Correspondence

A week ago I suffered my second retinal tear in 18 months. I’ve now had one in each eye. Why?? I’m a fit & healthy 60 year old. The ophthalmologist says it’s probably from being short sighted and picking up something heavy. Ok, last year I think it was from picking up a heavy garden tub. This year we’ve moved and, yes, I’ve been getting stuck in to shifting stuff around! Has anyone else any experience of this? I’d love to know I’m not alone. The resulting laser treatment is very unpleasant!!

Oh Maw , how upsetting. When DD had her first miscarriage she had no less than 3 letters and 2 phone calls berating her for missing ante natal appts, despite us keep informing the midwives of the sad outcome. Yes, mistakes do occur but sometimes, in some cases, it can cause a lot of pain. Hugs to you.

Re MissAdventure's post on page one, that sounds like a scam. So glad you didn't fall for it but many people do.

Sorry mawbroon about yet another sting in the pain of grief. I count myself lucky that this has not happened to me and I have in fact met with some very thoughtful remarks when dealing with bereavement business, in particular from very young sounding people. In fact I have been more tearful in the face of kindness than abruptness. What I really struggle with is if the phone goes at a certain time of day and just for a minute ...... well I expect you all know what I mean. ?

My sympathies to all of you upset by these unthinking unfeeling companies. My brother is dealing with some of this as he is executor of my Fathers estate and has POA for my Mother. He has had letters addressed to Father with Deceased after the name, it doesnt help that he has the same name!
Just before Fathers day this year I received an email from a courier company I use saying "not going to see Dad for Fathers Day? Why not send him a present with us"! I wrote back saying I didnt know they delivered to the afterlife. To give them their due I did get an abject apology and the promise their marketing team would change the wording in future.

It is upsetting. After my DH died I kept getting a survey from the ambulance service asking how he rated their service.
I threw them away until the third arrived. I wrote on it in big letters, "I cannot answer your survey because I am dead" and sent it back.
Not a sniff from them since, nor an apology.

My sympathies to Maw Broon and everyone else who has been saddened, as we all are, by receiving mail addressed to a loved one who is no longer with us.

It is always inexcusable, and difficult to deal with, as we have all, as most of you say, had to phone or write numerous times before the matter was sorted out. I think what happens is that the person who answers the phone probably makes the change in Word or whatever program they use for the actually labels and letters, but doesn't think to alter the Database!

The letter that gave me the most eerie feeling ever, was one addressed to Mr. James grandtante. You see, James was the brother I never met, as he died 7 hours old, two and a half years prior to my arrival. When the gooseflesh had subsided, I realised the company had misread my Christian name, but it wasn't a nice feeling.

I am currently trying to find out why the cemetery, although notified of my sister's death and asked to send the account for the annual upkeep of our parents' graves to me, haven't done so. As my sister's ashes are at the other end of the same cemetery, I had expected they realised there was little point in sending the invoice to her address!

On a lighter note, the same cemetery has or had a notice up at the entrance that definitely belonged in the category of things that could have been better put.

It asked: " Are you satisfied with your grave?" My sister, when visiting our mother's grave, was reduced to helpless giggles, and I caught them too, when upon reading that notice DS remarked, "I don't know, not having lain there yet." (We nearly wet ourselves laughing.) Presumably, the cemetery office was enquiring whether relatives were satisfied with the state of family graves, but honestly, not everyone who read that notice will have found it as amusing as we did.

It is so insensitive, inefficient and distressing for relatives. My sympathies to you MawBroon. My MIL died over 10 years ago and we still regularly get mail for her regarding shares she held which were long since transferred to DH. We have told them countless times to change the mailing details to no avail. We've given up now.

I sort of turned the tables on one of these companies a while ago. It is a firm dealing in personalized gifts and they wrote to me just before Fathers’ Day saying ‘Nona, describe your dad in one word.’ I wrote back, ‘Dead.’
To be fair they wrote a very nice letter back, apologizing for their insensitivity and saying they would speak to their marketing department to ensure things like this were avoided.

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ah, I'm sorry, Grampie

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.

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.

My Mum died last month.

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

It’s taking a longtime to update my database!

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

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

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.