BT customers in an Ipswich street have been left confused and worried after receiving each other's phone bills. Angela Smith, of Heatherhayes, contacted the Evening Star to tell them about the mix-up.

BT customers in an Ipswich street have been left confused and worried after receiving each other's phone bills.

Angela Smith, of Heatherhayes, contacted the Evening Star to tell them about the mix-up.

She received her bill on Thursday and noticed that the back pages did not belong to her. She said: "The summary page at the front was mine, so the amount wasn't wrong, but when I flicked through it I noticed that most of the calls didn't belong to me."

Mrs Smith, 33, claims she was not worried about it first as she assumed it was a one-off mix-up.

It was only when she received a call from BT that she began to worry: "I'd planned to call them in the morning and let them know but I got a call from them that night telling me that I wasn't the only one this had happened to.

"Apparently lots of other people in the street had received bits of each other's bills. I can't believe they can let this kind of thing happen. The pages have my telephone number and account number on them. Anyone could access my account online and order all sorts of services.

"It must be a breach of data protection."

A spokesman for BT admitted they had a problem with customers in Heatherhayes.

"The error was uncovered by BT in time to prevent the issue of invoices to many of the customers affected. Unfortunately some bills had already been sent for despatch by post.

"BT immediately tried to contact those customers to explain the situation. We have contacted most of those affected and we are continuing to try to get in touch with all the others," he said.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and we are investigating the circumstances of the error to ensure that it is not repeated.

All customers are being issued with new, corrected, invoices."