As each day passes I grow more and more annoyed with the New Zealand ‘News’ media on account of their incredibly sloppy reporting. A recent ‘News’ item though annoyed me for another reason:
Last week the IRD popped [Davies] refund and all his private details in the post. But instead of sending it to Davies, they sent it to Nelson woman Hope Bibby by mistake.
Bibby is a complete stranger to Davies, so she called ONE News to investigate.
“I rang you guys straight away because I just think that it happens too often and they don’t get accountable for their mistakes,” says Bibby.
So ONE News went to the IRD for an explanation. It turned out that such a big breach of privacy started with one small mistake. Someone at IRD had stuffed Davies’ letter in the wrong envelope.
[Via : Victim of IRD mistake demands answers | NATIONAL News.]
This was the part that really got my goat: Bibby is a complete stranger to Davies, so she called ONE News to investigate.
Where’s the honest response?
What on earth was she thinking? Surely the correct response is to immediately call the organisation that sent the letter — the IRD — and tell them of the mistake. But no! Bibby called the Media as her first move, and went on to make the assertion that it happens too often
. What does? How often? How does she know that it happens too often
, whatever ‘it’ may be?
I’d say this is someone who wants her 15 minutes of fame, or notoriety, and ONE News gave it to her. In their article they don’t follow up on any of Bibby’s wild assertions, or for that matter on Davies’ wild assertions.
A waste of time and money
Now the IRD is going to waste our taxpayers money on some investigation and probably haul the ‘offending’ worker over the coals.
It’s not good that someone’s private details were sent by accident to another party. It shouldn’t happen. But it did.
I’ve made stupid mistakes before now, and I challenge anyone who has never made a mistake to come forward.
I don’t know how this one single letter came to be in the wrong envelope but I can easily imagine. I’ve had those days at work where I have a headache, or I’m tired, or some nutcase just yelled at me for no good reason, or the phone rang in the middle of my task. I’ve sent an email too soon, or forgotten an attachment, or invoiced the wrong person, or put the wrong letter in the wrong envelope.
Who hasn’t? It doesn’t mean there should be some investigation.
I call foul on Bibby for doing the wrong thing, and on ONE News for ‘reporting’ it at all, and for reporting it without further investigation.
KnowIT by RSS
I had a similar experience a few years ago. A strange who lived a few blocks away phoned to tell me he’d received my tax assessment folded behind his own. He was kind enough to deliver mine to me. I wrote to the IRD to query how this had happened and they phoned to apologise. It didn’t occur to me to contaqct the media.
I’d say an even 50/50 split between Bibby and ONE News. Not unlike yesterday’s three-way culpability split between the National Bank, the Police and the New Zealand Herald over the ‘ATM measurer’ contractor who was ‘outed’ as a potential ram-raid thief by the publishing of CCTV footage of him working on the bank’s behalf.
Ruth: of course you didn’t think to contact the media. It’s not a reasonable response. Your action was quite reasonable, as was that of the stranger who passed your letter on to you.
What on earth is going on in our society that a] we expect a 100% (or higher) accuracy and perfection rate; b] we seem to be losing concepts of compassion and forgiveness; c] the so-called News media will grasp at any straw and publish any old ‘story’ without good reason?
And there (item b) is my wild assertion of the day. Maybe this incorrect letter thing has happened hundreds of times before and 99.99% of the incorrect recipients have just handled things quietly and discreetly, as I would expect they should.
Buzz: I bet the bank were red-faced over that one. I imagine that was yet another honest mistake. Amusing for those not involved though.
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