Sack of mail found dumped in Blackburn

[Geezer]

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/ne ... Blackburn/

7:00pm Tuesday 29th September 2009

comment Comments (1) Have your say »


BANK details and credit card bills were amongst hundreds of letters found dumped in a bush in Blackburn.

Residents living in Whinfield Place, off Preston New Road in the Beardwood area made the discovery at 2pm on Sunday.

Inside a black bin liner was a red Royal Mail bag containing several bundles of letters for surrounding streets.

The police and Royal Mail were alerted to the find and a security van from the postal firm eventually picked up the bag at 8pm.

One man, who didn’t want to be named, helped his neighbour contact the authorities.

He said: “My neighbour knocked on my door and said ‘I’ve made a discovery’ and showed me the big bag of mail.

“I am absolutely disgusted. This is quite frightening and someone should lose their job over this.

“In that discarded bag of mail I saw my Barclaycard bill.

“I’m extremely annoyed. Is this the new Royal Mail standard of delivery?”

The resident said he has since made several calls to Royal Mail to find out what happened, but said he had not received an apology.

He claimed letters in the dumped bag were addressed to six or seven nearby roads including Copper Beeches, Scarr Lane and Meins Road.

“This is a big breach of security. If a these letters had got into the wrong hands, a couple of hundred people’s bank details would have been available.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “After being contacted by a member of the public we recovered a bag of mail in the BB2 postcode district of Blackburn on Sunday evening.

“All the items have now been delivered and an investigation is underway.

“We would like to thank the resident for bringing the incident to our attention and apologise for any inconvenience or distress caused to customers.”

He urged anyone with a concern to contact Royal Mail customer services on 08457 740 740.

[Lounge Lizard]

"in a bush" - is that the best they can do for a secure bag drop in Blackburn ?

[opgpat]

double lol, yeah sounds like an impromptu bag drop. Hey we are encouraged to use our initiative aren't we? The use of bushes may be something we've overlooked that could save the company millions! Hopefully if the guy gets sacked for it he can use the argument of not enough bag drops causing him to choose between endangering his health by taking overweight bags OR leaving a bag in what he thought would be an undiscoverable location. Actually, he was probablly told by a manger to do it.