3 Month Wait (84 days & counting..) for Passport to be Renewed?!

HOLY CRAP!!! A few hours after sending my message above, I received an email last night from the State Dept in the US to say

"We have finished processing your passport, and it has been mailed to you.

 Your passport application locator number is xxxxxxxx.

 Your passport has been printed and mailed to the U.S. Embassy or Consulate where you applied. Overnight delivery service varies by geographic region, and may take up to 7 business days to reach the U.S. Embassy or Consulate where you applied.

 You will receive your passport in accordance with the arrangements made when you applied for your passport."

CHARMAINE, I truly believe that your situation unearthed my missing documents!  I bet they were close together like we thought...

WELSHIE, keep an eye on your email & fingers crossed your company will understand..! Also wanted to add - definitely sign up to get the email notification from this site -
https://passportstatus.state.gov/opss/OPSS_Status_ip.asp

That's how I was informed.
SFx

Well Ambassador Barzun passed my e-mail on to the Consular Information Unit who passed it on to the passport unit's coordinator. They said I should get a personal e-mail or phone call to discuss my case shortly. Unfortunately I'll be at work all day for the next 3 days so hopefully they will email me. So things are looking up.

Congrats Sparklyfairy! Maybe they really are just now getting around those that were left in May. I've been signed up to that site since the beginning, but it still says processing for me from there. But I'm just happy SOMETHING seems to be happening and that I got some help from someone!

Congratulations Sparklyfairy, you must be thrilled! I hope your daughter's renewal goes through without a hassle.

Welshie, here's hoping you also get your passport soon!

Welshie, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Charmaine, thank you so much for your advice..I just wish it was a better experience for you. If you're ever in the Midlands, I owe you a drink! Xx

Well some GREAT news! I got a call from the passport office, was given a phone number to call back with, called them back earlier today and was told my passport should be on the way back from the US now and should be delivered to my house by this Wed.! And if my passport still isn't delivered by that time I was told I could call back on the number I was given to sort things out! A little annoyed they waited this long to deal with everything, but very happy that they now seem to be taking proper action and giving this matter some attention. I hope if anyone else is still missing a passport that they are getting phone calls or some kind of status update.

That's fantastic Welshie, congratulations!

Charmaine, thank you so much for your advice..I just wish it was a better experience for you. If you're ever in the Midlands, I owe you a drink! Xx

You’re welcome SF, thanks for your kind offer!

What happens when you renounce your citizenship? I never realized it was so formal.

I renounced this morning.

The process is pretty straightforward. When you apply, you have to fill in 3 forms, and email them together with scanned copies of all your personal documents. You then get an appointment at the embassy.

The embassy visit lasted about 45 minutes – it was mostly spent going from one window to another (4 in all), and the counter for DX (the courier) so I could:
-   hand over all my original documents
-   check the various forms they’d prepared for me to sign
-   pay the cashier $2,350
-   buy a return envelope from the courier
-   read the oath of renunciation aloud.

No one asked me why I was renouncing, just whether I understood what I was doing. They did ask me whether I wanted to provide a written statement regarding my reasons for renouncing (which I did), and this was attached to my application.

At the end, I got a letter acknowledging that I had renounced – I was told to carry a copy of this with me if I visited the US on my UK passport until I get the CLN (certificate of loss of nationality) which won’t arrive for another 4-6 months.

There were around 20 other people in the waiting room while I was there – from overheard conversations, it appeared they were also there to renounce.

So apart from filing my final returns for this year (1040 as US citizen, 1040NR as non-citizen, 8854 – expatriation statement, and FBAR)… I. Am. Done.

Wow, Charmaine, I can imagine you must feel some sort of relief at the end of it all.  Hopefully you can use the tax money you'll be saving in future for something really lovely! I know I would! 

Well, just to update..I recv'd my new, fat passport almost a month ago & my husband & I just came back from the Embassy to renew our daughter's passport.  Today I received an email asking for feedback.  I had no problems whatsoever with the Embassy staff that I met & my comments reflected this (who apologised for the situation).  I did use the last field to fully explain my dissatisfaction at the poor service we received from the Embassy for MY passport, more specifically no updates on status, not accepting phone calls & reply emails from Embassy staff that were just cut & pasted info from the Embassy website.  I just got this email back from the Chief, Passport and Citizenship Unit, U.S. Embassy London:

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to our survey.  I’m new to the unit and hope to be able to make some changes, and it’s feedback like yours that I look to with that goal in mind. 

I offer my sincere apologies for the lack of information provided to you this summer.  I agree that it is unacceptable, especially considering the circumstances.  I happened to be in Washington at our headquarters when the systems crashed so unfortunately and spectacularly this summer.  Not in any way intended as an excuse, but by way of context, one of the problems faced by the Embassy was the scale of the problem combined with allocating staff for various tasks.  We had several thousand passport applications in this situation just in London, and unfortunately we were not receiving detailed information on the type and scope of the problem from our technical units.  This led to the staff here in London providing the cut and pasted information that you received.

Although it will be cold comfort, I hope you will be assured that I have worked through a series of “lessons learned” from the problems we had this summer, and I hope that such poor communication will not be repeated.  Thank you for your patience and if you have any further questions, feel free to let me know.

Best regards,

John

John Morgan

Chief, Passport and Citizenship Unit

U.S. Embassy London
-----------------------------
I'm pleased to have been given the chance to vent my frustration, but that was only due to my circumstances of just visiting the Embassy. 

I do feel for him, though.  He's new to the job & has one hell of a learning curve.  Also, just to note, I received his response about an hour after I completed the questionnaire, so he appears very proactive.  Let's just hope this matter is now resolved for all & won't be repeated.