Many of us will now be thinking of our holidays and may need to renew our passports – so a word of warning. Only go to the official site on the internet which will contain “gov.com” and avoid the earlier ones like Passport-UK or Passport.UK.
I was caught out by the first of these on a Friday evening when they would have closed for the weekend.
Realising my mistake I went back almost immediately (the same evening), politely asking that “you do not process my application” and I requested a refund of the £69.
Since then they have ignored my contacts, merely pointing to their T & C’s.
My first contacts were late on a Friday evening when no processing would have been taking place until the Monday morning. However, Passport-UK stated “a refund is not given where our services have commenced before a refund request is received”.
On this basis I consider they are morally wrong but so far with no refund of an unnecessary charge – what most of us would call “a scam”!.
My advice is to go to a main Post Office and renew your passport the old fashioned way!
P Scally by email
