Anyone else had a letter of 'apology' from the child benefit people?

[Hekate]

I got one this morning.

A 'personal' apology. That begins "I am writing to make a personal apology".

Not Dear Hekate, or Dear Mrs Hekate's DH.

Not terribly personal.

It goes on to confirm that my details were on the disk.

My name, my kids names and dates of birth, my address, my NI number, my bank account address, sort code and account number.

It ends with "I would like to offer my personal apologies for any worry this data loss may have caused you" (nah mate, why on earth would it worry me )

And ends with a typed 'Dave Hartnett@

No signature (a photocopied one even, I don't expect anyone to sign several million letters!) no yours sincerely/faithfully/regards.

Just 'Dave'

Dunno what I'm expecting really, just seems like it could have done with a bit of grovelling really. it comes across like, oh well, shit happens but since you're all making a fuss (y'bastards) best to come up with something to shut you up.

apparently one guy got a letter of apology giving the full details of a previous resident of his house... so presumably for many people their information is being given out all over again!

Got one yesterday. Surprised how vulnerable it made me feel!

i got one toox

I got one too.

I got one Friday...and another one today!

I got one!

I nearly had a heart attack - thought it was a tax demand . Never occured to me they would waste a pile of out money on stamps and stationery saying bugger all.

Who is Dave Hartnett? If he is personally apologising for his mistake shouldn't he be the one resigning?

got it this morning.

Oooh what a coincidence. all these 'personal' apologies.

Haven't read the thread... anyone worked out the amount of wasted tree.

I think Dave Hartnett is the 'acting' whatever... so basically its a letter from the temp...

I don't think he exists at all. He is the Barry Scott (is that the rightname) of the child benefit world

did you all happily post off your original child benefit applications in the post? to be collected by a postman or agency worker, then sorted, then delivered to hmrc? or did you all send it securely by courier for signature on collection? nothing is safe. anf if you applied by phone who did you speak to? do they still work for hmrc? have they taken your info? loads of instances of bank cashiers, for example or all centre staff taking info. easy done.

losing data is indeed easily done. Losing 10 millions households data is a tad trickier.

I work for a data company and we hold about 2million consumer records, names addresses phone numbers etc. If I (even as a director of the company) had tried to download it all onto a disk our system would have said the IT equivalent of "fuck off".

I got one - to my old address. Which makes me think that they lost the file sometime before it was made public...

yeah got one, rang my mum and said Id got a personal apology off the government. She sniffed.