighting with them! I have seen passports left unattended on counters, in boxes on counters etc.

I actually walked out of one hotel who would not even let me look at room without having my passport!

[zib]

They lost mine for a few hours when I went for the annual extension. Blamed me for a long time that I somehow lost it after handing it to the officer...heh. In the end it was the officer that handed my passport together with a bunch of others to some korean visa agency. They left but drove back after they saw my passport. Tm6 was gone however.

[Liquorice]

In Thailand, No.

 

The UKBA though did lose my friends wife passport.

She applied for her Indefinite Leave to Remain, but on return of her documents, no passport.

The envelope was sealed, not damaged in anyway, but the UKBA insisted he should make a claim against the Post office.

He had to take the matter to the ombudsman to get any compensation from the UKBA.

Even then they wouldn't admit they were responsible for her lost passport.

 

The compensation didn't cover all the costs of obtaining a new passport and then back to the UKBA for her ILR stamp, which he had to pay for again.

 

It took 9  months and he was out of pocket by some £300. Not a very nice experience.

[Khun Robert]

It's seems amazing but last week I went for Extension Of Stay at Krabi Immigration.

He typed my name on a keyboard and a black box under the table made some noice and a screen on the desk showed a folder with all my details

and scans of all the papers used at previous applications.

He opened an old interview page of the misses, changed the dates and some other info, printed it out and saved it into a new folder under my name.

 

I understand, Thailand is a third world country and still use smoke signals to communicate to other tribes, but at Krabi Immigration they have

working computer systems. Amazing Thailand.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Khun Robert

[Grubster]

1 hour ago, Khun Robert said:

It's seems amazing but last week I went for Extension Of Stay at Krabi Immigration.

He typed my name on a keyboard and a black box under the table made some noice and a screen on the desk showed a folder with all my details

and scans of all the papers used at previous applications.

He opened an old interview page of the misses, changed the dates and some other info, printed it out and saved it into a new folder under my name.

 

I understand, Thailand is a third world country and still use smoke signals to communicate to other tribes, but at Krabi Immigration they have

working computer systems. Amazing Thailand.

WOW I had wondered what happened to the stacks of filling cabinets at Immigration in Sakon Nakhon, they must have upgraded too.

[bbbbooboo]

Hmmm....if a fruit fell from an upside-down mango tree, would it fall up or down? Haven't we got better things to think about?

[Jingthing]

19 hours ago, darrendsd said:

You could lose your PP anywhere, the process would be the same if it is lost at Immigration or in the street, report it as lost and apply for a new one, what else could you do apart from that?

Maybe you didn't process my question fully.

 

Let's look at a potential typical scenario if a passport was lost at an immigration office after an extension application.

 

Retirement extension.

You can apply 30 days before.

Say someone applied 15 days before, the application was accept as full and ready for approval. Applicant told to come back next day to pick up with new stamp.

 

Applicant comes in. It's lost.

Now of course the applicant needs a police report and needs to get a new passport.

Getting anything other than an emergency travel passport in that time period would not be possible with many embassies.

 

So then the applicant is getting into potential overstay issues, which could lead to immigration prison, and also his application for extension might not be ready for the next passport time period, for a number of technical reasons.

 

 

So that's kind of the gist of it. IF lost at immigration after a successful application made in that example, would the applicant get any special breaks from immigration as they are the immigration police. OR, rather would the hapless applicant be in serious jeopardy exactly the same as if the passport was lost on the street with no application made.

Cheers.  

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, bbbbooboo said:

Hmmm....if a fruit fell from an upside-down mango tree, would it fall up or down? Haven't we got better things to think about?

If the topic doesn't interest you and you only come to hurl personal insults, I suggest just not posting at all. You had nothing productive to contribute so your post is very much not appreciated.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Jingthing

[ubonjoe]

3 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

So that's kind of the gist of it. IF lost at immigration after a successful application made in that example, would the applicant get any special breaks from immigration as they are the immigration police. OR, rather would the hapless applicant be in serious jeopardy exactly the same as if the passport was lost on the street with no application made.

 

You would have a receipt for the extension application. I get one as soon as I pay the 1900 baht so I would assume Jomtien is the same.

Having the receipt would prove you had done it and they could pull out the approved application plus it would probably be shown in their database.

I think if immigration lost your passport in this case they would do all they could to help you.

[Jingthing]

3 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

You would have a receipt for the extension application. I get one as soon as I pay the 1900 baht so I would assume Jomtien is the same.

Having the receipt would prove you had done it and they could pull out the approved application plus it would probably be shown in their database.

I think if immigration lost your passport in this case they would do all they could to help you.

Interesting.

In my experience at Jomtien for years now the PAYMENT receipt is stapled into the passport when you pick up your passport.

All you get is a NUMBER TICKET that matches the NUMBER TICKET they attach to the passport that you leave with them.

Yes, I would certainly hope immigration would be very helpful, but as you know, FACE is a big cultural issue here, and they would need to admit that they were responsible for the loss. That could be delicate. 

