Member Record Consistant Updating Failures

I know it's inevitable that in a mortal world, things will go wrong. Data will be entered incorrectly, updated in error, will be doubled or deleted by accident. I get that, and I am amazed at how many amazing and wonderful things we are collectively blessed to see/enjoy/experience.

So I am not complaining about updates to the LCR format, or the persistent necessity to manually update our cell phone Application, or the repetitive requirement that we acknowledge the Church WiFi standard every. Single. Time. we walk into an Church building. Any Church building.

This problem is very specifically about inaccurate, false, erroneous, angering, offensive, or infuriating updates that are happening to Membership records. Not quite once a month, but more than once this year.

We have had membership records come into our Unit that are in error occasionally over the years. A previously address-unknown member somehow was located and sent along, but when we go to the address indicated in the records, they aren't there. Or the address doesn't exist at all. Or the member in question lived there seven years ago and is now gone. Worst one ever was a member who had lived there, but was now in jail for abusive behavior against the people who answered the door when we called.

Recently, we've had some truly weird and frustrating updates come through that have only been discovered when the member themselves noticed it and brought it to my attention.

Like I noted above, we've had people that used to be here, that WE moved out to a new address, their records are then sent back in to the address they USED to inhabit, so we've had to move them out. Again. Not that.

This time, a married couple had their records changed. The wife's record was updated with a completely different husband. A non-member. And with two additional children. At her current address. So to correct, first I had to remove the new non-husband. Then I had to delete the two non-children. Then I had to recombine the wife and husband, which means I had to interview them to get the date of their wedding?

What on earth leads to THAT?!?!?! And to whom can I bring my complaint, or from whom can I ask for an explanation of what on earth database update or management practice led to this Sister's records being so weirdly and offensively changed?

I've never heard of anything like that happening. I'd contact the global service department and see if they can see a log of what changes were made and by whom. I don't know how detailed a history the church maintains but there is at least some history that we can't see as clerks.

The Global Services Department can look at the history of changes to a membership record and see where the changes came from.

landbeck wrote:This time, a married couple had their records changed. The wife's record was updated with a completely different husband. A non-member. And with two additional children. At her current address. So to correct, first I had to remove the new non-husband. Then I had to delete the two non-children. Then I had to recombine the wife and husband, which means I had to interview them to get the date of their wedding?

Yes, I'd contact global services to see what happened.

I suspect there's a team at church headquarters that tries to locale the members of "address unknown". The rest of your problems all sound like issues with their work using public records. I'd suggest the best route there is to have the stake president take the issue up with his coordinating council. The story about inquiring about the location of an abuser might carry some weight.