How the passport office really scared me
By Boingboing
@boiboing (13153)
Northampton, England
October 21, 2016 6:33am CST
This morning, much to my amazement, I got a package from the Irish Passport office. I was surprised as it was only 3 weeks ago that I had sent my application. I was even more surprised when I opened it and it contained the passport and identifying documents for a completely different person.
Luckily I knew who to call because a lady had been trying to contact my solicitor friend earlier in the week and I had the number.
After a bit of a panic and a good hunt around, they tracked my passport down to the London office so thankfully somebody else didn't have all my critical documents which might have allowed them to commit a major identity fraud and would have got me in big trouble with my mum who had provided my late father's birth certificate, her wedding certificate and my birth certificate (her logic on having my birth certificate is that she did all the hard work so it's hers and her filing system is more reliable).
To be honest, the last thing I wanted to be doing a few hours before going on holiday (on my British passport) was chasing around and going to the post office to return the documents.
Clearly no amount of tracking numbers and computer systems can stop some idiot putting stuff in thew wrong envelope.
15 people like this
13 responses
@pgntwo (22412)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
21 Oct 16
@owlwings To be sure, that they do! For those lost, pull up a chair and hear this tale:
A short animation based on the Celtic Fairytale Classic: The Field of Boliauns Credits: animation - Mirjam Driessen voice over - Peter Corry sound & music - ...
@WorDazza (15833)
• Manchester, England
21 Oct 16
More often than not it is us humans who are the weakest link in any system.
I just think it's far too risky these days to have vital identification documents flying around in the postal system. More regional passport offices are required so it can be done personally, or attendance at the relevant embassy in the case of a non-UK passport application.
2 people like this
@pgntwo (22412)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
21 Oct 16
A proper National Identity Card would do away with the need to carray a passport at all, except when travelling beyond the borders of the UK. Germany has the Personalausweis that fills this role - a bit like the hard plastic page from your passport, although now credit-card sized, I believe.
@MALUSE (69416)
• Germany
21 Oct 16
@WorDazza @pgntwo In the 1970s I went to the (then) Soviet Union with a group of pupils. Before we started, I had to collect their passports and send them to the Soviet Embassy in Berlin for the visa. I packed them in a firm parcel, but they came back in a simple big envelope which was torn at the edges. Fortunately, no passport had fallen out, but that wasn't a good start for our journey.
A colleague had told me to mind the passports. Everything else was of secondary importance. In case a pupil would fall into the Moscow river, I should tell them to hand me their passport first. I could lose a pupil but not a passport! I was a nervous wreck before we started.
I had had to copy the names and numbers of all passports and send 20 copies to the embassy before we started. Wherever we went, we'd find some Soviet official with my list in their hand. It was spooky.
Yet, all went well. Mainly, I think, because we were of no real interest to theSoviet authorities.
2 people like this
@Poppylicious (11133)
•
21 Oct 16
When Husband renewed his recently it was mostly done online I think. There wasn't much left to send through the post.
@topffer (42156)
• France
21 Oct 16
OMG, it looks like thew switched 2 passports
. It is forbidden to send a passport by the post office in France. For a French passport, we have to go personally at the place where we asked for it to receive it. I suppose you would have had to go to the Irish embassy to get your passport.
. It is forbidden to send a passport by the post office in France. For a French passport, we have to go personally at the place where we asked for it to receive it. I suppose you would have had to go to the Irish embassy to get your passport.2 people like this
@topffer (42156)
• France
21 Oct 16
@pgntwo Passports are only available in préfectures and a few cities. It is possible to follow online the progress of the request, and to know when it is available at the place where you asked for it ; they also send a SMS when it is available. I do not know in details how the documents and the passports are sent, but I think that they use administrative cars/trucks and not the regular post office : in a large région like mine, there are public servants who are collecting/bringing the internal mail of the regional administration from a city to another city every day. It does not mean that some documents are not lost times to times
.
.1 person likes this
Paper money, that's soon going to be a thing of the past... 
@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
21 Oct 16
mom said something like that too, which is why I got copies instead lol, official ones, but copies nontheless. And I am glad you are you, and not prone to stealing of identities either, since you got a random passport in the mail!
2 people like this
@Fleura (29093)
• United Kingdom
21 Oct 16
As you say, no amount of tracking numbers can prevent a simple error like that. A couple of times recently I've received a letter or statement from the bank together with items for someone totally different - someone (or a machine) has simply picked up two sheets of paper together and put them in the same envelope, and mine happened to be the name on top that showed through the little window. Both times I put the other person's documents back in the envelope and put it back in the post explaining why the envelope had been opened. Of course I have no way of knowing how often that has happened the other way around and my documents have been sent to someone else, and they haven't sent them on to me.
Anyway very glad that got sorted easily because you wouldn't want it hanging over you while you were away!
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
21 Oct 16
I still remember my horror when I received my first passport many years ago. They had managed to write my name on the front as Mr P Chadwick, which is clearly wrong.
This was 2 weeks before I was scheduled to fly to Moscow, so I telephoned the passport office immediately. The lady who answered advised me to simply change it, but I protestede quite strongly because I had no desire to arrive at Moscow Airport with a passport that was tampered with.
She then told me to return it to her and she would deal with it. To my horror it came back with the P changed to B in a different colour ink. Despite having that passport for 10 years, I never had any problems.
1 person likes this
@pgntwo (22412)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
21 Oct 16
Unsurprisingly, the Irish Passport Office has been inundated with applications since late-June. I dread to think what the Irish and British naturalization departments are like currently. where one half of a UK couple is from elsewhere in the EU...
@Poppylicious (11133)
•
21 Oct 16
It surprises me that they would send the passport and the ID together. The least they could do - based on how much it costs us these days - is post them separately. Okay, so it wouldn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things, but it might make identity theft a little bit harder. Glad yours was easy to track down.
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
22 Oct 16
I will agree with you when I finally have all my documents back. But certainly it looks good. The irony is that if they hadn't had problems trying to reach my solicitor earlier in the week, I would not have had a direct number to talk to the person who was handling my application.
