EEA3 Application

[LB]

I have submitted an EEA3 permanent residence application on 10 September and have now requested my passport three times as I need it to travel on the 17th of this month. The UKBA have repeatedly assured me they will return it with 5 working days and every single time they failed to do so. I had to spend an hour on the phone every time just to hear the same reassurance that my passport will be posted and that they don't know why it hasn't been posted back until now. They failed to pass my request onto a case manager as they should've done in situations of urgent need to travel and I now fear I won't be able to travel because of this and consequently lose the money I've already spent booking the tickets. I just don't get why they would even offer the option of returning documents if they know they won't comply with it?? I never would've sent them my passport before my trip had I know they are so incompetent. On top of all this, they have now changed the procedure for requesting return of documents so you can no longer do it over the phone. This means you just email them a request form that will surely fall on deaf ears, more so than the repeated phone calls.

Has anyone else experience this? If so, how long did it take before you received your passport?