Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 3, 1993 TAG: 9307030284
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FRANCONIA LENGTH: Medium
When it finally arrived last week at a Pennsylvania lawn and garden supply company, a clerk who didn't notice the date called Hoffman to tell him to send more money. The price of the compost tumbler he had ordered had gone up nearly $50.
The problem was the Fairfax County resident couldn't remember ordering a compost tumbler. In addition, the check was written on a bank that has gone out of business. It took a minute for Hoffman and the clerk to realize that the check had been mailed on June 16, 1988, and was delivered on June 24, 1993.
Hoffman says he tried asking local postal workers as to what might have happened. When he got no satisfaction at that level, he says he called the postmaster general's office.
A "cordial young man" there offered several explanations, including the following:
The letter was overlooked in the bottom of a sack.
It was accidentally sent to storage.
It got lost during construction.
Postal Service spokesman Frank Brennan apologized for the error. But he said losing one of 550 million pieces of mail being handled each day isn't so bad, even if it did take five years to find it again.
"I always say to people, `When was the last time you didn't get a bill?' Sure we make mistakes, but the mistakes are so few and far between that they become newsworthy," Brennan said.
Todd Sweet, director of sales for the Kemp Co., the Lititz, Pa., garden supply firm said, no one could remember an order coming in five years late. "It was the hubbub of the day around here," Sweet said.
Hoffman said that when he didn't receive the $320 compost tumbler, he contacted Kemp, which had no record of an order being placed. He said he sent a second check, which arrived, and the tumbler was shipped in normal time.
by CNB