A mum of two said she had "never experienced anything so difficult" as her four-month battle to get a passport for her son.
Natalie Price, 40, is flying to Majorca on Saturday for her first foreign holiday with her two sons. As a result, she needed to apply for her 13-year-old son's first passport.
The mum of two said she first submitted the application in January, but she only received the passport on Wednesday - after months of delays, countless phone calls, numerous trips to the Passport Office on Old Hall Street in Liverpool - and having to restart the process in March.
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Natalie told the ECHO : "I originally applied in January. It was an online application that was going well until March time when they told me I hadn't sent the right documents. But I'd sent them in February.
" Around this time, it was when everyone was really panicking about their passports, so the whole system was chaos. You couldn’t get through on the phone, the sites were down but I kept getting these emails asking me to send my documents.
"So, I emailed the passport office in March and I asked if there was anything missing or if I’d sent the wrong documents or had they been misplaced. They responded with an email saying that they had the documents and to allow two weeks for processing.
"I left it two weeks and then I got an email which said that because I hadn’t sent the documents, they would withdraw the application. But I had sent the documents. I thought, this is a joke."
Natalie, from Nantwich, tried to get through to someone on the phone, to no avail. She said finding someone to speak to and get help from was a "nightmare". When she finally spoke to a member of staff, she was told to wait six days for a 'call back'.
In the 'call back', Natalie was told that her application had been closed because she had not sent the documents. She disputed this, saying that she had a postal receipt to prove it.
Natalie said she was then told she had sent the wrong documents - another claim which she disputed. Regardless, she told the ECHO that she had to begin the process again.
She was frustrated with the process, particularly the difficulty in getting clear information over the phone. Natalie added: "I said to the woman on the phone 'I’ve tried to contact you guys and nobody’s helped me and now you’ve withdrawn it’.
"When I could view the application, I could see that, on April 11, they sent me a letter which, to this day, I've still not received, so I don’t know what was in that letter. The lady that I spoke to on the phone said ‘I assume it’s to tell you that your application has been withdrawn’."
Worried that her May 28 flight was getting closer, Natalie tried to get a fast track appointment to ensure her son would get a passport in time for the holiday. She attended the fast track appointment on May 14 and was told she would receive the passport by May 23.
Natalie added: "He (the member of staff at the appointment) said that I’d be ok and the passport should be with me by May 23 at the latest. I told him that I was set to fly on May 28 and he said ‘you’ve got two weeks, you’ve got plenty of time’.
"He wrote down a reference number for me to track my application. It was never available to track, so I began to get worried.
"I thought that I’d give it to Monday. It got to Monday and it wasn’t available for tracking.
"This was the eighth day at this point. I rang again but getting through to that is a pain. I was told that the passport hadn’t been printed and I'd have to get the progress team to call me back."
Undeterred, Natalie went to the Old Hall Street passport office on Monday in "desperation" for answers. She said she explained her situation to staff and was told to come back on Wednesday.
Returning on Wednesday, Natalie said she queued from 6.30am and got in to speak to someone at 11.30am. She said: "Then, I was told that my fast track application wasn’t processing because I had another application on the system.
"I told her that was my withdrawn application - I could guarantee that. From there, they could sort it out and all they had to do was click a button for the passport to be printed.
"Getting it done was a case of speaking to a human being who could actually help me at the Liverpool passport office. Had I not gone on Wednesday, I still wouldn’t have had the passport for my child for Saturday.
"I can’t say anything bad about the staff at Liverpool passport office - the staff there were really helpful but the communication with everyone else involved was really poor - you just don’t get anywhere.
"It took for me to go yesterday to actually get that passport printed. I came away with it at 4pm.
"But there were so many people in that queue in Liverpool - we were all in similar but different situations. It was all down to communication really.
"The systems are so needlessly complicated these days. I had no communication in those ten days to say that there was a problem with that original application still being on the system.
"It’s been a shambles. There are more and more people applying now than they’ve ever had and I appreciate that they can’t cope with the volume of what’s coming in, but without going to speak to someone in person you can't get it done. Nobody on the phone would’ve helped me because they didn’t know. They say that they’re going to transfer you and they don’t. They just cut you off.
Fortunately, Natalie and her family will all be able to jet off on Saturday. However, she said: "It’s been such a strain. I’ve never experienced anything so difficult".
"The villa that we booked were pressing for information, they needed passport details and we couldn’t sort everything out online until we got that passport, so it had a knock on effect for everyone."
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
