Reporting a stolen passport

[Andyvon]

I think this is the best section for this question.

I have a very wayward step-daughter (S) who has spent her life in the drug world. Last year my wife and I rented S two flats, paid advance rent, but S was evicted from both for failing to pay rent from benefits we also arranged for her. S prefers to sleep on the streets, in hostels and on peoples' couches. Last year my wife and I spent some effort getting a passport for S and then paid for her to come on 3 trips abroad with us to show her a better life. S couldn't be bothered to come so her plane seats and hotel rooms went empty! (S also turned down a superb job last year modelling for a national company for catalogues and TV).

S has now informed me in passing that in April someone stole her passport while she was in a hostel. I told her to report the passport stolen but she asked me to do it. The Passport Office wouldn't allow me to do that and said it had to be the holder. Well, S can't be bothered. When I told S someone could use her passport or obtain money with it, S just said 'Good luck to them'. S is currently on the streets, she's got a long criminal record, she's never had a job or her own money, she's got no credit rating so she just doesn't care about the passport.

What else can we do? The police say it's nothing to do with them and the Passport Office don't seem to have a mechanism to report a passport stolen from someone who doesn't care. Meanwhile, someone is running around with a stolen and valid passport!

[mike11111]

"Meanwhile, someone is running around with a stolen and valid passport!"

Unless this "someone" is the spitting image of "S", then I don't think that either she or he will get very far with it.

[Buenchico]

I've no guarantee that this will work but it's worth a try. Download and print this form:
http://www.direct.gov...alasset/dg_175799.pdf
Complete it to the best of your ability, including entering your own details at Section 5. Then send it to the address at the bottom of the form, enclosing an explanatory letter

OR
Download the form. Fill in as many details as you can, on your daughter's behalf. Then simply get her to sign it before posting it. (If an explanatory letter might be needed, to explain why there's no police reference number, type one out on your daughter's behalf and, again, simply get her to sign it).

Chris

PS: I actually sympathise with your daughter's viewpoint. If my passport got nicked (and I had no further use for it) I'd probably not bother reporting it and simply wish 'good luck' to anyone who could find some nefarious use for it ;-)

[Jemisa]

When filling in forms going to the Passport Office always make sure they'e filled in with'Black' ink/pen otherwise their computer will spit it out, it will get lost & there will be long delays.
It happened to us once & when we got on the phone about it this is what was explained to us.
So when you see on a form "Black Ink Please" this is the reason.

jem

[Andyvon]

Thank you for the answers, especially yours Chris. I'll have a go at that. Your point about good luck to someone who can use it for some purpose is her's exactly. She's always obtained her money from any and every source so she's happy for others around her to do the same. The amount of money she's stolen and fiddled from others is huge and I don't see how that can be condoned.

I'm afraid that I've always been more honest than that. We keep hearing about how fraud and immigration scams are out of control today Mike. Passports are a form of ID and they still stolen today for reasons of fraud. We all pay for that in credit card and bank charges, insurance, tax etc. I'm sure if I came on here advocating people use stolen documents to fiddle what they can from the state, business and individuals then I would quite rightly be torn apart.

Besides, S isn't bothered in the least by this. My wife and I have pretty well reached the point where we have given up with her.

[KARL]

Andy, I have to say I admire your tenacity in seeing this issue concluded in an honest and lawful way. The attitude of the authorities (not having or even attempting to open a route for reporting something amiss) is in my view appalling and symptomatic of an attitude rather akin to S's: It's not my problem (hiding behind inappropriate rules). Through the absence of constraint, that precise sentiment is the cause of much that goes awry and is itself (in my opinion) a direct result of people disassociating themselves from their wider environment, a kind of isolationism and blinkered style. For these people it is simply more trouble than they care to put effort into to take a full part in and show that degree of responsibility for their society. But I have no doubt they are among those who continually moan about the things that go wrong - in their view for others to sort out.

As for S, the story is of course not unique and has a depressingly high incidence of a very bad ending. In all likelihood it would only be by her own decision that she turns away from her present lifestyle, just like smokers only give it up if they have actually decided to quit (not just "I'll try"). The affection she is held in by her nearest and dearest will, sadly, largely go unappreciated but probably nevertheless be relied upon by her (both emotionally and materially). I know someone who graduated through to heroin but then decided she could not continue living like that and got help to quit. She has been "clean" since.

[Andyvon]

Hi Karl,

Thank you for your answer. I agree with you fully that so many people say "It's nothing to do with me". My concern is that we hear so much of identities being stolen to create false bank and internet accounts, credit cards etc. It seems all the crooks need is a name and address but a valid ID would suit them very well. It's the fairly honest people like us who end up paying higher insurance premiums, shop prices, bank charges etc.
Until recently, my wife and I went across to France and Belgium on booze cruise coach trips (we don't smoke or drink but they were good days out). We never had our passports examined. All Customs would do was ask the driver if everyone was a UK citizen, then sometimes walk along the coach while we waved our passports in the air. Quite often, the coach would just be waved straight through without stopping. That was it! One common immigration scam we heard about was for one or more UK citizens to leave the coach in France and make their way back as foot passengers on the ferry then make their way home from Dover. Meanwhile, the same number of illegal immigrants join the coach for the trip back. The coach is just waved through with 20 or so others and we all end up paying for the immigrants when they take jobs, use the NHS etc. Despite Mike's dismissal, someone could easily enter the UK with S's passport as there's little chance it'll be examined.

My wife's watching TV now so I can say this. I'm fully expecting one day soon to hear that S is dead. She's thrown back every offer of help she's ever had and she's on that slippery slope. I don't know why I bother as she's not mine and I've never had children. She's burst into our home demanding money, smashed our kitchen up, attacked my wife in the street when she didn't hand money over etc. The police even insisted on taking out an anti-harrassment order to protect us, but S just ignored that. She's happy on the streets or locked up with her mat

[Andyvon]

Oh well, that seemed to cut off in mid-sentence.

I finished by saying "What the hell's happened today?" I'm 48 and when I went to school the worst we could do was get caught smoking! WE spent our evenings playing football, riding our bikes and making model aircraft. We'd never heard of drugs or sex!

[Dee Sa]

I have been on two recent coach trips to France and Belgium, both times we have been asked to leave the coach at the customs/immigration point in Calais and we all had our passports checked and then we returned to the coach, driver said this is the norm now, once upon a time an immigration officer would board the coach and everyone had to hold their passports up and they checked the non Brit ones [ hubby is Portuguese] but they have become much stricter recently, we went through the same procedure last year too.

[Andyvon]

So they are obviously getting tighter Dee. We were only ever checked once like that, returning from Bruges (on that occasion they took one middle-aged man away in handcuffs!. We never saw him again.) Except for that once, we never had any passports checked on a coach trip. Saying that, my wife and I crossed to Calais as foot passengers from Dover twice last year and I can't recall them looking too hard at our passports then.

Thanks for the answers everyone.