Government have lost millions child benefit bank details

hotblu

Hello dmg24,

I understand what your saying "just wait and see", but that's sort of my point, we could be waiting for months on end until it is realised that the information is in the wrong hands. It's not as if HMRC can just change everyones details. These disc's went missing on 8th October 2007, I for one put my money on they will not be recovered.

Regards,

Hotblu

weymuffred

hotblu wrote: »

Hello dmg24,

I understand what your saying "just wait and see", but that's sort of my point, we could be waiting for months on end until it is realised that the information is in the wrong hands. It's not as if HMRC can just change everyones details. These disc's went missing on 8th October 2007, I for one put my money on they will not be recovered.

Regards,

Hotblu

I think you are totally correct. This government is known for its covering up, and I think theres more to this than they are telling.

hotblu

Hello weymuffred,

I take it from my post you may have worked out I work for HMRC. Guess when they decided to tell me and my colleagues about the fiasco- 5pm this afternoon- that's after it had been made public knowledge and funnily enough after Paul "im going to jump ship and leave everyone in the sh*tter" Gray resigned. I think their is something alot more sinister to this (im going down the internal fraud route here), because I cant even go to the toilet for longer than 5 minutes without my manager wanting to know what im doing. How the bloody hell did a junior manage to copy all those files (not once, but twice)??? So many questions and not a single answer!

Hotblu

weymuffred

hotblu wrote: »

Hello weymuffred,

I take it from my post you may have worked out I work for HMRC. Guess when they decided to tell me and my colleagues about the fiasco- 5pm this afternoon- that's after it had been made public knowledge and funnily enough after Paul "im going to jump ship and leave everyone in the sh*tter" Gray resigned. I think their is something alot more sinister to this (im going down the internal fraud route here), because I cant even go to the toilet for longer than 5 minutes without my manager wanting to know what im doing. How the bloody hell did a junior manage to copy all those files (not once, but twice)??? So many questions and not a single answer!

Hotblu

What you are telling me doesnt really surprise me at all.
If you are involved with answering phonecalls, then I feel really sorry for you over the coming weeks.

dmg24

hotblu wrote: »

Hello dmg24,

I understand what your saying "just wait and see", but that's sort of my point, we could be waiting for months on end until it is realised that the information is in the wrong hands. It's not as if HMRC can just change everyones details. These disc's went missing on 8th October 2007, I for one put my money on they will not be recovered.

Regards,

Hotblu

This has happened before, at least twice, and no fraud was committed as a result of the losses on either occasion.

The likelihood is that the discs have been mislaid somewhere in the postal/ courier system. If they are mislaid, the chances of a fraudster getting their hands on them is incredibly low (if those that should know where they are cannot find them, how are the criminals going to know?!).

Yes, there is a small possibility that they will get into the wrong hands. There is also a possibility that you will use your card in a restaurant next week and the card will get copied whilst you are not looking.

People panicking is going to make the uninformed (who are often those with the least money) panic even more. This is not going to help anyone x

hotblu

I am normally on the Tax Credits Helpline (we will leave the debates about that till another day lol), like I said, we dont deal with Child Benefit and are honestly being told to read off an A4 peice of paper. Me and my colleagues asked our management how we can be expected to reassure people when we are not reassured, answer- your contract states you have to deal with calls from any business stream how HMRC tell you to, nice huh?

dmg24

hotblu wrote: »

Hello weymuffred,

I take it from my post you may have worked out I work for HMRC. Guess when they decided to tell me and my colleagues about the fiasco- 5pm this afternoon- that's after it had been made public knowledge and funnily enough after Paul "im going to jump ship and leave everyone in the sh*tter" Gray resigned. I think their is something alot more sinister to this (im going down the internal fraud route here), because I cant even go to the toilet for longer than 5 minutes without my manager wanting to know what im doing. How the bloody hell did a junior manage to copy all those files (not once, but twice)??? So many questions and not a single answer!

Hotblu

I agree about Paul Gray.

I get the impression that the primary reason for his resignation is something far away from this issue. If it was solely because of this he would have stuck it out for a few more days (to try and show some backbone!), and/ or found a more junior employee to use as a scapegoat.

weymuffred

hotblu wrote: »

I am normally on the Tax Credits Helpline (we will leave the debates about that till another day lol), like I said, we dont deal with Child Benefit and are honestly being told to read off an A4 peice of paper. Me and my colleagues asked our management how we can be expected to reassure people when we are not reassured, answer- your contract states you have to deal with calls from any business stream how HMRC tell you to, nice huh?

Again what your telling me comes as no surprise.

dmg24

hotblu wrote: »

I am normally on the Tax Credits Helpline (we will leave the debates about that till another day lol), like I said, we dont deal with Child Benefit and are honestly being told to read off an A4 peice of paper. Me and my colleagues asked our management how we can be expected to reassure people when we are not reassured, answer- your contract states you have to deal with calls from any business stream how HMRC tell you to, nice huh?

I honestly think that the best solution is to put a recorded message on the line. There is nothing that anyone can do, and it is wasting your time and the callers money in making the call.

hotblu

dmg24 wrote: »

This has happened before, at least twice, and no fraud was committed as a result of the losses on either occasion.

The likelihood is that the discs have been mislaid somewhere in the postal/ courier system. If they are mislaid, the chances of a fraudster getting their hands on them is incredibly low (if those that should know where they are cannot find them, how are the criminals going to know?!).

Yes, there is a small possibility that they will get into the wrong hands. There is also a possibility that you will use your card in a restaurant next week and the card will get copied whilst you are not looking.

People panicking is going to make the uninformed (who are often those with the least money) panic even more. This is not going to help anyone x

Hello dmg24,

As I said, understand where your coming from and guess your right, just wait and see. But, if it was as simple as the discs are in a postal room (mislaid) etc I belive they would have been recovered by now. HMRC have gone as far as searching DWP offices (when it's got nothing to do with them). Because I work for them and sometimes get a better understanding (not in this case) of what's going on I am very worried as I have no trust in HMRC. I agree we shouldn't panic, but a little easier said than done, after all this is the largest scale data protection breach in UK history- don't really think much you can compare past breaches and outcomes to this one.

Hotblu