Stolen passport

[chai ja]

Hi!

I am working Out in SE Asia, and live in a neighboring country.

I have had my passport stolen yesterday morning, with a few other items ... However I am commuting home, and by far my passport is my life line.

Has anybody else had this issue before whilst outside of their own country?
I have been to the British embassy and they haven't been overly helpful - however, today all documents have been submitted to HKG, they estimate 6 weeks for a returned passport!! I have however included several documents stating the need for a very swift return of a new passport, this included a very persuading letter from my chief pilot.
Does anybody have any experience of if this will really take six weeks? Or is there a possibility that someone maybe able to expedite my application?
If anybody has been through this before, I'd be really grateful to hear from you!

Thanks very much

[Tableview]

Do you have a photocopy of it, or access to one? This has helped me twice, once in Leningrad (as it was then) when my passport was stolen, and in Tanzania when it was destroyed by water (umm .. don't ask!).

This may be a bit late now but I keep scanned copies of my important documents in Dropbox and can access them from anywhere in the world. It has been useful.

[Denti]

Thats a great tip Tableview, never thought about that myself, off to scan my documents :)

[chai ja]

Hi Tableview,

Yes luckily when I joined this company they required coloured scans of my passport.
I sent a copy along with my application for a new passport, it will also help me withdraw money from the bank too I guess.

Cheers

[Blohm]

.....very nice letter from your chief pilot.....??? What has that to do with anything? BTW, welcome to the country of obedience.......

[chai ja]

I won't go into too much detail.
It just stated that there was an urgency in the need of a new passport.... To continue international duties.

[ZFT]

chai ja,

I don't know if being stolen slows down the process. I'm currently 2 weeks into the renewal process (via HKG) I was advised 3-4 weeks and asking around here, others have experienced as quick as 2 weeks and as slow as 4 weeks. Friend in KL replaced his last month and that took 3 weeks so I would hope 6 weeks is very pessimistic

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Had it happen to me in KL in 1992. The local staff in the embassy were useless, luckily the passport control officer (Brit Foreign Office staff) came by as I was pleading my case, I had a new passport in 72 hours.

As a company we keep scans of all crew documents from birth certificate upwards and this has helped us out on several occasions.

[Dan Winterland]

Hong Kong used to produce UK Passports until very recently and it was possible to get a next day service. The service was removed to save costs. Now all UK passports are produced in the UK and there is no way round the wait.

[de facto]

A letter from my airline and a flirty chatty meeting with my embassy got my passport in 2 days.:E

[chai ja]

Thanks for the replies! I will update when I've got it back, just to give others an idea of how long it takes - in case it happens to anyone else!

[redsnail]

Tableview, great tip, done. :ok:

[chai ja]

On the 11th day, have a brand new passport in my hands.... I was expecting at least to wait 3 weeks..... !

[ZFT]

Mine arrived this morning, took 22 days so you were lucky

[ExSp33db1rd]

.........but I keep scanned copies of my important documents in Dropbox......

How secure do you reckon Dropbox is ?

Stolen identity ? With everything hunky dory as proved by ''original'"documents?

Don't knock Embassy's in other Countries, I had my passport stolen in London and couldn't get through on the telephone to Petty France ( Passport office ) all day, fortunately my briefcase was returned next morning with everything intact except my Airline I.D. and a camera.

[Tableview]

Fair point, and I don't know how secure Dropbox is but I've been told it is about as safe as anything else of that nature, I have a secure password which I change regularly, and realistically the only people who might have access to it would be their own staff. Also the images I store have
C O P Y
across them. It probably isn't any riskier than having a copy of my passport in a wallet or the pocket of a document case.

[ExSp33db1rd]

As you say, probably no better or worse than copy documents, and easier. I guess anyone needing them as proof would ask for other I.D. to link you to them anyway.

If you lost paper copies, or realised that they had been stolen, you might instantly try to do something about it, but how does one know what is happening in cyberspace - and when ?

I'm just wary of putting anything on the Internet, tho' of course it's getting increasingly difficult to avoid it - just Google your own name - and you didn't "post" any of that, it has been trawled up from a variety of sources,newspapers, directories, club websites etc. Big Brother is always with us now.