Lost Birth Certificate By Passport Office

[newbie99]

We applied for the first Passport and we have paid the extra £5 secure service for sending the passport and birth certificate back to us.
Unfortunately the pass port office have not used the secure delivery service. They used the standard royal mail. And now the birth certificate is lost.

How do we go about getting a replacement? And we also concern with regards to ID fraud. Is there anything we need to do to protect the birth certificate being used for the unimaginable purposes.

[bednobs]

there is nothing you can do to protect the birth certificate - but bea i mind ANYONE ca apply for a copy of your birth cetificate if they wanted it.
I would have thought you need to contact the passport service to get a refund of your money and to get the £11 ill cost for a new one

[Buenchico]

Birth certificates are in the public domain. Anyone (who knows your name and your approximate date of birth) has the right to obtain a copy of your birth certificate. There's no great risk of ID fraud because organisations which might want to see your birth certificate (such as a bank when you open an account) know just how easy they are to come by and therefore always require additional documentation as well.

It will cost you £11 to get a replacement certificate if you can find the GRO index reference number yourself (see link) or £14 otherwise:
https://www.gov.uk/research-family-history
(I'm assuming that you were born in England or Wales. Follow the relevant link from that page if you were born in Scotland or Northern Ireland).

Follow the HM Passport Office complaints procedure to seek compensation for what you've had to pay out:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-passport-office/about/complaints-procedure

[ummmm]

Get a new one but my advice would be to never use a passport sending service.

Unless of course you can't read or write, which you clearly can!

I paid £8 for a passport form check and it was returned to me. All the ones I've done myself have gone through no problem.

(except one time I forgot to send the money, but they just wrote to me)

[EDDIE51]

When I applied for a passport I had to take my Birth certificate to the nearest Crown (Main ) Post Office , the clerk there looked at it ,counter signed and stamped the passport application to certify it was all correct. No need to let your birth certificate out of your hands !

[bednobs]

useful advice if you have a time machine ....

[Peter Pedant]

The BC bit is straightforward see above
You should follow the passports office complaints service for the public good

Loss of passports and documents from the passport office is a big deal and commonplace. There cd easily be a ring taking them.
In our evg classes for some reason, passports for all the immigrants were required to be sent hither and thither
and 30% of those sent were - - - lost !
so they should be taking greater care when sending things and not have the attitude of oh well these things happen