Fast-track passport service takes cash without booking renewal appointments

HOLIDAYMAKERS have paid £147 for fast-track appointments to renew their passports only to receive no reply or confirmation of booking, as the UK’S passport chaos continues.

Travellers who urgently need to renew their passports paid the fee online to book appointments at passport offices within the next week to avoid having to cancel their plans.

They have seen the cash taken from their accounts by the Passport Office but have been left with no appointment booked to receive their new documents and no confirmation of the payment to enable them to get a refund .

When applicants have tried to find out what has gone wrong, they say they had been unable to get through to the overloaded helplines. One said he had made 44 calls to find out what had happened with his payment before finally getting through, only to be “told no confirmation and no appointment”.

The crisis at the government agency, which has 700,000 applications outstanding, has forced the cancellation of holidays and threatens the summer plans of tens of thousands of travellers. Boris Johnson has vowed to “privatise the a---” out of the office if the 10-week wait to receive new passports is not reduced in time for summer.

An estimated fivemillion people delayed renewing their passports during the pandemic. Now demand has overwhelmed the one-week fast-track service, with more than 40,000 people a day putting in applications.

The fast-track website has been effectively crashed, stating that the “service is unavailable”, with no appointments “at the moment”. Insiders said there was a three-week backlog of applicants.

One holidaymaker from London, who needs to renew her passport in time for a flight to Barcelona on May 17 to visit her daughter, said she had spent three days trying to get an appointment, getting up at 5am and trying to access the site every half an hour.

When she finally got on, she had to book an appointment at the only available passport office, in Peterborough. She paid £147 but received no confirmation.

“I eventually got through to the helpline operator who told me she had been taking calls from people with the same problem all day,” she said. “She said there was nothing she could do.”

It is understood applicants have been “timed out” between clicking on the tab to book their appointment to renew their passport and making the payment.

It means another person has secured the appointment during that time, leaving the first applicant out of pocket and without a booking.

The Home Office last night blamed a “technical issue” and urged applicants to go ahead with their appointments: “We are working with our appointment booking service provider to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

“Appointments will be honoured, and any customer who does not receive notification of their booking is advised to contact the Passport Adviceline to confirm the appointment.”