CP lost my passport app, and stole my vacation and my work plans.
September 24, 2007 9:21 PM   Subscribe

The f*cking idiots at CanadaPost have 'lost' my passport application, along with an brand-new official birth certificate (not a copy, and this just cost me $60) and a signed photocopy of my drivers license, and all the personal details in my application. Basically, a handy identity-theft kit has probably been stolen, perhaps with the help of a CanadaPost employee. I bought guaranteed, registered delivery to the passport office in Gatineau. CanadaPost's response is to offer to pay me back my shipping cost.

Of course, I'm completely pissed off at this. Not only is their response ridiculous, but the delays this caused will probably mean that my wife and baby daughter will vacation/visit family in late November without me (due to US border rules). Additionally, I'm depending on that passport for work travel some random number of weeks between December and May.

I really do not know what to do now. How can I make sure CP is held accountable? How can I attempt to get them to make every effort to find my application and whoever 'lost' it? What can I do to recover my (much needed and much wanted) vacation? What do I do now to ensure I am protected from identity theft (being that I can't really change my birthdate or driver's license number)? How can I arrange to travel for work after this?
posted by Kickstart70 to Law & Government (21 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
They have an Ombud.

Be calm. Of course you're angry, but it's not going to help you get the results you want.

My completely unsolicited piece of advice is that when you apply for your passport, complete the application online as much as possible and take the resulting form to your passport office in person. It's much faster (I didn't have to wait in line at all at the busy downtown Toronto office because so few people actually do it this way) and you don't have to mail any important documents anywhere, they just look at them.

Oh - and for what it's worth you only need a passport to fly into the US at this time.
posted by loiseau at 9:36 PM on September 24, 2007


Response by poster: Thanks loiseau. Unfortunately on both suggestions I am (literally) 9 hours drive from the nearest passport office. They've made it very difficult for anyone not in a big urban setting to complete the passport in any way but by mail.

I think I will be contacting that ombudsman this week (not tonight when I am in a raging mood.
posted by Kickstart70 at 9:39 PM on September 24, 2007


Response by poster: (and 9 hours from the border too)
posted by Kickstart70 at 9:39 PM on September 24, 2007


I know it's not much help but I avoid the use of Canada Post for any items of value. And in fact, items of no value as well. If you really want it to arrive, use FedEx or deliver by hand. On the very rare occasions where FedEx shipments have encountered anomalies I've literally been called by supervisors trying to sort the problem out.
posted by unSane at 9:45 PM on September 24, 2007


Definitely talk to the ombudsman, but also talk to your local MP. Sometimes just the fact that an MPs office will call up someone to ask questions can light a fire under the appropriate derrieres.
posted by Zinger at 9:48 PM on September 24, 2007


Your application is probably lying in the back of a truck somewhere and quite probably will turn up eventually - in the meantime: What to do if you suspect identity theft.
posted by doublesix at 10:03 PM on September 24, 2007


Fedex actually loses more packages than does Canada Post. Did you ship your documents with insurance or did you just pop them in the mail or regular parcel delivery? If you purchased the insurance and declared the value on the form, you should be covered.

See General Terms:
http://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/terms/pdf/gtc05-e.pdf
Payment of Indemnity

If Canada Post elects to pay the Customer an indemnity, Canada Post’s liability is limited to paying the Customer an amount equal to:
a) the lesser of:
(i) the actual value (being the lesser of the sender’s cost, repair cost, depreciated value or replacement value),
(ii) the declared value (e.g. for Customs purposes), or
(iii) the amount of liability coverage purchased at the time of shipment less any compensation received by the claimant from any other source, plus
b) postage paid (but not the fee for the liability coverage), plus
c) any non-refundable taxes.
No payment will be made for any expense incurred by the sender or the addressee in submitting a claim for a payment. No interest is payable on any claim payment.
The value of the Item must be declared on the shipping documentation.
All indemnity payments will be made to the sender of the Item.
If a lost shipment is subsequently found after a claim has been paid, then the sender or the addressee may take delivery of the shipment, provided that Canada Post is repaid for the indemnity, and the shipment is picked up within three months from the date that Canada Post sends notice that the shipment has been found.


If you didn't purchase insurance, I believe XPress Post covers you for up to $100. So you could try that angle...if you used XPress Post or a similar service.

