PASSPORT OFFICE INCOMPETENCE. My son Nick’s passport just arrived. His name is misspelled. His name is misspelled even though the passport office had his birth certificate. (How does that happen?) The passport office has a website with a frequently asked questions link. One of the frequently asked questions is: “What if your name is misspelled on the passport?†Let me repeat that: One of the FREQUENTLY ASKED questions is: “What if your name is misspelled on the passport?†The passport office even provides a form to use when they misspell your name. Let me repeat that: the passport office PROVIDES A FORM to use when they misspell your name. The web site also gives a phone number you can call for information. When you call the number you are told that they are busy and that you should go to the website; at the website you are told to call the phone number, creating a cycle. Ultimately, it appears that you have to start all over again: new passport photos, resending the birth certificate, etc.
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Hi Uncle Phil,
That’s appalling about Nick’s passport. I wonder if they are hiring marginal workers now because of the overwhelming backlog.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061402051.html
My next-door neighbor’s passport was delayed for three months and finally had to be overnighted just before his trip.
What’s fun about this is, some people want health care fun by the government. If typing a name is too complicated for these people – a task I could have performed competently, and efficiently at the age of 7 – why are we going to trust them with our lives?
Coincidentally, I spent half a year trying to get my private health insurer to spell my name correctly and have me listed as Peter’s spouse. It took about 10 hours of our time. I wish incompetence was limited to the public sector.
Also, I still remember that day (I believe it was Easter Sunday of all days) when Dad spent 3 hours on the phone with AOL. He wanted to cancel the service and they were having none of it. He was put on hold, shunted back and forth between technicians, and generally dismissed. I have to wonder whether it was AOL’s hope that Dad would give up and keep paying them for their crappy ISP service. Sadly, incompetence is far more widespread than we would like to think.
I chuckled when I saw that this post was the seventh result for a Google search of “passport name misspelled.” There’s the State Department’s FAQ, a few other “what to do” sites, and then PASSPORT OFFICE INCOMPETENCE right there in all capitals.
My daughter’s passport arrived with her name misspelled (how does that happen when the documents are directly in front of the processor?). Her trip is in four days, so she had to drive 6 hours to Chicago to have the problem taken care of … and they are charging her $60 for THEIR MISTAKE!!! If there is budget trouble in our government, perhaps it’s because we pay to much for incompetent government employees. Perhaps the erroneous name spellings are a money raising effort … who knows
Susan, there was a lot of speculation as to how this kind of mistake can happen in the comments on this post and on a couple later posts, but I still find it hard to believe that there is no checking or proof reading for at least this kind of error. Our son Nick is in London for the semester, so it all worked out. I hope your daughter has a good trip.