Mistaken identity: Egged accidentally freezes woman's bank account

A women’s bank account was accidentally frozen by Egged last year in a case of mistaken identity, Israel Hayom reported on Monday.

On the night of Sukkot, Lucia Sapir, who was eight months pregnant, got a notification from her bank that her account was going to be frozen, the request being made by the Egged bus company.

“I decided to open an account on the government’s online portal, where I found a report from Egged, citing an incident on Line 88 in Jerusalem. Initially, the fine was NIS 100, but with added late fees, it had reached NIS 384.” Sapir said. 

She realized the charges couldn’t have been hers because she hadn’t been in Jerusalem at the time, instead at her job in Afula. 

Lost Rav-Kav

She recalls losing the Rav-Kav card over six years ago and reporting it to Egged but she had never received any updates.

She and her husband later discovered that letters had been sent to an address in Jerusalem that they’d never lived in, and that Egged must've mistaken her for someone else.

Sapir said they got an official record from the Population and Immigration Authority that showed that wasn’t their address. But despite this, they kept hitting dead ends trying to get in contact with Egged.

Sapir and her husband submitted a request form through the government’s online portal, after that they had to wait 45 days until their cased could be reviewed.

In a statement, the Transportation Ministry said it had looked into Lucia Sapir’s case with Egged and determined that an error led to a misidentification in her ID number, which prompted the report against her. 

Following this review, Egged canceled the report. The National Public Transport Authority said they are currently working with service providers to prevent similar incidents in the future.