MI££IONS

According to an email I found in my spam folder the other day, a mysterious benefactor who dabbled in helicopters and engineering was so impressed when he met me once whilst he travelled the world, that he left me $30,000,000.00 in his Will.

He didn't, he hasn't, and, to be honest, I don't think that he even exists.

So why, you might ask, was I opening such an obviously phishy email…?

Well, the subject line mentioned it was in reference to a Will, and the sender was a barrister, so, despite the fact that it smelt particularly phishy, it had to at least be read just in case it was actually a letter which had some relevance to dealing with mum's Estate.

Hopefully, because I didn't venture any further than to actually read it, you won't have been bombarded by various bizarre emails thanks to some kind of hacking scam, but, if you did, then I can only apologise.

I have, however, become increasingly twitchy whenever I get home and find that I have mail, or when I go to open my email because, to the general dismay of everyone concerned (because this is just eating up my entire existence these days), I genuinely dread what the mail will bring.

Today I got an email from the solicitor whom I have already paid for the administration of the Estate and giving me the dubious honour of becoming the Executor. It didn't really explain much, other than there had been a letter from the DWP to which they had already replied, but to which they had now replied again.

Interestingly, I'd never been sent the original letter myself, so I was totally in the dark about what all this "Debt Recovery" mentioned was referring to, and the email left me none the wiser.

The email didn't really explain what it was about and, to be honest, neither did the attachment.

I was halfway through replying to the solicitor when I thought "What the heck" and decided to cut out the middle-person and ring the number on the attachment itself.

They were very charming, of course, but the basic thrust of it is that they implied quite clearly that it was entirely possible that my mother was defrauding the pension credit system and they'd like to have all of that public money back please, although this is a general process and it's everyone who has to go through it and we weren't just being singled out honest injun, Guv…

So now I have to ring them back with exact details of what the balance was in each of my mother's various savings accounts, etc...

Now, because I was at work, I didn't actually have all of the details of my mother's now closed bank accounts handy, so I told them that I'd have to call them back once I had dug out the details...

Not their fault, I know that they're only doing their jobs, but…

It all seems so ruddy invasive…

You do find yourself asking "Is it just me…? Does nobody else have to put up with this kind of ballcocks…?"

And you can guarantee that because I have to inform the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (although presumably not personally), whatever they decide that they are going to want paying back probably wouldn't even cover the most basic of Duck Houses for one or other of his former colleagues.

As far as I'm aware, I've never tried to defraud anybody of anything and, for that matter, neither did my mother. She may have applied for and been granted a pension credit or two, but presumably someone looked into it before deciding to hand it over…

And it's not as if I'm not prepared to pay it back, (assuming that we can afford to…) but the whole thing is just yet another of those unexpected pieces of massive irritation which seem to have occurred throughout the whole wretched purpose, and, as I've already mentioned, make me dread the next thing turning up, whatever it may be...