Passport interview - unsuccesful

Hi All,

Just came out of my passport interview; all started well until the DOB question...

The guy was suprised to hear my DOB and asked if i had my passport/DL/nat certifcate to support my DOB... I had my DL, the guy went away and came back after while - said cannot proceed witht he interview further...

IPS will contact me soon and he cannot give more details...

When I got out I called the interview booking line and found out they captured an incorrect DOB when I rang to book my interview! real bummer!!

Has anyone had any similar experience? Do I now have to re-apply for my passport all over again or just reschedule the interview?

That's odd! When you call to book your interview (and every time you call), they do ask you to confirm all your details including your date of birth. If something was wrong, it should have been identified prior to your interview.

Also if you've tried tracking your application via the website online, you have to put in your date of birth (amongst other things) before they send you an e-mail. So it's quite weird that it hasn't been picked up before now.

Beige wrote:That's odd! When you call to book your interview (and every time you call), they do ask you to confirm all your details including your date of birth. If something was wrong, it should have been identified prior to your interview.

Also if you've tried tracking your application via the website online, you have to put in your date of birth (amongst other things) before they send you an e-mail. So it's quite weird that it hasn't been picked up before now.

tell me about it!!! so bummed...

when i called the appointment line thy said "yeah we have a slightly different DOB"... our agent should have confirmed it before booking the interview bla bla...

She went on to say "we will sort it out" give us couple of days and if nothing heard by wed next week to call back...

So annoyed it had to happen so late in the process... I just hope they dont make me pay another 80 odd and re-applu from scratch...

Anyways, When I called them to book the appointment the first itme, I had pretty poor signal on the phone and had to repeat few things... Poor indoor mobile signal partly to be blamed...

shs213 wrote:

Beige wrote:That's odd! When you call to book your interview (and every time you call), they do ask you to confirm all your details including your date of birth. If something was wrong, it should have been identified prior to your interview.

Also if you've tried tracking your application via the website online, you have to put in your date of birth (amongst other things) before they send you an e-mail. So it's quite weird that it hasn't been picked up before now.

tell me about it!!! so bummed...

when i called the appointment line thy said "yeah we have a slightly different DOB"... our agent should have confirmed it before booking the interview bla bla...

She went on to say "we will sort it out" give us couple of days and if nothing heard by wed next week to call back...

So annoyed it had to happen so late in the process... I just hope they dont make me pay another 80 odd and re-applu from scratch...

Anyways, When I called them to book the appointment the first itme, I had pretty poor signal on the phone and had to repeat few things... Poor indoor mobile signal partly to be blamed...

sorry to hear whats happened with you shs213
As they have identified the error was on their art - am sure you wouldn't have to do anything i.e. re-apply, they should call you back for an interview soon.

Good Luck

I agree that error was on their end hence they will rebook you for another interview.

This confirms my impression that the person conducting the interview has access to information on a database only but not to the actual application.
Hence they recorded an incorrect DOB in your case, which made them unable to proceed further.

In fact as soon as they complete the online database questionnaire during the interview, the passport goes straight for printing. My passport was printed the same day as the interview which finished at 6 pm, leads me to believe the print command goes electronically.

A few days delay but you should hear from them early next week.

This happened to me first with the NCS (they lost my payment slip), and it happened again recently with my Passport application, though luckily before the interview stage.

I was 'lucky' as I found out (completely by accident) that they had the wrong address on their system.

I say by accident as I had only sent an email to track my passport application, and the couldn't find it due to the wrong address on their system
For what it's worth, my application definitely had the right address, and for insurance, I had also sent it via the Post Office checking service.

I think sometimes it's pot luck how your application is dealt with, and you can be one of the unlucky ones

I hope you get this resolved soon. Here is a link http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/agencies-p ... passports/ for if nothing gets resolved, and you need to complain or contact the Central Customer service team. Good luck with your application.

CheerfulBelle wrote:This happened to me first with the NCS (they lost my payment slip), and it happened again recently with my Passport application, though luckily before the interview stage.

I was 'lucky' as I found out (completely by accident) that they had the wrong address on their system.

I say by accident as I had only sent an email to track my passport application, and the couldn't find it due to the wrong address on their system
For what it's worth, my application definitely had the right address, and for insurance, I had also sent it via the Post Office checking service.

I think sometimes it's pot luck how your application is dealt with, and you can be one of the unlucky ones

I hope you get this resolved soon. Here is a link http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/agencies-p ... passports/ for if nothing gets resolved, and you need to complain or contact the Central Customer service team. Good luck with your application.

many thanks for the link, i will sure make them aware how i feel about their mess up!

Passport office called now; said they are sending a letter requesting to see my naturalisation certificate to amend the DOB...

They don't want to see my passport again; just the nat certificate. Once they receive that; they will put me in to the interview stages again....

So back to Sq1 of the passport application for me...

shs213 wrote:Passport office called now; said they are sending a letter requesting to see my naturalisation certificate to amend the DOB...

They don't want to see my passport again; just the nat certificate. Once they receive that; they will put me in to the interview stages again....

So back to Sq1 of the passport application for me...

Wow! Hopefully they'll give you the earliest interview appointment

Could this be a simple error happened during the machine reading of the application form which they never picked up? i.e they never cross check the details against the other documents they had in their hand (your passport, nationality certificate etc)

shs213 wrote:Passport office called now; said they are sending a letter requesting to see my naturalisation certificate to amend the DOB...

