Volume 13, Issue 15
16 - 30 April 2014
30 BAHT
What’s Inside:
British passport chaos resolved
Y
et another new system for Brits wanting to renew their passports in Thailand had a dismal start after a compulsory email contact address was invalid for several days. At the end of March, the British embassy website announced that postal applications to Liverpool passport office (the system introduced as recently as last January) had been scrapped. British subjects now have to follow a new bureaucracy, the third change this year. Previously applicants applied through the Hong Kong consulate general. The website now states that all applicants must turn
up at newly opened offices at Trendy Office Building, 28th Floor, Sukhumvit Soi 13, Klongtoey-Nua, Wattana, Bangkok, to hand in their documents. But, in order to do this, applicants have to write an email to BangkokHMPO@ vfshelpline.com giving a choice of three dates they could visit for their interview. However, early applicants needing a replacement passport found that their email bounced back with a postmaster message in Thai stating that the electronic address was out of order. Dozens of would-be passport applicants in Bangkok,
Pattaya, and Phuket angrily complained to embassy personnel or anyone else willing to listen. Mark Kent, the British ambassador, said in a statement last week that the technological glitch had originated at the Foreign Office and the passport authorities in UK but had now been resolved. The new system requires all applicants in Thailand–whether renewing their passport, ordering one for the first time, or reporting a lost or stolen one-- to report with their documents in person at the Trendy Office Building. They must appear a Continued on page 6