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Woman sent controversial documents by mistake
Confidential documents containing financial information about a senior Metro employee have been delivered to the wrong address.
A woman received an envelope addressed to her home in Lower Ince, from a Government agency in Belfast.
She was horrified to find it contained substantial personal information about an existing member of the Metro's adult services department.
The official communication from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was actually intended for human resources staff at Wigan's town hall.
It requested details of the working history of the employee and included her name, age, employer and all-important national insurance number.
The retired businesswoman who it was sent to has described it as "a real gift" for potential financial fraudsters.
We have removed all reference to the victim of the mistake, although we have ensured she has been informed.
After being contacted by the Wigan Observer, the DWP immediately sent an employee to her home to apologise and collect the communication.
And they have now launched a probe into the mistake.
Last year two CD discs were lost by HM Customs and Revenue containing the computer downloaded secret financial details of up to 25m child benefit claimants which went missing.
The woman who received the forms, was astounded when she phoned the DWP to report their gaffe.
A male employee at the DWP told her : "Just write 'Not At This Address' and put it back in a post box."
Click next page for more ...But today a DWP spokesman said: "We take the security of data very seriously and are therefore concerned to hear about this case.
"An investigation will be carried out to determine how this accidental disclosure has occurred and urgent arrangements will be made for the correspondence in question to be retrieved."
The woman who received the information, a widow whose whose husband had a construction firm, believes that the unusual name of her house, which doesn't have a number, may be an element in the communication being wrongly addressed to her.
She has no connection with the 61-year-old Metro employee who is the victim of the leak.
She said today: "Its worrying that these type of mistakes are still happening.
"No wonder there is such a lot in the papers or on the television about identity theft when agencies of the Government can't even get the basics right like who they are sending their information out to.
"All the information a conman would need is here to set up a scam which could have cost this woman thousands and ruined her credit references for years.
"I really have no idea why it came here and I have never had anything intended for the Metro wrongly addressed here before.
"When I phoned the number at the top of the forms a man answered who didn't seem to grasp the importance of the information on the forms at all.
"He told me not to worry about it and to simply write that it had been wrongly addressed on the envelope and put it back in the mail.
"I was so shocked that I asked him f he had the authority to suggest this and this was the official procedure of the Pension Service and he said it was.
"But I ignored him and kept hold of it because I thought that was wrong all along."
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Weather for Wigan
Saturday 26 May 2012
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