Iain Maciver writes …

A pensioner claims government anti-fraud sleuths have blundered
and wrongfully branded her a benefit cheat.

Widow Joyce Murray says she was left traumatised when she got
a warning letter from her housing benefit office with details of a secret
bank account which, it was claimed, she had failed to disclose to them.

The recently-retired nurse denies any wrongdoing and says she has done
her own investigation and discovered that the account actually belongs
to someone else with the same surname.

Mrs Murray, who is 60, lives at Airidhantuim on the west of the Isle of Lewis. She is a well-known Gaelic singer who has triumphed in two of the top competitions at the Royal National Mod. She won the Traditional Medal in 1991 and the Gold Medal in 1999.

The letter to her, from the benefit office at Western Isles Council, said they had been informed she held a savings accounts with the Alliance and Leicester which she had not told them about.

“This information has come to us via a government-run matching service, which
matches data held by many official bodies against the data held by the Local Authority Benefits section for the purpose of detecting anomalies in claims,” it said. The letter even gave the account number in question.

She was horrified when she read the letter, she said, because not only
did they suggest that she had given a false statement but the benefits
office had also sent her someone else’s bank details.

“That is how sure they were that I was a crook. It is a lie. I have
never had an account with the Alliance and Leicester,” said Mrs Murray,
emphatically.

“The Alliance and Leicester staff in Inverness have now told me this
’secret’ account is not even in my name. They said it is in the name
of someone else also called Murray but with a different first name. The
benefits people have blundered.”

Western Isles Council insisted it could not comment on individual cases.
However, it is understood that an investigation into why that letter was
sent to Mrs Murray has already begun.

Its spokesman would only say: “In instances like this the council has a
statutory duty to act on information supplied by the Housing Benefits
Matching Service. Your questions should therefore be referred to that
agency.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of Work and Pensions in Edinburgh,
which runs the matching service which supplied the bank details to the
council, said they were also looking into whether an error had been made
in the information they had given to the council.

Their spokeswoman promised: “We will look into this matter straightaway.
We will apologise if an error has been made and we will be in touch with
Mrs Murray very soon.”

Alliance and Leicester will not discuss individual customers’ financial
affairs.

Joyce Murray is still far from satisfied. She said: “I thought the Data
Protection Act was supposed to safeguard us from our having our bank
details passed around in this way. I feel sorry for the woman whose bank
details the council sent me as proof of my so-called false claim.

“This has caused great distress to me and my family. I do want an
apology and explanation of what they are doing to prevent this happening
to someone else. Otherwise, I will consider taking it further. I am
still traumatised and very angry.”