Hey guys, thought i’d make an actual thread so it doesn’t potentially get lost in the threadkiller.
So I’ve made an eHomeAffairs submission for a new ID card for both my wife and I (hers for surname change, mine because I don’t want her to go alone and because mine is about 20 years old now, its still the photo when i was 16 and is the “old” one). Now the online process was done, we paid online and now have 60 days. We are going to PE for a medical thing for me in the first week of April, so decided since we both ABSA members, and because we keep checking (and driving away again) the queues snaking its way outside the street by our lovely East London home affairs that we would go do the biometrics processing in PE while we there. and then go pick it up there at a later time. (Before anyone tells me the biometrics queue is diff to home affairs, we’ve tried. we walked in and told the security lady at the metal detector we just here for biometrics. she kept saying - go stand in line outside). Now we made the booking and got confirmation number.
But I got an email saying this:
well thats the thing. that top one IS an email. so i got an email from home affairs saying i need the barcode thingy that i get from the site. but the site is kinda useless
I don’t like using the word “hate”, but it’s the right word for that site. We’ve been trying to get our passports renewed for over two months now. We either never get the OTP to log in in the first place, or the form doesn’t load at all, or we get stuck at the pick a date and place for your appointment thing. IT’s beyond frustrating - and we haven’t even left the house to go queue for the biometrics. My grey hair gets greyer just think about it…
Yea i have the same problem. I generally have better luck around 20h00-24h00 for some reason. And the UI on the OTP is FUCKING frustrating. if a user types the pin and presses enter, it should NOT default to RESEND THE FUCKING OTP, it should submit!
I did get an sms last night saying booking confirmed for appointment, so maybe NOW the barcode is there…but yea as you said, its a nightmare to get ONTO the site at times, so i cant tell right now
my mate did his passport renewal this way, and even doing his biometrics he said was a breeze. thats kinda why im pissed. he seems to have just gotten lucky, going on 2 days where there was no queue outside and coz he’s just doing biometrics (and then getting his birth certificate), bypassing 80% of the queue inside. he said it was really effortless
Well i created a seperate account for me and for my wife, with her phone etc. thats how im doing it. i booked 2 spots at absa bank on 11 april 9am, and they both got “confirmed” by them. dunno if that answers your question.
You do need to go in person for biometrics (for obvious reasons) as well as for collection.
Yeah, same as @Mottamort - separate accounts, logins, etc. for each of the three of us = triple the irritation and frustration.
Presumably there must be a way to do stuff on behalf of someone else - for a minor child for example. Just finding where and how to do it would be the challenge.
Update: so both myself and my wife went to ABSA PE this morning, and it went pretty damn smoothly. We could see the other ppl (about 8 ppl including us in line, we were 1st in line for biometrics since we got there at 08h40 and they only started letting id/passport applications through at 09h05) with their online booking printouts etc. I needed to show my ID to the ABSA lady at the start (to put me in the right queue for home affairs stuff -1 queue for collections, 1 for biometrics), and then that was it. dude came and queried our id’s and ticked us off his list, took us through and we did our stuff.
One thing to note, although I don’t know how to explain or warn. Despite me doing both my and my wifes application and booking online, once we were done I received an email saying collection branch East London, hers says collection branch PE.
We went back and queried,…apparently its not collection from wherever you do your biometrics…apparetnly you select it somehow during application process, and theres nothing he can do about it.
Not entirely sure i buy it though, since he quite clearly (i went first) asked my wife where she’d like to collect from. she said here in pe, since that was our understanding…that we’d both be coming back here to collect.
so yea…that sorta sucks. not sure how much help that might be to someone else tho
