Husband and wife furious after they were contacted and told the other was DEAD

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A husband and wife were left baffled when both were contacted - and told the other had been declared DEAD. Ben Gibson, 63, says he was stunned to be told his wife Gill, 65, was dead when he called her bank about a card problem.

And Ben then returned home later that month to find Gill looking at letters of condolence - for his own death. Halifax, the couple's bank, has launched a probe and as yet are unable to say how the error occurred.

But caterer Ben, from Stratford-upon-Avon, says he is angry as he has had to waste time sorting out the problem. He said: "The guy on the phone said, 'Excuse me sir but your wife has deceased'. I said, 'No she’s in the front room - do you want to speak to her?'.

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"I'm furious about it. I dread to think how much time I've spent on this - hours and hours. It has been an absolute nightmare. We've had to rebuild our entire financial life and that's not easy. It's been a constant worry. It's horrible, and it's been going on for a long time."

Gill, a teaching assistant, went to the bank on August 15 to replace her card after it didn't work when she was shopping. Ben's own card also stopped working just a week later, he says, so he ordered a replacement.

But, while his arrived after a few days, Gill's still hadn't appeared. Ben then called the bank, with whom they have been with for decades, on September 1 - to be told his wife had passed away.

Despite staff chatting with Gill and agreeing she was alive, the account remained frozen and the grandparents-of-four had to go through the bereavement team before they could get any of their money. More problems then followed when Ben returned home to find