Japan Pension Service on Oct. 6 announced that it had mistakenly sent out postcards containing the pension records of different individuals to a total of 972,023 residents in 45 municipalities in Aichi, Mie and Fukuoka prefectures.

       The blunder is believed to have occurred due to misprints by a contractor in Gifu Prefecture. There have been no reports that any of the postcards' pension payment information has been misused, according to the Tokyo-based special public corporation.

       Japan Pension Service says it will pay the correct amounts when it transfers pension payments scheduled for Oct. 15. The corporation has set up a special toll-free hotline on 0120-002-730, and will accept inquiries from Oct. 7 to 29. The hotline is open from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday, and from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the second Saturday of the month.

       Yuko Ishikura, a director in charge of the pension benefits department at Japan Pension Service, explains about the wrong delivery of pension transfer notifications, in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Oct. 6, 2021. (Mainichi/Shunsuke Kamiashi)

       According to the corporation, pension transfer notifications are normally sent out when the recipients' pension amounts change. If the recipients of the wrongly addressed notifications opened the crimped postcards, they would have been able to see someone else's basic pension number, the name of the financial institution and the branch for the pension transfer, as well as the pension sums from October 2021 through April 2022, among other records. Because the notifications didn't include personal names, however, the recipients of the postcards apparently would not have been able to determine whose personal information it was.

       The notifications were printed by Sun Messe Co. based in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, and were sent out on Oct. 4 and 5. The company says it separately printed the front side bearing postal addresses and the back side containing pension transfer details, but failed to check if the front and back sides matched before mailing them out. The mix-up came to light after the company's call center received an inquiry on Oct. 6.

       At a press conference on the evening of Oct. 6, Yuko Ishikura, director in charge of Japan Pension Service's pension benefits department, said, "We deeply apologize for causing trouble. We'll investigate the case thoroughly and strive to prevent a recurrence."

       Apart from Sun Messe, Japan Pension Service outsources the printing of its pension payment notifications to eight other companies. The corporation said there were no other reports of similar mishaps.

       (Japanese original by Hidenori Yazawa and Natsuko Ishida, Lifestyle and Medical News Department)

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