They don't want to see my passport again; just the nat certificate. Once they receive that; they will put me in to the interview stages again....

So back to Sq1 of the passport application for me...

Cool thats good mate...hoepfully they will give you earleist appointment..good luck mate...

(Not sure if there is a way to make complaint and claim some amount for thier mess up if so i think you must to do that)

UKBA lost my receipt when i went for in person appointment for ILR application last year..i complained so many times...intially they were reluctnant to do anything saying that its not needed but i kept comlaining...and in the end they sent me a duplicate recepit and £45 claims for calls made and other correspondance

its matter of princial if there is anything small mistake from our end we have to face serious consequences so if they make a mistake we must make them pay for that

rnr79 wrote:its matter of princial if there is anything small mistake from our end we have to face serious consequences so if they make a mistake we must make them pay for that

So true mate; if the mistake was mine; they would have made me pay £80+ re-apply and take the luxury to delay the processing quoting further checks...

I will complain; not sure how much time I will have to waste; but at least do my best to annoy few ppl...

Hi I also have a very bad experience. I applied for passport on 30/06/2011 they sent me back a query about wrong surname which should be corrected from HO. So after correction I resent the naturalization certificate to IPS again on 20/08/2011. Now I booked my interview on 26/08/2011 in derby passport office which is 141 mile from my home in order to get my passport early as I have an urgent travel plan but it made the situation more complicated unfortunately their computer system was down and they completed the process manually.Now when I tracked my application online and they sent me back email that we donot have anything on system so book your interview again .

tom1 wrote:Hi I also have a very bad experience. I applied for passport on 30/06/2011 they sent me back a query about wrong surname which should be corrected from HO. So after correction I resent the naturalization certificate to IPS again on 20/08/2011. Now I booked my interview on 26/08/2011 in derby passport office which is 141 mile from my home in order to get my passport early as I have an urgent travel plan but it made the situation more complicated unfortunately their computer system was down and they completed the process manually.Now when I tracked my application online and they sent me back email that we donot have anything on system so book your interview again .

that's bad... got few Qs...

If you attended the interview on 26/08, what were you doing all these time? could you not call them 2 days after the interview to find out what is going on?

They sent a letter asking to send my Nat certificate; it's going in the post tomorrow - hopefully sometime next week i can start to book an interview...

Looking at what happen to you; i am gettinga bit worried...

Close but no cigar!

Hi All,

Just to close this thread;

I was put through to the interview stage after sending the naturalisation certificate... Booked the first available interview [90 min drive] - all went OK and got the passport delivered today...

My advised to anyone naturalised is to make the first available interview and push to complete the journey ASAP. There's a tendency to think the difficult part is over and take things easy with the pp application/interview. My experience shows there's enough room for unexpected things to delay your pp.

Good luck to all!

CheerfulBelle wrote:This happened to me first with the NCS (they lost my payment slip), and it happened again recently with my Passport application, though luckily before the interview stage.

I was 'lucky' as I found out (completely by accident) that they had the wrong address on their system.

I say by accident as I had only sent an email to track my passport application, and the couldn't find it due to the wrong address on their system
For what it's worth, my application definitely had the right address, and for insurance, I had also sent it via the Post Office checking service.

I think sometimes it's pot luck how your application is dealt with, and you can be one of the unlucky ones

I hope you get this resolved soon. Here is a link http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/agencies-p ... passports/ for if nothing gets resolved, and you need to complain or contact the Central Customer service team. Good luck with your application.

The whole system seems to be designed to flummox and frustrate applicants . After reading of these errors the IPS makes in scanning forms (would it NOT be so much simpler if they allowed you to fill the forms online and then take a print-out, rather then the totally asinine system where you can fill online form and then IPS prints it out and posts it to you. I thought maybe that was because of the barcode (though it should be simple enough for the system to generate a unique barcode when you save a form - thats how the US visa application forms work), however, atleast at the PO check and send service, they stick on a new barcode sticker on the form!!!; so why not just let us prin the forms, should reduce scanning errors.

The online application tracking system is not really online either, all you do is, put your details in, which get emailed to someone at IPS, who, when he gets time, will respond. Having heard people being told off on the naturalisation line for "calling too much", I'm a bit scared I may get a "Stop wasting our time, STOP tracking email"...

In anycase, I've tracked the family's applications, didn't actually put the application number, only name, DoB , and address, and added the followin note to the tracking request:

Hello,

Could you please confirm receipt of application, and also the fact that my main details (DOB, address) have been scanned correctly from the form; I've read of instances where incorrect information was scanned and recorded from the forms.

Lets see what happens.

shs213 wrote:Hi All,

Just to close this thread;

I was put through to the interview stage after sending the naturalisation certificate... Booked the first available interview [90 min drive] - all went OK and got the passport delivered today...

My advised to anyone naturalised is to make the first available interview and push to complete the journey ASAP. There's a tendency to think the difficult part is over and take things easy with the pp application/interview. My experience shows there's enough room for unexpected things to delay your pp.

Good luck to all!

congrats shs213

1664 wrote: congrats shs213

Thank you!

I know there are many people have experienced frustrated situations. Unfortunately we don't have control over the system.
We just need to expect any errors and mistakes of the office.

mrkkame