The Post Office ignored repeated calls for help from a subpostmaster who experienced unexplained accounting shortfalls while using its ECCO software.
The system was used in Crown branches, which were larger branches owned and run by the Post Office, and in hundreds of sub-Post Office branches in the 1990s. The software had known flaws that may have caused losses users were later blamed for.
In a recent meeting with former subpostmaster Janette Armour, as part of its review of ECCO, the Post Office confirmed that it still holds copies of letters she sent in the early 1990s. In those letters, she described problems balancing her branch accounts while using the software. At the time, her branch in Scotland was losing hundreds of pounds each week.
Questions about ECCO were raised in October 2024 after wider scrutiny of the Post Office Horizon scandal and emerging concerns about the Capture system and its defects.
According to the National Federation of Subpostmasters, ECCO was used in Crown branches during the 1990s and was also used in hundreds of branches that were converted to sub-Post Offices.
At last week’s meeting with the Department for Business and Trade, the Post Office said it had kept Armour’s correspondence from the 1990s.
“I knew I wasn’t making a mistake. I knew there was something wrong,” Armour said.
Armour worked as a subpostmaster in Scotland. She began working in Crown branches in 1977, later moved to Post Office headquarters in Glasgow, and then bought a sub-Post Office branch near the city with her husband.
They were later asked if they would take over a Crown branch in East Kilbride, which they did in 1994. The branch had six counters and used ECCO.
Armour estimates that she and her husband personally covered at least £16,000 in shortfalls each year for two and a half years.
The financial losses eventually forced them to sell their smaller Post Office branch. After further losses, they also had to sell their Crown branch. On their final day at the branch, Armour was told that even Post Office staff knew ECCO had problems.
She said the software did not work properly from the day it was installed.
Calum Greenhow, chief executive of the National Federation of Subpostmasters, attended the meeting with Armour and said there was recognition that she had been harmed.
“They actually have evidence that Janette was writing to them, telling them that it was a problem,” he said.
A Post Office spokesperson said: “We are in contact with the Department for Business and Trade about ECCO/ECCO, and there is still very limited information, so it is important that any issues are raised so they can be properly reviewed. We encourage anyone who believes they may have been affected by accounting problems linked to ECCO/ECCO to come forward to the Department for Business and Trade, or, if they prefer, the NFSP.”
A government spokesperson said: “We are grateful to Mrs Armour for sharing her story and issues when using the ECCO system. We will continue to work with the Post Office and postmasters to understand the wider implications of ECCO and encourage anyone who had similar issues to come forward.”
Former Post Office worker and subpostmaster campaigner Rupert Lloyd Thomas said: “Sooner or later, both the Post Office and DBT are going to have to accept that ECCO was defective.”
Lloyd Thomas, along with Armour and Greenhow, will meet with the Department for Business and Trade and the Post Office to discuss ECCO further.
He said ECCO was “chronically unreliable” and described it as a “cheap and nasty system,” adding that he spent a lot of time trying to get it fixed during his 27 years at the Post Office.
There are still major gaps in the evidence, because most users – Crown branch employees between 1992 and 1999 – are not part of the National Federation of Subpostmasters, which has been trying to gather information.