Letters you shouldn't send to 1 year olds

[Victoria J]

This is my sighting of a sucky government. Truly it makes me embarrassed at the idea that people staying in this country are treated in this way by the government representing me.

In my job I spend plenty of time dealing with the public, and therefore encounter some sucky customers along the way, but also assist our customers to deal with sucky bureaucracy and companies as they encounter it.

I would like to start by making clear that this isn't political. This isn't a law I don't like. This was a mixture of insane bureaucracy that 2 seconds thought would have stopped, and a government department that was not acting according to the law.

Yesterday I saw a women who had been somewhat suprised when she received a very official looking letter addressed to Miss XXX who happens to be my customer's one year old daughter.

She opened this letter and read it. As the baby wasn't really able to do this.

The letter said that the baby had 28 days to leave the UK and would face prosecution if it didn't.



The baby has every right to be in the UK. Explanation you can skip ---->
These rights come direct from European treaties our government chose to sign (the same treaties that mean I have the right to live and work in any country in the European Economic Area, if only I actually had any ability with language), and having signed they have very little further say in this matter. The letter stated that the baby had no status because sufficient ID wasn't given (because, er, the baby can't get a passport until the UK government return the mother's papers to her) - but the application is only for a little piece of paper confirming the rights. The rights exist anyway.

Grrrrr.

Before being married to a worker from Europe the mother came from a country from which she made a claim as a refugee, and a country I am certainly thankful I have never had to live in (as my only association to the name of this country is war). She was frantic.

You do not send form letters to small children, you send them to the parent who made a claim.

You do not send form letters that completely misrepresent the law. Seriously, the lettermay actually be breaking European law !

I want to go and hit people at the Border Agency with planks. Possibly planks with nails in.

I won't.

Liverpool is too far away...particularly holding a plank.

Victoria J.

[AriRashkae]

The sad part is that likely it was computer generated and auto-mailed, so no person even saw the letter long enough to give it 2 seconds thought.

[TelephoneAngel]

In the local paper recently somebody had received a letter from a government agency advising them what to do now about their social security payments now they were deceased.

the person did not realise they were deceased untill they read the letter.

[Victoria J]

The sad part is that likely it was computer generated and auto-mailed, so no person even saw the letter long enough to give it 2 seconds thought.

Yup, but (a) the child was included on a form as a dependant child which would suggest they weren't acting for themselves, and their date of birth was included with this, and (b) the form letter in question would NEVER be correct as it misrepresents the law.

It's stupid piled on stupid.

Mind you the local Job Centre (for unemployment benefits etc.) actually say openly they send out letters that make no sense. The computer generates a computerised letter, someone reads it and thinks , they send it to a member of a public in case....

Actually I was never clear why. In case it makes sense afterwards ? So no one can say they aren't keeping people informed ?

In the local paper recently somebody had received a letter from a government agency advising them what to do now about their social security payments now they were deceased.

the person did not realise they were deceased untill they read the letter.

When my grandmother died we returned one letter to a company marking it DECEASED. They wrote back to Mrs Her Name (Deceased).

Which made us laugh rather than get offended, but also made us despair a bit.

Victoria J

[Dreamstalker]

I got a letter from the IRS when I was barely a year old, claiming that I was to go to jail because I hadn't paid taxes for X years O_o

When my grandmother died we returned one letter to a company marking it DECEASED. They wrote back to Mrs Her Name (Deceased).

The work that I do for a small local nonprofit sometimes includes fixing the database (mail that gets returned for whatever reason, other errors I find, etc).

Every so often someone sends a disc with the entire database on it to the USPS to get vetted....it's usually not found out until a later job goes to print that a couple addresses that should have been deleted will have that format (or more rarely, "Deceased Street, # Deceased")

I guess the USPS does have a webform to fill out for deceased persons, but all that did is get us more junk mail in their names. Same with calling the companies directly, now that I think about it...

[Magpie]

The sad part is that likely it was computer generated and auto-mailed, so no person even saw the letter long enough to give it 2 seconds thought.

I think that was the source of the problem, rather than an exacerbating factor.