Old passport unable to be delivered?

[Mirage123]

Hi,
I’m applying for a new passport from France. After over a week of waiting, my passport finally made it to Durham only for me to get a notification from La Poste (France’s Royal Mail) that it couldn’t be delivered/signed for and that they left a notice in HMPO’s letter box. All I can assume is that they tried to deliver it early this morning and no one was there to sign for it.
Does anyone have any experience of this? What happens now? I’m paranoid that they want someone from HMPO to go down to the post office to collect my parcel but that no one actually will. Will they try and make my delivery again?
Any help and advice appreciated! Thanks.

[djbdane]

I am assuming the package would eventually be passed to Royal Mail for delivery? Royal Mail will have procedures for deliveries to the passport office in place as I assume they deliver thousands of items daily so they wouldn’t turn up early and no one be there, there will be a delivery plan in place.

So maybe the issue is with the French mail notification system not talking to the the Royal Mail notification system – chances are the item is there, but the notifications have just not worked across the two systems – however the only way you’ll find out if this is the case is to keep an eye on the application for a change in status.

[Mirage123]

I think you’re right that it’s been a problem with the French system. A couple of days after posting this, I got a notification from HMPO saying they had my passport, and it’s been plain sailing from there (so far!). My application was swiftly approved, then I got a notification saying it was on its way to print, and just yesterday found out it’s on its way back to me.
Let’s just hope my old passport gets back to my quickly too as that’s the one my French visa is in.

[djbdane]

Glad to hear I was right and that it’s all sorted!

[Author]

Posts