A few weeks ago my mum received a letter from a local lady saying she was trying to trace my mums brother. Won't go into details but a serious family disagreement resulted in my mum (in fact most of our family of which there are few) vowing never to have contact with him again. This isn't hard as he has lived abroad for many years. My mum wrote back and said that she wasn't able to give out details as she felt it was inappropriate as she didn't know this lady. She also politely asked that this be the end of whatever the matter was and for the lady not to contact her again.
Anyway today she receives another (much longer) letter explaining that this lady was trying to contact my uncle as she believed he was her father. She knew his name and the area he lived in but felt that info from my mum could be her missing link. Really heart wrenching letter with info about herself and her family.
Mum is now quite upset. In her heart she wants to help this lady (she could be her niece after all) but my uncle is a nasty vindictive man who has caused nothing but upset and heartache to us over the years. Mums worried that if this lady makes contact with him and he finds out it was her that disclosed the information that he'll sue her! I'm a little suspicious but at the same time if she is genuine she deserves to know who her father is (even if she's more than likely to be incredibly disappointed when she does).
Wwyd? A simple google search of his name and the area he lives in does bring up his company details so really she should have thought to do that first as she implied in the first letter that she knew this information. Could there be any legal implications for passing on for example a company name? Obviously we wouldn't give her any libellous information (as much as I might like to!)