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?
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  • identicon
    Ed Halley, 23 Jun 2003 @ 10:33am

    No Subject Given

    I feel for the delivery person who is getting suspended or fired because a parcel was misfiled, but what really scares me is that the USPS seized from a customer a product which had already been paid for and delivered.

    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 chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mick, 23 Jun 2003 @ 10:34am

    No Subject Given

    They should be more worried about the fact that the entire book was available for download on some P2P systems days before the release.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Aaron Anderson, 23 Jun 2003 @ 12:25pm

      P2P copies of the book

      Those were not real copies of the book. There are at least 3 forgeries that originated in China. The real thing was under tight lock and key.

      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 chronology ]


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