Pensioners receiving wrong bank details

[sandbach99]

26,000 pensioners have received letters addressed to them containing the bank details belonging to someone else.

Can anybody explain how the Pensions Agency have managed to do this?. As I understand it each benefit claim is individual, and somehow the Agency has managed to alter 26,000 claims without anybody knowing about it!!!
Or has the Government or a Financial Institution tried or suceeded to glean some information, like how many pensioners bank with which banks etc

[Lindylou]

I retired in September 2006. On an NHS pension. Forget it. I'm was a minion, not a manager! Have been trying to obtain Pension Credit ( to which I am entitled, according to Entitled to.com). Applied in Sept. 2006. Still waiting for a decision. Asked to supply information three or four times. How much more do they need to know? They've been informed of my NI number, NHS pension, State pension. Any other income (No!). Husband's income (also No). I'm struggling to pay everything I need to pay. Rent. Food. Council Tax. Gas. Electricity. TV Licence. (Ok, I realise I don't need to watch telly, but what else do I do? A Library is a bus ride away. If there were 'buses to ride!) Petrol for car (no public transport here!). ps. I'm not an asylum seeker, a muslin, a single mother, etc etc. Or am I being bitter?! after working for in excess of 44 years and always paying my National Insurance, Income Tax, etc etc., I suspect I am!

[Grunty]

A spokesman says that people will be compensated for any loss they suffer. By us of course, not by the incompetent people who did this.

[sandbach99]

Lindylou thaks for your reply, please write to your MP, tell him/her when you made the claim, what you have sent and how many times. An MPs letter landing on a bosses desk usually gets a result, I worked for the DSS, as it was then, for over 20 years and the only time a lot of bosses moved was on receipt of a MPs letter .

The trouble with a lot of the younger people who deal with the claims is that they cannot understand that people really are in need of the money, they seem to think that as long as is paid eventually thats OK.

Grunty luckily it was pensioners who got the wrong details and although not all pensioners are angels I think that they are less likely to use the wrong bank details for criminal intents.

I can understand lack of care muddling up a couple of cases, but 26,000 needs interfering with the computer systems.
I suppose we should be glad it wasn't the NHS system, imagine moving 26,000 repeat prescriptions on to someone elses cases files.