VEREENIGING. – A simple data capturing error has resulted in a local man receiving thousands of letters in the mail, none of which were addressed to him. Since October 2009, Mr Koos Rall (75), a pensioner, has received up to 60 letters from Liberty Life on a weekly basis.
ΓÇ£Why do they send these letters to us?ΓÇ¥ asked Rall, who is not a client of Liberty Life. ΓÇ£When I go to pick up the newspaper in the morning it lies on the ground because my post-box is filled with these letters.ΓÇ¥ According to Rall, the letters are addressed to different people, but they all have his address.
He alleged that the call centre operators did little to help him when he tried to bring this matter to their attention. He claimed he has spent over R200 on phone calls to Liberty Life. ΓÇ£I have now given up and just take the letters to the post office in Arconpark.
ΓÇ£All the letters are for people who are behind on their payments. It looks like a scam to me,ΓÇ¥ added Rall.
ΓÇ£This is certainly not a scam of any sort,ΓÇ¥ said Lindi Dlamini from Liberty LifeΓÇÖs Group Executive Retail Operations. ΓÇ£We have found that there was a data capturing error on one policy in October 2009 where an incorrect address for the bank was captured. This led the letters to be sent to the incorrect address.ΓÇ¥
Dlamini explained that the letters were not addressed to different people, but to a bank, which holds cession on client policies.
When asked whether incidents of this nature may make Liberty LifeΓÇÖs clients susceptible to fraud, Dlamini said: ΓÇ£Although the letters contain minimal client data, and as such pose negligible risk of fraud, we take any potential breach of client confidentiality very seriously. All our controls are being re-tested and new checks implemented to ensure that is does not reoccur.ΓÇ¥
She mentioned that they will investigate RallΓÇÖs claims regarding the companyΓÇÖs call centre.
“We apologise for the inconvenience experienced by the family and assure that the error has now been corrected and no further correspondence will be generated to this address.” 
News source: Mooivaal Media – Vaalweekblad