Correspondence

Some dreadful examples of crass and cruel behaviour here.
Crossed wires or automatically generated communication can be responsible for much or even excusable, but 44 years on I still remember getting my post-natal appointment through at Queen Mary’s, Roehampton after I had my first baby.
I rang them up and asked if it would be all the new mothers and if they would have their babies with them.
I got a very brusque “of course, why do you ask?”
And a bit of a stunned silence when I said that my baby boy had never come home but died in hospital aged 24 days.
To be fair to them they did reschedule my appointment and put me in an ante-natal clinic ?
As Paw used to say when he encountered stupid or thoughtless behaviour “Engage brain, before opening mouth”.

So sorry you have been upset by thoughtless bureaucracy Maw
I agree with Panache in these days of advanced technology you would think this sort of thing could be avoided. It's still a human pressing the buttons though.

It is heart breaking isn't it. After my Mum died I was the executor and my dh helped me to sent letters to all of the necessary people including electricity. About 8 months after her estate was settled out of the blue I received a letter addressed to her deceased and sent to my address. I came home and was stunned and it raked up more pain. I was quite shocked and upset and rang my sister who could not believe how insensitive they had been . These companies need to update their data bases. I am so sorry you had to experience this Maw.

I received a widows pension from my late husband's job with the Civil Service. On the first payslip I received six weeks after his funeral there was the following notice in large black bold lettering on the first page 'If you remarry or cohabit with another partner as man and wife then you must inform us immediately as your pension may cease to be paid'. I did get upset at the thought that only weeks after losing my husband someone thought I might remarry (over reacting I know but I was very upset). My daughter told me to stop complaining and do something about it - she said to write to them and tell them how upsetting it was to receive a letter like that so soon after losing my husband - so I did. They wrote a lovely letter back apologising and said that they would amend the letters for future widows/widowers. They did, the message was still there but in ordinary sized print and not in bold so it didn't grab your attention when you first opened the letter.

It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it? When my darling Mum died I’d sometimes receive correspondence from a bank addressed to me and my Mum as
Mrs Mapleleaf and Mrs..(deceased).
It needed several trips to the bank concerned to get this sorted, which was distressing in itself.

Companies, etc blame it on computers, but computers are only as good as the people who input the information.

You would think it would be much more seamless these days, but no..

My dad went through similar and it was very upsetting. I tried to contact as many organisations I could but they still kept coming through. The one that really did upset him was a birthday card that came through from one club she was a member of

Thank you Anniebach - made me laugh so much! I should have done this with HMRC who took 3 years to understand that my OH was no longer working (in heaven?) or able to complete a tax return.

Dreadful examples of computerised information not being updated as soon as a person has passed away. We had quite a lot of it when my parents died as we had had some of the mail sent to us when they were in care. It's upsetting especially if you inform them and they continue to send junk mail.

If that's all you have to worry about, God Bless You.

Being upset about one thing doesn't mean its 'all' a person has to worry about.

My Mum died last month.

...and I still have an overwhelming desire to phone her.

It’s taking a longtime to update my database!

My father when elderly (but younger than I am now!) Refused for a lon g time to admit he was deaf. When my mother finally got him to agree to having a hearing aid we all breathed a sigh of relief. But -you've guessed it - the hearing aid arrived the week after he died.

When my father passed away I wrote to HMRC advising them and requesting a tax return form. It was sent to me addressed to MRS caocao Deceased ! I was rather upset to hear of my demise as I thought my recent cancer treatment had been successful.

Ah, I'm sorry, Grampie

What an unpleasant post mabon1. I’ve noticed before in other threads that you seem to take pleasure from making theses kind of remarks. Hope it makes you feel good about yourself.

anniebach . agree with others how stupidly 'deaf' and insensitive jobsworths can be. I'm broiled in difficult legal case - our architect drowned on holiday - I'm continually told by the planning department they need his consent to release details etc so we can retrieve them and try to do the build with another contractor.( Have you noticed when backed in a corner these robots say data protection as a chant to explain their laziness/unwillingness to help?) after what seems the millionth explanation I said brightly 'Oh I know how to get the information - I'll book a session with my clairvoyant and pass it on to you'. Stunned silence and some advice at last.. So sad for all of you who miss your loved ones so much. It never goes but with me it is a dull ache now not the searing pain it used to be so massive to you all and kind thoughts.

The lack of common sense and understanding seems to be rife throughout most of customer service departments whether private or public. It takes so much effort to get them to act using just a little thought. Now that so much is done on computers there seems to be little chance of any improvement.

If that's all you have to worry about, God Bless You

Bl**dy h*ll mabon,we are talking about bereavement, the loss of a life’s partner, a parent or a child.
Your callous comment would be best kept to yourself. There is a word for evil, cruel people who appear to delight in the misfortunes of others. ???
And they do not belong on a caring supportive forum like GransNet.

Appalling comment Mabon. I'm so sorry you and others have been upset like this Maw - the insensitivity and inefficiency is incredible.

Anniebach
That is both sad and incredibly funny.
They were lucky that you could summon up some tongue-in-cheek humour instead of ranting at them.

I work for an organisation that mails out magazines to members, we have to send out the addresses to the printer a couple of weeks before they are sent out, so would be unable to retrieve a magazine once that happens, but if we got a notice of bereavement after that we'd change the database and apologise that one would come in the next week or so, in fact when my Dad died one of the organisations we told said similar and assured us that once the stuff coming through the system had gone out there would be no more

I was shocked to receive a letter from a firm of Solicitors regarding a claim for compensation my DH may be entitled to, this was genuine not a PPI phishing type letter, but it arrived 9 months after he died. I rang the Solicitors & explained he had died, they were very apologetic but we had moved sometime before & they had to trace our new address so this was forgivable. The good news was that I was then a beneficiary of the claim & got a over £2000. Just a shock at the time.

Magazines issued by companies/charities etc may continue for a few months as they are dealt with by different companies (this was explained to me every-time I informed some-one of DH's death)

To all of you who've had any upset caused by thoughtless organisations

mabon1
Wow, bi*ch!
There must be a reason why you're so bitter and twisted, but whatever it is, you still don't have the right to be so callous and uncaring to others.
Whatever is bugging you, isn't the fault of anyone on Gransnet!