I am desperately in need of help of some advice.
I along with my wife sent our passports to DWP (Job Centre) in November. I included the prepaid special delivery return envelope for the return of documents. We made several queries regarding the return of our documents and but nobody knew where our documents were! We escalated the issue to the complaints department and finally received a call in first week of december that they had returned the documents and they were sitting in the local royal mail depot. I visited the local depot and found out that, there were sitting there for more than 2 weeks and had been returned to sender around the 12th of December.
I also found out that DWP didn't use our special delivery envelope, rather used their own recorded delivery envelope. Furthermore, when the delivery attempt was made, Royal mail never left a card for us.
Since that day I have been calling DWP to check whether they have received the documents back? They tell me that they are still waiting! I have been provided with the recorded delivery tracking number which says:
"Your item with reference A***********GB is being returned to sender.
This is either because the item wasn't picked up by the recipient, or because we couldn't deliver it. Sorry for any inconvenience".
This message is on the website for around 3 weeks now. I am extremely worried now that whether my documents are lost? I have checked with DWP whether they have a return address on the back of the envelope? They have confirmed that all their envelopes has a returned address.
I spoke to a gentleman from DWP on the 28th of this month and he thinks that the documents have been lost
But when I spoke to royal mail they said I should wait more, as there may be a backlog.
Could someone please please advice me what can I do get that letter back? It has mine and wife's passport on which we have visa stamps. If we lose them this mean we will be in great trouble as we need to reapply the passports and pay a lot of money to UKBA for new visas. Moreover, I need to travel abroad in 2 weeks time, as my mother will be going through a brain surgery.
neither Royal mail customer service advisors or DWP advisors are helping me. I am in a very desperate situation. Is there anything I can do or go call somewhere or go to collect from somewhere?
Will tracking status every change to say that they are lost or it will keep saying that they are being returned to sender?
Please advice me whether I should wait for another week after new year or shall I report them as lost to police and start the process for reapplying them?
Thanks
Umzyi