 

To add if I recall correctly the incident reported years ago at Jomtien did not involve a passport waiting for such processing. The applicant somehow lost the passport at the office before doing that so a totally different situation. I recall he reported a big conflict over BLAME for the loss, but in that case, it definitely was more ambiguous as he didn't have a pickup ticket. (As I said before, I recall the passport was eventually found there.)

Edited October 29, 2016 by Jingthing

[petermik]

I,ve lost my heart to one of the Immigration staff at Jomtien...........does this count

[ICECOOL]

2 years ago when applying for my retirement extension the immigration officer gave my passport back to a Frenchman. I am Australian. His was processed ahead of mine and luckily they had his mobile and called him. He returned about 30 minutes later angry. I thought of the movie dumb and dumber. 

[Jingthing]

To be clear, I didn't start this to suggest there is any kind of serious competency problem at immigration offices. I'm confident lost passports there on held passports must be very, very rare. But surely not impossible as human beings are involved. 

 

Topics around lost passports have been posted here for many years but I think this is the first to address my specific question about any difference if lost when a successful extension application was already made.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Jingthing

[anthony0339]

Agents could lose your passport or maybe, a slight chance of the Embassy but  never ever would a local Immigrstion office require you to leave your passport In the office over night. They always complete it the same day. If you are that paranoid, don't travel abroad.

[SteveB2]

This happened to me at Jomtien Immigration during routine visa renewals a decade ago - an immigration officer lost my passport 

 

The process to obtain a replacement passport was to report the loss to the police(They didn't bat an eyelid when I said an immigration officer lost it), and with the police report of the passport loss, to approach the British Embassy for a replacement. 

 

What a damn inconvenience it was at the time - it took weeks of admin processing inconvenience(especially with my passport linked to my work permit) to get sorted out.

[Jingthing]

30 minutes ago, anthony0339 said:

Agents could lose your passport or maybe, a slight chance of the Embassy but  never ever would a local Immigrstion office require you to leave your passport In the office over night. They always complete it the same day. If you are that paranoid, don't travel abroad.

What are you on about?

I've never NOT had to leave my passport overnight at Jomtien for extensions. If left on a Friday, that would mean over the weekend as well. Before posting such misinformation which has already been covered here, please think twice. 

I live abroad and have for several years. Maybe being "paranoid" has kept me out of trouble here.

 

Of course, it's also humanly possible for a passport to be lost on same day processing, but the act of leaving it overnight is another level. 

 

All we can really do is to have COPIES of everything important in our passports. That doesn't only apply to the lost by immigration scenario, but ANY kind of lost. 

Edited October 29, 2016 by Jingthing

[Jingthing]

28 minutes ago, SteveB2 said:

This happened to me at Jomtien Immigration during routine visa renewals a decade ago - an immigration officer lost my passport 

 

The process to obtain a replacement passport was to report the loss to the police(They didn't bat an eyelid when I said an immigration officer lost it), and with the police report of the passport loss, to approach the British Embassy for a replacement. 

 

What a damn inconvenience it was at the time - it took weeks of admin processing inconvenience(especially with my passport linked to my work permit) to get sorted out.

Thanks. Now we're on track. I'd like to hear more details. So the immigration police didn't take the report from what you're saying, regular police did. Were you able to get a new REGULAR passport (as opposed to an emergency travel passport) before going into overstay on your previous permission to stay? It seems to me an emergency travel passport which embassies can issue quickly would not be of any use for long stayers here. 

Did you have to complete a completely fresh application for extension or were your previous application documentations still good enough? 

Did you feel immigration did anything "above and beyond" for you because of where this happened, or not? 

Edited October 29, 2016 by Jingthing

[bluesofa]

About twenty years ago I had my passport sent by EMS BKK>Nong Khai. After it failed to arrive, I quoted the EMS reference (which I was fortunately given) and phoning the post office (years before the online tracking system) they told me it had arrived at Nong Khai post office. Went to the post office, who initially said they didn't have it.

 

In the end I went with one of the staff into their sorting office to try and find where it might be. After an hour of searching (this was after the post office had closed) I found it. It had slipped down the back of a stainless steel counter, wedged between the wall and the counter framework.

A relief, although it's the only time I've ever had to query the whereabouts of a parcel in the system.

Edited October 29, 2016 by bluesofa
misprit

[hawker9000]

What a perfect storm that would be.  Losing it in an immigration office and in a country where no one can ever admit blame or take responsibility.   But TBH, 'never heard of it happening.  There IS a process and as long as you don't do anything to fall out of or be an exception to it, I think it's extremely unlikely.

