Power company tells customer she is dead

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An Austrian woman has had to convince her electricity supplier that she is alive after the company wrote to her asking for information about her contract following her "passing away."

In a personally addressed letter, the Linz-based company said it had heard of her death through her bank, daily Oesterreich reported.

"I am not the dead one," 58-year-old Christine R. wrote back in a fax and email to the company, explaining that it was her neighbor who had died and she was the custodian. She eventually went to the customer center in person to prove her existence.

"It was an unfortunate mistake," a spokeswoman for the company said. "There was a muddle in the paperwork and the letters we automatically send out. It has been resolved now."

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