Dear Fodor audience ,
You are the travel experts. I have used your books many times, so I have a question for you. I recently used the services of a company named Passport Express. www.passportexpress.com is the website. I found the people who answered the phones and worked on my case to be singularly rude and arrogant. They seemed to be uniformly trained to not listen. Two people in particular, Everett McCurdy and Cathy Coughlin deserve recognition for championship snobbishness. By the time I was fed up, I was more than half way through the task of getting my passport expedited. Rather than start all over with another company, I engaged their services partly from desperation. The clock was ticking.
I was guaranteed a delivery and my passport did not appear. Passport Express blamed this on Federal Express, who refunded the fee for the failed delivery to Passport Express. The latter offered only an arrogant, "there is nothing I can do" to my inquiries. They told me to contact Federal Express myself to work out details of a too late delivery. They offered no compensation and no help.
In this situation, do I have any recourse? Are there any organizations I can complain to. What sort of compensation am I justified in asking for?

Signed,
Mad in Minneapolis

the only advise I can give you is what I practice myself.
Always have a valid passport even if you don't plan on traveling.

I would write to the President/CEO of the company and complain. You could also send a letter to the better business bureau and both your state's attorney general's office and the state they do business in attorney general's office.

I agree with the above poster, keep your passport up to date and you won't have this problem.

Try http://www.ecomplaints.com/

The very premise behind Passport Express's service is questionable, since you can apply directly for expedited service via your Post Office or other passport agent for $35. By going with this organization, you made the situation worse by adding layers of administration between you and the govt passport service.

Here's the State Department's own description of the process, for future reference:

http://travel.state.gov/passport_easy.html#easy12

Amen...just go to the Post Office. SOunds like a scam to me

what kind of recourse are you looking for? how were you damaged? do you expect passport express to guarantee fedex? sounds like you're just po'd that you were treated badly. grow up.

Several years ago, a friend had her passport expedited by contacting our congressman's local office.