Correspondence

It is upsetting.

I had a phone call a couple of weeks ago. A young man asking to speak to my husband about his PPI claim.

When I said it wasn’t possible he told me that my husband had been in touch with their firm and asked them to pursue his claim.

Even after all these years having to say that my husband was dead still made me have a little weep.

Very hard for you Maw

Maw, I am so sorry you are distressed .

How about this to give you a little smile, i don’t want you sad x

I received widows pension for quite a number of years , age 60 I had to change to OAP. They wrote asking me of proof of my husbands death,I replied I had given it to them many years ago. They replied asking for his address , I gave them the plot number and name of the cemetery .

Sorry to hear thatMaw - so insensitive. I am guessing that these things are generated by computers. It is a shame that those who programme them do not set avoiding these sort of mistakes as a priority,

Ah Maw it is so very upsetting, isn't it? Somehow just seeing "Dear Mr....." on a current letter brings the loss so much to the surface again. My DH was continually brought low by such mail addressed to his parents after they'd gone. When his DF died, his DM went into a care home as she was wholly unable to care for herself. We therefore wound up all DFiL's affairs, all the bank accounts, utility bills etc, and sold the house.
We live in the same area, and use some of the same utility companies, and one of them in particular simply could not get their heads around the fact that there were two Mr B's on their books and could not get their records straight, no matter how many times we rang them or wrote to them. So for around a year after DFiL's death, all our electricity bills were addressed to Mr <my DH's name> (dec'd). You can imagine how distressing it was for him - and me - to repeatedly see post addressed to him in this manner

Sorry to read that Maw. Things like that give you such a jolt, don't they?

I notified a mail order company that my DM had died and received an automated response addressed to my DM starting with, "Dear '123456' " - the 123456 referring to her account number with them. Why it was sent to her I've no idea and they couldn't even manage to use her name. Is that proof that we're all just a number?

Highly insensitive and deeply upsettting in the circumstances.
We congratulate ourselves on advancement in this day and age, yet these painful reminders inform us we have yet a whole lot to learn,plus a lot of tweaking systems so these communications are halted prior to being sent.
Perhaps "by hand" as very much was in the past was no bad thing after all.

So sorry Maw.......fully appreciating it has not exactly uplifted you on this day.

I had a letter addressed to my Mum last week, from our local NHS wheelchair provider, informing her that their office was moving.

Astonishing as we tried for the last three months of her life to get a flipping wheelchair, and it never materialised!

So sorry this has upset you - I can fully understand as I went through the same thing after my DH died. Although these letters are computer generated you would think they would have to be actioned and checked by someone.