A Hereford woman is being plagued by enquiries to social services after her number was given out by mistake.

Teresa Minton has been receiving calls from the public to her ex-directory number for the past two years, but says the situation has got worse in recent weeks since she had an answering service installed.

"I now get people leaving confidential messages about their problems that I shouldn't be hearing," she said.

"Not only is at a nuisance but I worry that the callers problems are not being dealt with because they are coming to me and not social services."

In contact

Mark Warren, Herefordshire Council's customer service and development manager, acknowledged the mistake, but said attempts had been made to rectify the situation.

"Herefordshire Council would firstly like to apologise to Mrs Minton for any distress and inconvenience this matter has caused her," he said.

"Back in July Mrs Minton made the council aware that her private telephone number was inadvertently being used by council staff and as a result she was receiving incorrect calls.

"At the time the council accepted responsibility and offered to compensate Mrs Minton and to change her telephone number, which she declined.

"The problem arose when telephone numbers were being changed following local government reorganisation and the introduction of a common telephone number using the prefix 26.

"This matter appears to have re-surfaced and once again Mrs Minton is receiving incorrect calls. Herefordshire Council would like to repeat its offer to change Mrs Minton's number and will ensure that her telephone number is not being used incorrectly by employees.

"We are contacting Mrs Minton and are trying to resolve this issue to her satisfaction."