MSE News: HMRC admits sending 50,000 tax records to wrong households

flossy_splodge

Paulgonnabedebtfree wrote: »

Years ago when I first went self-employed they wanted some details from me. They kept writing to me to tell me I had supplied the wrong details - which was clearly untrue. On about the fourth letter I noticed a reference number at the top which was almost identical to my NI number. I then wrote back pointing this out and told them that if this was meant to be my NI number then it was wrong. It was the last I ever heard of it. They're not very good at admitting when they screw up.

On another occasion (not the taxman this time), I received about fifteen gas bills through the post in one envelope - all for different people at different addresses. There didn't even seem to be any order about it as they were for various addresses in about a 20 mile radius of where I live. I only paid my own one .

Why are we so phlegmatic about this?

It is truly appalling how many Government departments have been involved in loss of personal data. And then they want us to sign up to centralised records for the NHS? I don't think so.
I have declined this latter invitation, not because I think the idea is a bad one but simply because the Government clearly does not know how to protect our privacy so I'll do it myself.

Perhaps there should be a massive fine in these situations which is paid by reducing the hourly rate of the so called managers whose job it is to 'manage'!!
Also if they stopped employing numptys because they can pay them at minimum wage and employed people who want to do a good job and deserve to be paid appropriately for carrying out their responsibilituies properly, THEN we might eliminate these acts of gross carelessness.