Collection of Malaysian passport in Singapore
A search on Google brings up several posts on how to renew your Malaysian passport online for collection in Singapore. But I couldn’t find anything on the actual process of passport collection. So here’s my experience.
On 3 May, I applied for renewal of my passport which is expiring in October. On 3 August, I finally received an email saying that my photo was rejected, so I went to FotoHub to take a new photo and resubmitted it. On 12 August, I received an email that said my photo was rejected again and I had to come and take my photo and biometrics on 15 September. I’m flying back to Malaysia on 16 September so I emailed back to request for an earlier collection date. 3 days later, I received an email telling me to come on 9 September. I thought that they were so considerate to give me an earlier date. I proceeded to apply for leave on 9 September, which I was relieved to find was available (only one person can take leave at a time in my office), and time-off on 12 September because the email states that collection is the next working day.
Unbeknownst to me, they emailed me to change the date again on 19 September. The new date was 6 September. I didn’t check my email for almost 2 weeks coz I wasn’t expecting any emails. When I found out they had changed the date, I quickly emailed to request to maintain the date on 9 September (I had scheduled my medical appointment on 9 September so I could kill two birds with one stone and use medical leave instead of wasting my limited annual leave). I received no further emails from them, and I realized that they hadn’t given me an earlier date out of kindness - they just simply change dates as they please. Hmph! By then, the leave calendar was full. I decided to use my remaining time-off of 1 hour 45 minutes on 6 September. I thought it would be more than enough time because the emails I received only had 10 names inside. I estimated to reach the High Commission by 9am, settle everything by 10.15, and reach work before 10.45am.
Lo and behold! When I arrived, there was a long queue to get a number, and i got number 86. I had naively thought that there were only 10 people doing passports that day due to the misleading email. I had to inform my office that I would be late. The actual process of phototaking and biometrics was actually quite quick. But due to the long queue (I estimate maybe 100 people collecting passports that day), I was only done by 11.15am so I had to take half day leave. I thought it would still be alright if I could collect my passport on 9 September. Guess what? No collection on 9 September - can come any other afternoon within 1 week. FML. What a waste of my leave.
I managed to get permission to use my time off for passport collection on 8 September. I arrived at 3.20pm and there was an even longer queue out the door. The actually collection process was also quite quick and the staff started rushing at around 3.50pm. In the end, I finally got my passport at 4.15pm. Phew!
Side rant: FotoHub took a super pale photo of me. At the shop, I already asked if it was overexposed. The staff just copied a darker part of my face and pasted on a few lighter parts, saying that can’t edit too much. The immigration website says the photo should reflect real skin tone so I was worried they would reject it being overexposed. I went home and adjusted the brightness slightly to make it darker and the photo looked much better, but it became too small to upload. So I emailed FotoHub to please help me just adjust the brightness of the original photo. Instead, they sent me back a photo which was heavily copy/pasted and blotchy. Confirm get rejected la. Don't know why their Photoshop skills so lousy and can't just drag a small button to make the photo darker.
Why I didn't renew my passport earlier and had to rush last minute: I was going back to Malaysia in April so I was planning to renew my passport there. I thought it would be more convenient than doing it in Singapore. But 1 week before my trip, my colleague who just came back from Malaysia said cannot walk-in anymore, but can book online easily. So I went online to book an appointment, but all the slots were full for the duration of my trip - the passport renewal frenzy had started. :(
Good luck to anyone trying to renew their Malaysian passport in Singapore!
posted by Cherie @ 10:54 pm
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