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Texaco5

Why you should set up a free MYUSPS account when applying for a US passport

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After attending the oath ceremony in April, I scanned my naturalization certificate before sending off the original for a US passport at the post office a couple of days later.

 

A few days after applying, my check was cashed and I was able to see that the Dept of State had received my passport using their online passport application tracking service at :

 

https://passportstatus.state.gov/opss/OPSS_Status_ip.asp

 

When I applied, I did not get a tracking number for my application from the post office to the department of state, but I already had a myusps account from the post office. It is free to set up at this address:

 

https://my.usps.com/mobileWeb/pages/intro/start.action

 

Once the passport office had finished my passport and prepared the priority mail envelope to return it to me, I got an automatic notification from the MYUSPS account to let me know a package was on its way to my home address along with the tracking number. This is one of the features of MYUSPS since it automatically alerts you whenever anyone sends you a tracked package, even if the sender doesn't give you a tracking number.

 

It is worth pointing out that the Dept of State DOES NOT send you the tracking number for the priority mail package with your passport in it, they just change the status of your application on their tracking website to indicate that they are in the 'final stages' of preparing your passport and you should receive it on or before a certain date.

 

Here is why I recommend the MYUSPS account as the post office then messed up the delivery of my passport.

 

The Priority Mail package arrived in the main Los Angeles sorting office, correctly addressed to me. For some reason the Los Angeles sorting office sent it to the wrong local post office to make delivery. A day after it was supposed to arrive (according to the MYUSPS tracking) I went to the local post office about 10 miles away and they denied being in possession of the package and explained it would be returned to sender. They then changed the status to 'Undeliverable at this address' as my home isn't in their delivery area and a day later changed the status to 'Returning to Sender'. After seeing this, I was able to go online and start a missing package inquiry using the tracking number with a request for them to re-attempt delivery at the correct address.

 

After another 4 days, it then showed up again in the Los Angeles sorting office and was then sent out to the correct local post office for delivery to my home address. However it didn't show the 'Out for delivery' status I was expecting so I drove over to the local post office and gave them the tracking number, explained what had happened and they went and retrieved my passport in its priority mail envelope.

 

In the end, it should have been delivered on May 11th and I finally got my hands on it on May 18th.

 

My citizenship certificate was returned in a separate envelope and arrived one day after the passport was scheduled to be delivered.

 

If I didn't have the MyUSPS account, I would have not know what was happening with my passport and it may or may not have ended up back at the El Paso passport center at some point. Given that passports are a good way for identity thieves to start off some new credit accounts in your name, that isn't the best way to begin life as a new US citizen to have a new passport lost in the USPS system and to be blissfully unaware of this.

 

So, the moral of this story is when applying for a US passport, do yourselves a favor and set up a MYUSPS account so that you will know where your new passport is as it makes its way back to you from the Dept of State. It will save you some headaches if USPS manages to do what they are good at and mess it up.......

 

 

 

 

Edited by Texaco5
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