From 1993...
"
The National Westminster Bank in England admitted last month that it keeps personal information about its customers — such as their political affiliation — on computer. But now Computer Weekly reveals that a financial institution, sadly unnamed, has gone one better and moved into the realm of personal abuse.
The institution decided to mass-mail 2000 of its richest customers, inviting them to buy extra services. One of its computer programmers wrote a program to search through the databases and select its customers automatically. He tested the program with an imaginary customer called Rich cough.
Unfortunately, an error resulted in all 2000 letters being addressed "Dear Rich cough". The luckless programmer was subsequently fired."