As for getting your documents together, call your Member of Parliament's office. They can probably help you piece together a plan for getting documents back asap.
posted by acoutu at 10:30 PM on September 24, 2007


Small consolation but CanPost covers up to $100. At least it'll pay for your birth certificate.
posted by Neiltupper at 11:22 PM on September 24, 2007


Nthing everyone else's recommendations to contact your MP. I know several people who have received a lot of help from our (otherwise useless) local MPs.

(I, too, live a 9 hour drive from the nearest passport office--it always bugs me that my choices are either to mail valuable documents or fly/drive 1000 km to apply in person.)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:21 AM on September 25, 2007


Fedex actually loses more packages than does Canada Post.

Can you cite any source of this information? I find this rather shocking - I think it's a much better idea to send a passport application via Fedex than by Canada Post, although an in-person application (if at all possible) is ideal, since you don't have to lose sight of your ID.

At work we send packages via Fedex on a daily basis, and receive packages from other offices on a daily basis. In the 6 years I've been there, I have yet to see a single package get lost. I can count on one hand the number of times that a package has been delayed (typically due to weather issues), and in those cases the package was delivered one day late at no charge.

As to the original question, there isn't a whole lot you can do other than complain to your MP and the ombudsman. Much as it's a pain in the butt, a passport application really is the kind of thing that should be done in person if at all possible - even if you live 9 hours from a major city, you have to visit a major centre at some point in time, and that'd be a good time to drop off a passport application. Passports are the kind if things that are good to keep current even when you don't have a trip planned in the near future.

One thing that might be of assistance in the future: The passport office has simplified the procedure for a passport renewal: info is here. Basically, they're removing the requirement to send in any original ID (other than your old passport) if you're renewing.
posted by gwenzel at 4:27 AM on September 25, 2007


Are you certain it was Canada Post, and not the passport office? I ask because we just went through something similar.

We sent my wife's US passport and some other documents via Australia Post to the department of Immigration a couple of months ago. Registered, express, etc. It never showed up. This was days before she was due to fly out to the USA.

I spent about 2 days on the phone, going back and forth between the Dept of Immigration and Australia Post, and I now know far more than I ever wanted to about how registered mail *really* gets delivered, but in the end it wasn't Australia Post's fault: someone else had picked up the package from the Department of Immigration's mail room, taken it to their desk to work on it, and left it sitting there for 2 days.

If you can afford to spend some time on the phone, being very polite and very persistent, you might just get someone to walk around at the passport office and *look* for it, just to stop you calling them.
posted by 5MeoCMP at 5:20 AM on September 25, 2007


You still have plenty of time to get a passport. I've gotten one in as little as 3 days using their emergency service. But I live in Toronto, so that might help.
posted by sid at 5:59 AM on September 25, 2007


I have had WAY more packages lost by FEDEX, UPS and especially Purolator. (I used to work in a mail room sending out hundreds of packages each day.)

Canada Post is pretty reliable. Also, as someone stated above, $100 insurance is included in their 'registered' mail so I don't know why they're telling you they'll reimburse just the postage. That seems pretty strange to me.

For what it's worth, the one time CP lost a package of mine (of hundreds sent) they reimbursed me the shipping and the value *because the item was late*--ie, the item turned up 2 weeks later and I was still refunded the cash.
posted by dobbs at 6:29 AM on September 25, 2007


This happened to me too: Canada Post "lost" my permanent resident application, despite my paying for all the extra bells and whistles: insurance, signature, delivery confirmation, tracking, etc. and being assured that it was the best way to send the application. Like your passport application, my PR application contained more than enough information to steal my identity, as well as my sponsor's. I was livid, to say the least.

When I called Canada Post to find out what to do, it was literally the single worst customer service experience of my entire life. They were completely unhelpful (not quite getting that original documents can't just be re-sent), and insulting to boot (at one point the lady tried to tell me I didn't know how to spell my own name). It took me weeks just to get the insurance check, and that was the only recourse I got. We contacted our MP and he blew us off.

As it turns out, though, the application wasn't lost: they just didn't bother to get a signature or finish tracking it. This was small consolation as I had already spent the money to get new copies of my fingerprints, record checks and so on by the time I found out the application was in fact received. Nonetheless, my application did eventually end up where it was supposed to go. On a subsequent call to Canada Post, an employee admitted to me that for large receivers like CIC (possibly also the passport office?) they often don't get signatures or confirm delivery, even if it was requested - they just do a bulk delivery and let the recipient sort it out.

