Going Postal Over Premature Harry Potter Deliveries
from the people-are-nuts dept
theodp writes "Officials from Amazon.com and the Postal Service worked desperately trying to solve a mystery--at least 4 out of 700,000+ copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" were delivered a day early, despite a USPS awareness program that included mug shots of Amazon's Harry Potter packaging. "This is a big deal," said an Amazon exec, noting that Amazon worked with the Postmaster General to ensure the secure delivery of the book. The Postmaster for South Bend, In., where two early releases landed, said the mistake was "going to get someone in trouble." Amazon declined to pinpoint the locations of the other early releases, but a Kansas City, Mo., mail carrier protested that USPS bosses had trouble separating fact from fiction when they fired her for delivering a single copy of the Potter book a day too soon. The Post Office, who tracked down the recipient and reclaimed the book, said they've only only suspended the mail carrier for now, and there's a good chance the error may not lead to her firing." I heard from someone who said on Saturday morning the FedEx guy was running from door to door just dropping off the books. Some people are a little too obsessed with this, I think. Is it really such a big deal that a few books were delivered a day early?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
If the USPS said "we know it's got your name on it, and you paid for it, and Amazon gave it to us to deliver it to you, but we want you to surrender it," I'd tell them they should twist in the wind.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
P2P copies of the book
Seriously though, who cares? I've read the first four books, right about when the first movie came out, just to see what it was all about. They're good, I guess, but nothing to get worked up about.
These people need to go outside and see if they can figure out what that big fireball in the sky is.
[ link to this | view in thread ]