Renewal of lost passport- tracking not changing!

[AS92]

Hi all,

Bit of back story- my current adult passport had expired so I applied to renew. After my application I was unable to locate my old passport as I am currently renovating my house so long story short it is in the house somewhere but lord knows where.

I contacted the passport office by email, and was told I needed to report as lost then email them the reference number to tie up with my booking and stop getting the ‘send us your old passport’ messages. The person emailing said someone would be in touch within 3 working days.

I did this on the 12th July. By the 26th July I hadn’t heard from anyone and the status hadn’t changed. So I phoned up and was told that I should not have been informed I needed to email the lost reference number and I needed to send it in writing.

So I did that, then my application status changed to old documents received on the 29th July, but has been sitting there ever since. From perusing the forum I understand this isn’t a long wait, but how many steps are involved once it eventually changes from old documents received?

I don’t have travel booked but am awaiting to book a travel mid September. Am I better to book my trip which I can then use as leverage? A friend of mine at work applied for an adult renewal like me, about 2 weeks after I did on the 11th July, and got his passport back within 3 weeks. Is there a chance anything is actually happening and tracking isn’t being updated or am I stuffed?

Cheers

[LunaCallista075]

It’s a mess there. We ran into the same thing after sitting for 6 weeks and being told all is ok it’s at printing to finding out that person lied and it was not even looked at by the examiner and needed the lost passport reference number. Was not asked for it on application just the number and expiry date..hello it’s lost. Been just sitting. Booked travel because said advice line told me it was printing when it wasn’t. Now after numerous calls and 4 transfers yesterday, I have to wait till Sunday to upgrade. But I have to do an ESTA for American and that can take up to 3 days and 29th is bank holiday they have like 5 days to get it done. Told them the latest I have to have my passport number is the 30th. Smdh. It’s a mess.

[AS92]

Oh bloody hell! I hope it gets sorted out for you. On the plus side I will say when I did our ESTA’s for the US it was very very fast, hope it is for you too. Problem is you need the passport first…

I keep looking for appointments, for weeks I kept getting “no appointments available” but today I found some- in Durham and Glasgow which is not possible to realistically get to from Essex. Also I don’t know if I can turn up to an appointment if I’ve already started an application? It’s not the cost of the faster service that’s the issue, I’d have done it from the beginning, but lack of appointments!

I really want to book travel, my wife and I have had a horrible year, and we both turned 30 recently so wanted to have something for us to look forward to. If this doesn’t hurry up it looks like we won’t make the season this year to travel.

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