Irish Water sunk by RIP mailshot

It seems it is not only British firms which are prone to highly embarrassing mailing gaffes after Irish Water was forced to grovel to a Wexford widow who received two letters addressed to her late husband, with the initials RIP next to his name.
Jessica Montague, whose husband died six years ago from a brain tumour, aged 36, posted the missive on her Facebook page, along with the comment: “This morning’s post. Two letters from IW addressed to my deceased husband. Nearly 6 years dead and you dare to put that on a letter. No, I will not be contacting you to clarify your error.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1, an Irish Water spokeswoman described the cock-up as “just unacceptable” adding, “I would like to apologise to this family and the upset caused.”
However, in statement Irish Water raised a few eyebrows by suggesting it was too busy to upate its customer file and it was Montague’s fault for not letting the company know.
The statement read: “We will be sending bills to 1.5 million customers over the coming eight weeks. It’s a significant task and we expect to face challenges where we have incomplete customer information, where customers have not yet registered or where customer information needs to be updated.
“We totally understand and apologise for upset caused by incorrect customer information and our contact centre staff are ready to accept customer registrations or to correct any data inaccuracies quickly so that information is correct for future billing cycles.”
In 2013, Aviva Insurance was forced to apologise to a widower after sending a direct mail campaign offering health insurance to his wife, who had died a decade before, and even though it knew she was dead. The two mailshots were both addressed to June Davies “deseased” (sic).
Meanwhile Tesco had to go down on bended knee 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 Virgin plumbed new depths after it sent a final demand to one customer, including a £63.89 late payment charge – which stated: “DD Denied – Payer deceased.”

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