So I would suggest to you that you contact the passport office to be sure your application was actually lost, because it may have just been dumped at the passport office in bulk as my PR application was. If it was lost, raise hell. The mail is supposed to be reliable, and people shouldn't have to spend twenty bucks on a courier every time they want something to actually reach its destination.
posted by AV at 6:43 AM on September 25, 2007


You might want to ask for enrollment with a credit monitoring service as a remedy.

A former (very large) employer lost some of my information, along with that of a whole bunch of employees, and offered us all free enrollment with a credit monitoring service for a year. They are apparently checking my credit report every day, and if anything odd turns up, they are supposed to contact me and help me straighten it out.

The service I got was through Kroll.
posted by amtho at 7:26 AM on September 25, 2007


I work for a Canada Post outlet (although not for Canada Post itself). Judging from the info you gave I would guess that you sent your documents ExpressPost, which is what I usually recommend for passport applications. The fact that they are only offering to reimburse you for the postage so far (probably about 8 bucks) is actually good news. That means that although they concede the package didn't get where it was going in the time it was supposed to, they don't think it is lost yet. Once they concede that it is lost, you are eligible for $100 insurance (the amount that comes standard with ExpressPost, unless you purchased extra). Things get delayed for all sorts of reasons, including inept workers and blameless accidents. I'm not sure when it was supposed to arrive, but they probably will tell you to give it an extra day or two and it will probably turn up in the back of a truck or tucked into the wrong bag. As AV suggested, it might even be at the passport office. Canada Post also has rooms of "undeliverable" mail, if the address didn't go through clearly, it might be there. Go back to the post office that you mailed it at, call the 1-800 number. We have an ExpressPost article that has been sitting in our post office for weeks now because the customer didn't press firmly enough on the top form for the printing to go through, the worker didn't double check, and the customer never came back looking for it.

Definitely call the ombuds, and your MP to try to fast-track some new paperwork.
posted by arcticwoman at 8:09 AM on September 25, 2007


Also: I'm really sorry. I wish there was more I could tell you or do for you.
posted by arcticwoman at 8:12 AM on September 25, 2007


Gwenzel: my dad worked his way up from letter carrier to superintendent of a postal plant and my mom still works for Canada Post. I've seen a lot of stats from CPC during my lifetime. I do not have the source in front of me, but I believe Fedex loses something like 2% of items and that Canada Post loses a smaller amount. My dad gave me this info after I complained about how many times Fedex had lost stuff for me. I believe the stats are from an annual report or something public, as there is no way my dad would have given me confidential info.

Kickstart: if you specified signature required, you might want to find out if that actually happened. Also, you might want to go back to the post office outlet where you sent the mail, in case your sticker didn't get put on or was illegible or something.
posted by acoutu at 11:06 AM on September 25, 2007


Acoutu: I would be shocked if Fedex's "lost package" ratio is anywhere near 2%. If it was that high, they wouldn't still be in business - that's one in every 50 packages! In any event, at work we ship out about 900 packages a year through Fedex (nationwide), and I've yet to hear of a single package being lost. Delayed, sometimes, but never lost.

As to the original question, I also think it'd be a good idea to double-check with the passport office to find out whether the application has, in fact, been received. I've sent items via registered mail before that were received by the recipient, but never signed for (they were sent to places, like the passport office, that get a massive amount of mail on any given day, so it's quite possible that they don't get signatures for each package in that circumstance).
posted by gwenzel at 8:23 PM on September 25, 2007


Gwenzel: I couldn't find stats on delivery completion (I'm sure my dad quoted that from an analyst report), but they definitely announce that they don't deliver 2% of packages on time. Fedex has lost tons of things I've shipped for business. It most often happens when I ship over the border....usually tradeshow-related stuff. And just about anything that isn't lost ends up being delayed significantly.

Kickstart: did you send your old passport in the envelope? Perhaps you could try the application process that includes a missing passport or travel document. Maybe that would go faster.
posted by acoutu at 10:20 PM on September 25, 2007


Fedex Freight is not Fedex the document/small package airline. One is a truck service, the other is an air service.

Not that I usually ship with FedEx (nor am I even in Canada), but if you're going to quote statistics at least do it apples to apples. Not apples to cucumber.
posted by wierdo at 5:19 PM on June 24, 2008


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