What to Do When You Lose Passport Abroad

One of our dearest friends has his own nightmares of losing a passport while traveling abroad and would like to share his experiences

In his own words :

A little bit of background - I'm an Indian citizen staying, along with my wife, in UK. We were robbed of our bag having valet and passports in Geneva, Switzerland while on our way to catch a flight to London, UK!

Below are steps I had gone through :

Getting Short Validity Passport

Step 1   : Called our banks/credit card companies and blocked all our cards. I was holding an HSBC account then, called customer service center and activated International Banking facility on my HSBC account

Step 2   : Went to the nearest police station, got our complaint registered and took the ink signed fully attested copy of the complaint

Step 3   : We went to Consulate General of India office in Geneva, Switzerland to apply short validity passport* - A Short Validity passport is hard-written unlike the regular passports and has a validity of 6 months intended for immediate travel to other countries. It cost us 250 Swiss Francs (roughly Rs. 17k)

* - If you are traveling back to home country, we need get Short Validity passport. Instead, we can apply for one-way emergency certificate for returning to India - this costs 36 Swiss Francs

Step 4   : Since we didn't have enough money, we contacted HSBC bank on phone. They apprised us of no personal banking services option for Switzerland. Only option left for us is Western Union money transfer facility. But Western Union, Switzerland accepts only Passports as identification proof! We called our bank and asked them to change the receiver details to some other person who has proper identification proof - for us, the Consulate General of India offered help.



Step 5   : After receiving money, made the payment at a local Post Office and got receipt. This receipt along with 4 passport sized photos are required to get Short Validity passport. Entire passport formalities took 2 days

Note : Short Validity passports will not have any biometric information, so we had to travel all places with police compliant and photo copied passports.

Travelling Back to the UK

Step 6   : Since I had to travel back to UK rather than home country, India I had to get my VISA stamped on Short Validity passport. From a nearby Internet Cafe, we booked VISA appointment (for United Kingdom, it is through vfsglobal.co.uk). Got appointment in 3 days (generally it takes around 5 days). We submitted our online VISA application.

Note - It's always advised to apply for VISA at Nodal VISA center of the visiting country In our case, we could have applied at Bern, Switzerland but applications from there will get sent to Nodal VISA center in Paris, France and then back to Bern. So we directly went to Paris, France.

Step 7   : On the day of our VISA appointment, we went with Short Validity passport, 4 passport sized photos, old VISA scanned copy, police complaint to VFS Global office in Paris

Note - Do not worry about financial statements as you are applying for a duplicate VISA rather than a fresh VISA.

They took around 4 days to issue new VISA. After that, we were free to travel to our residing country, the UK. Entire process of getting Short Validity passport to landing in UK took 12 days, a nightmare I never forget!!

I think my experiences will help someone in need

Some Travel Tips Before Traveling Abroad

1. Activate international banking on account
2. Always save a copy of passport and visa in email
3.  Always save bank account numbers and credit card numbers in a password protected email
4. Get address and contact details of Embassy of India or Consulate General of India for the country you are visiting
5. Carry some passport sized photos
6. Do not take Pan Cards, Drivers License unless required

And Last

7. Never keep passports in purse/laptop bags!!!!



CREDITS: S.A.M 

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Coming Soon : How To Apply for VISA when You Lose Passport Abroad

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