Lost passport.

[xavier]

Dear all,

My student visa permanently expires on Monday the 11th. I had planned to leave Hong Kong tomorrow (or I guess now today) the 10th. However I noticed that I lost my passport tonight as I was preparing my stuff for the trip back home.

I have checked the normal procedure for this, it requires you to fill a lost passport police report(which I did just now), inform your consulate, and then go to immigration tower.

Another thing I have found out is that to extend a non-permanent visa, you need to let the immigration tower before 4 weeks from your visa's expiry date. I am basically going to let them know that I want to extend my visa on the last day I am allowed to stay.

I know that my consulate and the immigration tower open on the 11th(Monday) so my best bet so far seems to be to go to both places early on that day and ask them what to do. This seems to be my best and only option, however I am wondering if somebody else have had had something like this happened to them, and could share their experiences.

Many thanks,

Xavier

[Alby]

Hello Xavier,

You seem relatively calm considering the circumstances. The role of your consulate is to advocate for you to some extent. Since you have filed a police report and done everything you need and can do to this point proceed as you initially have outlined in your post.

The only additional recommendation I can add is that some consulate offices have an emergency number given when you call and/or you can also leave a message - you may consider calling so that the consulate knows to be expecting you tomorrow. By doing this it will only demonstrate you are conscientious and eager to address the issue/situation.

Best of Luck to you!

[hullexile]

I lost my passport (and all my money) years ago and the British Consulate gave me papers to allow a single trip home without waiting for a new passport.

Hope the British Consulate are more friendly to you than the ones in Greece were to me though.

[xavier]

Thanks for the suggestion and words of encouragement, Alby. My consulate is very small and hopefully someone there will have time to see me tomorrow.

I lost my passport (and all my money) years ago and the British Consulate gave me papers to allow a single trip home without waiting for a new passport.

Hope the British Consulate are more friendly to you than the ones in Greece were to me though.

Thanks for sharing your experience, hullexille. It's good to see what kind of things might happen in this situation!

Thanks again and see you guys!

[shafinbutt]

you can do the following steps to save your time.

first make a police lost report and obtain a lost memo from the police station. prepare 4 passport size photographs and fill in extension of stay form. pop up to the immigration tower 5th floor as early as possible and apply for an extension of current stay. YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE A PSSSORT for applying an extension of stay. you can mention them you have lost it and supply them with a copy of police memo. ImmD will isuse you a white call up card.

Go to your relevant consulate and obtain a replacement passport. if you can get it on the same date, which is only possible in few consulates in hong Kong, i believe the earliest time you can fly is in two weeks.

[xavier]

Dear all,

Thank you very much for your help. I have managed to get very far along with this issue.

I will document this experience here so people in the future with a similar problem may get something useful from it.

Today I did as you suggested. I armed myself with some photographs, and went to immigration tower. On the way I called my consulate and told them my situation. They said that I should go to immigration tower to extend my visa and then go to the consulate to pick up my new passport.

I arrived at the immigration tower, went to 5th floor, told the woman in the counter my situation and filled some forms. She asked me to wait. When she called me back, she said the officer said they couldn't extend my visa because today was the expiry date of my visa and then suggested that I had to fly tonight. I remarked it was impossible for me to leave a state and get into another without a passport. She apologized and repeated the reason of the refusal. That turned me into mode and I knew something else had to be done.

I called my consulate and let them know my situation. Meanwhile I went to a counter in the 4th floor(I didn't even see what the purpose of the place was, all they told me was that "this not the place for extensions") and sent me to 2nd floor. In second floor they sent me back to the 5th floor, where I had to cut through more bullshit. Long story short, my consulate contacted the officer whom initially rejected my request and he told me that I should get a new passport and come back when I got it. They said they could extend my visa(as a tourist) for up to 40 as long as I was getting a new passport.

I went to my consulate afterwards and got my new passport(I am from Peru), however I still need a new visa for the place I am going after hong kong so I will go to immigration tower to get an extension while I get the visa. The officer in Immigration Tower said that's okay.

Hopefully my consulate is very small and they could help me quickly, but the people in Immigration Tower were really unbelievable.

So, anyway, if something like this happened to you, don't give up, don't let them treat you like nothing. Fight for your rights.

Thanks again to all who replied.

That is all.

[Alby]

Xavier,

Very happy that all worked out for you in the end.

Best of Luck!

[shafinbutt]

it seems ImmD treated you differently, may be they did not believed your version of how you lost your passport.

sometimes it is hard to convince them you really lost your passport, specially when it is closer to the expiry date of your visa.

Well, good luck to you.