'I'm sorry sir, but you died last year'

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When John Jago phoned the social security office he felt as fit as a fiddle. It came as a surprise, therefore, when the woman at the end of the line told him he was dead.

"I'm sorry Sir, but we have got you down as dead," she said. "You died on 12 March last year."

Mr Jago, a healthy 52-year-old father of two, said: "I told her, 'Look, I'm alive, I'm talking to you. How on earth can I be dead?" It was not the first he had heard of his death. He had only called the social security office after his wife received a letter from his insurance company expressing their condolences and advising her to make a claim.

Mrs Jago called her husband at work at Stowe School, Bucks, to check he was alive and then phoned Sun Life who said social services had sent them a letter confirming the death.

She called the office in Newcastle to correct the mistake, but was also told: "I'm sorry, but your husband is dead."

After numerous calls, Mr Jago finally spoke to a sympathetic manager at his local social security office, and quickly received an apology.

Mr Jago said: "He told me there had been some confusion between me and a man in the North with a similar name."

 

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