Ok, here is an update on how this wacky process is going.
In order to get an agency appointment, you have to request an open date. The passport agency opens dates two weeks out on a rolling basis. They open up new appointments at midnight and 5:30 am eastern time. They get filled up in seconds.
People wait and scalp these appointments at that time, even if they have no intention of using them. If you want to find these people, there are a few Facebook groups where people are "gifting" passport agency center appointments. Just search for passport agency appointments, I am sure you will find them. I have concluded that this is just a way to scam people for money.
So, here was my experience:
1) My wife needs a passport fast. I asked on one of the Facebook paged for an appointment in Houston prior to our travel date. I had a helpful person agree, and "She" (yeah, right) gave me the information to log into the passport system. In order to get an agency appointment, you have to be flying within 48 hours of your appointment. While the date that She offered was close to the actual date of my travel plans, it would be easy to get around that by purchasing a fully refundable ticket to Cancun once you had secured the appointment.
2) After a few days "She" followed up asking for appreciation. This was an obvious request for cash, in my opinion. I started to get worried.
3) I called the passport agency office and asked if they could change the details of the appointment. Specifically, I asked the phone number to be changed to my wife's phone number. (you have to have the related phone number in order to log in).
4) "She" made a few more requests for appreciation. I blocked her.
5) Two days from the appointment, the passport agency center calls my wife, and asks how my wife got the appointment, whether she made the appointment or it was gifted to her. My wife plays coy, says that "my husband made the appointment for me".
6) She went to the passport agency center today. Everything went smoothly.
Conclusion: What I believe that we have here is a system of scalpers that have hijacked these appointment to try and get cash. No good. I fully believe that the reason the agency called my wife was someone was trying to re-gift the appointment, but couldn't because the phone number had changed. The fact that the agency agreed to do that makes me suspect that this could potentially be an inside job, where the gifters know the agency workers, or maybe even are the agency workers.
If you need an agency appointment:
1) Search for the groups on Facebook
2) Ask for an appointment at an agency near where you live for any date prior to your travel.
3) Once you secure an appointment, buy a fully refundable round trip ticket to somewhere international that is cheap that is the day after your appointment.
4) Call the agency. Be prepared to keep calling for at least a couple of hours. The groups list some tips on how to get in faster. Take advantage of those tips.
5) Once you get in to the agency, change the details of the reservation. Change to your phone number. Try to change the PIN (they didn't let me do that, but I would try).
6) If someone calls you asking how you got the reservation, play dumb.
7) Profit
If I had the time, I would probably be recruiting the OB to start tracking these people down and write a story about this to be published in some travel magazine, but I'm busy with projects right now. If / when things slow down, I might pick this back up.
It takes a special kind of brainwashed useful idiot to politically defend government fraud, waste, and abuse.
