Now that Europe accepts vaccinated Americans, many are now looking to have their passports renewed to travel again. If you’re looking to have a passport appointment any time soon, you’d be surprised by the long wait time. State Department is no longer going to allow travelers to schedule last-minute passport appointments to avoid third parties from earning a profit from this situation.
The average wait time to have a new passport or have your passport renewed can easily take 18 weeks. Also, you can expedite the process for $60. In effect, this can shorten the wait time to 12 weeks. Before the pandemic, it used to just take around six to eight weeks.
Third-Parties Taking Advantage of Passport Appointments
So how do third parties earn from the urgent needs of travelers to book passport appointments online? Third-parties are using bots to book slots for passport appointments and then sell them online. Some would even passport appointment sell slots for hundreds of dollars.
According to the website, “We have temporarily removed the online last-minute appointments booking system to ensure our very limited, last-minute in-person passport appointments at one of our agencies or centers go to applicants who need them for urgent travel”.
Fraudulent Requests
The State Department’s Consular Affairs deputy assistant secretary Rachel Arndt said that they are aware of these fraudulent activities. She said last July 14 that “The department is not affiliated with any third-party appointment booking services, and we’ve seen numerous instances of falsified appointment bookings through these vendors”.
She added that “And unfortunately, we may not be able to honor appointments booked via third party, so we are aware and are working to try to rectify that situation”.
Senators are also putting pressure on the state department as backlogs continue to pile up. In 2020, the State Department issued 11,711,945 passports. This is the lowest number since 2005.
