BANK officials have apologised for sending highly personal details of two other account holders to a potential customer.

Cindy Edwards, of Bryn Offa, Wrexham, has spent the past month trying to set up an account with NatWest for the new sports and social club at the firm where she works on Wrexham Industrial Estate.

She was appalled to see an envelope sent to her by the bank’s Wrexham town centre branch, containing documents for her to sign, also contained personal details relating to two existing customers. She says these included their full names, addresses, dates of birth and mobile phone numbers.

There were also council tax statements and other papers relating to their housing circumstances.

Mrs Edwards said: “We have been trying to set up the new account for the club for the past four weeks.

“I received the envelope through the post at work and there were all kinds of documents in there – some of a highly personal nature.

“I thought I’d better get in touch with the people concerned, who both live in the local area, and tell them what had happened.”

Mrs Edwards added: “The first one I rang, an elderly man, was very distressed when I told him, so I didn’t ring the other person. You hear so much these days about people’s identities being stolen and what I had was a full set of details for anyone who wanted to steal them.

“I sent all the stuff back to the bank immediately.”

A spokesman for the bank said: “NatWest takes the issue of customer privacy and data protection very seriously and has strict procedures in place to ensure the security of customer information at all times.

“This is an isolated incident due to human error, which we very much regret.

“As soon as we were made aware if it, we took action to contact those involved, retrieve the documents and ensure staff training is addressed as priority.”