EDITORIAL: Hell hath no fury like the hubby of bankrupt wife

I had an amazing insight last week into how a simple blunder could have far-reaching ramifications.
Sitting peacefully at my desk one afternoon, I received a phone call from my bank to inform me that all the accounts and credit cards held by my wife and I had been frozen due to the fact that my wife had just been declared bankrupt.
Yes, BANKRUPT!
Well, I can tell you, that little piece of news made me sit up and take notice.
I was torn between two thoughts _ what idiot has made this happen and a lesser theory that my wife led a secret second life.
I was to later discover that idiocy was the better explanation.
With my bank on the phone, I tried to discover as much as I could about the hows and whys of my wife's sudden fall from financial grace.
I was told that the bank had received a letter from the Insolvency and Trustee Service, which is an arm of the Ministry of Economic Development.
This letter, of which I now have a copy, boldly declared that my wife had been declared bankrupt and she had a share of a house in Tauranga, otherwise known as my family's home.
The bank told me that under the law they had to immediately freeze the accounts of a declared bankrupt and had to take subsequent guidance from the Insolvency and Trustee Service.
My next move was to ever-so-politely inquire as to the name and phone number of the moron who made this happen.
Now this moron, or hard-working government employee depending on your state of mind, informed me that a woman of the same name of my wife (first, middle and surname) had informed the office from London that she was declared bankrupt.
As she was formerly of Auckland, the Insolvency and Trustee Service was trying to identify assets she may have held in New Zealand.
Somehow, and they won't tell me how, they found my wife and seeing the same name, acted.
It is fair to say I got a little wild with this idiot in Auckland.
I asked her if she made any checks as to the identity of the bankrupt woman.
Was any check made on the date of birth?
What about last-known address?
The answer to both was no.
When I told her my wife's date of birth she conceded she may have made a mistake but then turned around and blamed the bank for freezing our accounts.
Within an hour another letter was faxed to our bank informing them that my wife wasn't truly a bankrupt and they could unfreeze our accounts.
The following day I was free to get money from our joint accounts and use the credit card held in our joint names.
I wasn't prepared to let these turkeys from the Insolvency and Trustee Service get away quite so lightly so I went up the chain until I found someone who would concede what they had done was incredibly sloppy for a government agency.
But all I got was ducking and weaving and a slight concession that their original letter was worded a little strongly.
Once again, though, the bank was blamed for its actions. What really got my blood boiling through all this is that no one ever bothered to make the simplest check on the identity of this person.
No one even bothered to check the date of birth.
All my wife had in common with this person was her name and for that she was declared bankrupt.
At the end of the exercise I can't say I was left with complete confidence in public servants, who wield enormous financial power at the stroke of a pen.
I managed to extract my wife from this financial mire but I have to wonder how many other innocents are dragged into rubbish like this due to sloppy practices at the Insolvency and Trustee Service?
I just hope the next time they declare someone in this country bankrupt and jeopardise their financial record and threaten their mortgage, they make a few simple checks first.
Is that too much to ask?