Aviva in dock for mailing blunder

aviva 2Bosses at Aviva Insurance have been left red-faced after sending a direct mail campaign offering health insurance to a woman who died a decade ago, even though it knew she was dead.
To make matters worse, the two mailshots from Aviva were both addressed to June Davies “deseased” (sic). Her husband John, from Torquay, complained about the first letter, but a few months later Aviva sent a second.
Davies, whose wife passed away ten years ago from cancer, said: “I got the letters advertising health insurance. They had even spelled deceased wrong. I was apoplectic. It was traumatic.”
Aviva said in a statement: “We are very sorry for the distress caused to Mr Davies by our error. We have completed an immediate review into why this occurred and have put in place new measures within our marketing department to prevent this type of error happening again. Mr Davies has accepted our apology and the outcome of our investigation into his complaint.”
One industry source said: “This is basic data management stuff and not just embarrassing for Aviva, it puts the whole industry in the dock. They should have had systems in place for decades, it’s shameful.”
Last month, Tesco was forced to grovel to a Hertfordshire widow whose dead husband had been receiving letters from the retailer’s home phone service for over four years, chasing up payment. And, earlier this year, Virgin Media was slammed after a broadband bill sent to a deceased man – including a £10 fine for late payment – went viral on Facebook, being shared by more than 100,000 people.

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4 Comments on "Aviva in dock for mailing blunder"

  1. Oh Aviva, sending health insurance #directmail to someone who’s been dead ten years? http://t.co/WRAaCM8M8T #directmarketing #datamarketing

  2. RT @JoDatabubble: How not to do DM send letters to June Davies “deseased” http://t.co/ATDr1WQuiu for CLEAN ACCURATE DATA visit http://t.co/…

  3. Aviva in dock for mailing blunder http://t.co/n3D60dTiVc #dataquality #datacleansing

  4. Let our sister company @My_Data_Bureau help abound image damage such as this http://t.co/PnUmkiZgZl

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