 

ALWAYS have photocopies of your passport.  Keep them secure but don't keep them with your passport.   KNOW your passport number, where it was issued and issue date, expiration date, your name exactly as it's shown on the passport, and any other info your country might include on the data page (or have it written down or recorded where you can easily get your hands on it while travelling; DON'T keep it together with your passport!).  If you're really paranoid about it, take some time and pretending you've just lost yours, navigate your own embassy (or other) website so you know where'd you go and what you'd do and what you'd have to have if you had to get an emergency replacement (e.g., what your embassy might require as proof of citizenship, etc.).  If you're really REALLY paranoid, download the application form for the replacement passport and have a look at it to see if there's any additional info it asks for that you might not normally have available, esp. while travelling (e.g., parents' and even grandparents' dates & places of birth, etc.).  Getting a replacement can be fairly easy & quick or it can be more difficult & protracted; it's a question of preparedness. 

 

Do I sound like somebody who's had to do this...

 

There's always some risk.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2016 by hawker9000

[Baerboxer]

22 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Maybe you didn't process my question fully.

 

Let's look at a potential typical scenario if a passport was lost at an immigration office after an extension application.

 

Retirement extension.

You can apply 30 days before.

Say someone applied 15 days before, the application was accept as full and ready for approval. Applicant told to come back next day to pick up with new stamp.

 

Applicant comes in. It's lost.

Now of course the applicant needs a police report and needs to get a new passport.

Getting anything other than an emergency travel passport in that time period would not be possible with many embassies.

 

So then the applicant is getting into potential overstay issues, which could lead to immigration prison, and also his application for extension might not be ready for the next passport time period, for a number of technical reasons.

 

 

So that's kind of the gist of it. IF lost at immigration after a successful application made in that example, would the applicant get any special breaks from immigration as they are the immigration police. OR, rather would the hapless applicant be in serious jeopardy exactly the same as if the passport was lost on the street with no application made.

Cheers.  

 

Always been one of my worries too. I used to try and watch it through the process from officer to officer in the old days at our local office. Now it's much more visible and pretty slick since they changed the process and are computerized. 

 

Having said that, I wouldn't expect muck sympathy if they did loose it somehow. More likely to tell you to go home, get a new passport and then the visa application process all over again from square one. That would be the easiest option for them and pass the problem to you, regardless of inconvenience, expense and time. 

 

This type of attitude seems prevalent with many governments now, certainly the UK administrations for anything, don't want to know about any problems whether outsourced or not. If something happens, bad luck but there's little help or leeway in correcting it.

[ubonjoe]

I have just removed 14 posts that were just bickering and baiting between 3 people. Time to end it.

[SteveB2]

On 10/29/2016 at 4:38 PM, Jingthing said:

Thanks. Now we're on track. I'd like to hear more details. So the immigration police didn't take the report from what you're saying, regular police did. Were you able to get a new REGULAR passport (as opposed to an emergency travel passport) before going into overstay on your previous permission to stay? It seems to me an emergency travel passport which embassies can issue quickly would not be of any use for long stayers here. 

Did you have to complete a completely fresh application for extension or were your previous application documentations still good enough? 

Did you feel immigration did anything "above and beyond" for you because of where this happened, or not? 

 

Correct - I had to report the loss of my passport by Jomtien Immigration to the Jomtien Police office. The police office with the police report for it's loss. Then...

 

• I traveled to the British Embassy in Bangkok together with the police letter and the copies of every page in my passport to inform them of the loss tell them that I needed a replacement asap.
• The British Embassy issued me with an emergency identification letter complete with Thai translation that I was to use in place of my passport for the short time it took to get my replacement passport issued.
• The replacement passport was issued to me in person a week or so later (requiring another trip to Bangkok to collect it)
• The replacement passport came complete with new visa on the first page issued from Bangkok Immigration HQ with dates matching my previous visa, and an official stamp (in Thai language) notifying other Thai IMO's that this passport was a replacement for another passport reported lost.
• The passport was listed as having been issued by the 'FCO' - The Foreign & Commonwealth Office
• I did not have to leave Thailand. All was smoothly handled by the British Embassy

Things that helped -  I had photocopies of every page in my lost passport and it was 10 years ago when the British Embassy issued passports directly.

 

I can't imagine how difficult it must be to get such a problem sorted out now that everything has to be handled in the United Kingdom. This must be a nightmare.

 

BTW, my mom in the UK recently helped my get an apostille affixed to an official document that was requested by Bangkok CW Immo. The last step was to have the British apostille stamped by the Thai Embassy in Central London

 

While she was waiting in the Embassy queue, she chatted to another guy who was also working in Thailand. He told her "I have sent my passport to the Thai Embassy(UK) by courier twice already and they have lost it both times - so this time I have traveled all the way from Thailand to do the job in person" 

 

Loss of passport by Thai officialdom is thus not as rare as one may be lead to believe - always keep decent photocopy/scans of every page of any important travel document you have here in LOS - you never know when you might need it.

[bluesofa]

10 minutes ago, SteveB2 said:

Things that helped -  I had photocopies of every page in my lost passport and it was 10 years ago when the British Embassy issued passports directly.

 

I think that is extremely good advice about copying every page in you passport. I tend only to copy relevent pages.

I'm just about to copy every page and will have to remember to re-copy it when a blank, or partially used page is updated. Nothing wrong with being prepared, Thanks for suggesting that.