Today I sent this complaint letter to the Post Office:
To whom it may concern,
Dear Sir or Madam,
Fact
The WW February I went in the Post Office of XXX to use the Check & Send service to request the first passport of my wife. My wife was recently naturalised, and therefore she is nowadays a dual British and ZZZ citizen.
I was having with me the only uncancelled ZZZ passport currently hold by my wife, and the previous cancelled passport which was attached to that. The clerk rejected my application because I didn't have with me the cancelled and expired ZZZ passport my wife used to enter in the UK when she moved in the country in 2007.
I advised the clerk that in the "Applying for a passport" guide there was no mention of a requirement to provide the cancelled passport used to enter in the UK the first time, but the clerk didn't change her decision.
I also advised the clerk that I had recently personally requested my first British passport using the Check & Send service from the Post Office in YYY, and that I had not been requested to provide my cancelled passports, but the clerk didn't change her decision.
I finally decided to come back home, I found the cancelled and expired passport my wife used to enter in the UK in 2007, and I took that back to the clerk, which finally accepted my application.
Request
- Could you please clarify with the IPS if it is a requirement or not for recently naturalised citizens to provide also cancelled passports with their applications?
- If there is such a requirement, could you please ask the IPS to amend the "Applying for a passport" guide?
- If there is not such a requirement, could you please train your clerks appropriately?
Kind regards,
aledeniz
I should perhaps have added that in the "Section 8: More Information", which I had left empty, the clerk wrote "UNcancelled passports" followed by the 2 cancelled passports' numbers, then after noticing the mistake, perhaps by the horrified look on my face, she cancelled "UN" blacking out the boxes. Well, I may still write another letter of complaint about that ...