The Anonymous Widower

How Not To Deal With Deceased Customers

Virgin Media is called over the coals in this article on the BBC web site, where they messed up over the account of someone who’d died.

When C died, I didn’t have anything similar although dealing with some organisations was more difficult than others. I actually had a letter published in The Times about it.

I was widowed last year, and it is only now that I’m starting to get my life together. The response of the various government and local authority departments in handling all the paperwork involved has been very patchy.
Registrars: excellent, very sympathetic and efficient; Work and Pensions: bereavement allowance came through with a few hiccups, but not too difficult; Premium Bonds: system worked but could have been better; council tax: this was reduced automatically on signing a form by St Edmundsbury — totally painless; DVLA: its online systems worked well; winter fuel payment: found difficult to claim and missed it for last year.
The private sector wasn’t that much better, with some companies having people whose sole job appeared to be to deal with bereavement faring much better than those that didn’t. Some wanted death certificates, some accepted faxed copies and others took my word.
We need a lot more joined-up thinking in this important area, as, with nearly a million deaths in the UK every year, it would surely help the bereavement process for those left behind if every company, organisation, government department and authority were automatically notified. After all, if St Edmundsbury can do it here in supposedly sleepy Suffolk, then surely everyone else can.

The best private company was undoubtedly Carphone Warehouse, who had a dedicated person dealing with the accounts of customers who’d died.  They even sent me a refund, which I spent on a good bottle of wine.

April 24, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Computing, World | Death, St. Edmundsbury, Virgin Media