14 DAY TRIAL // The Meridian energy company has mistakenly sent a menacing cut-off letter to a lamp post, reports say. The company is one of the major operators on the energy market in New Zealand.
According to Stuff New Zealand, the mailman didn't know where to deliver the letter, which was sent to the address of the lamp pole.
It was dropped off in the mailbox of Clive Saleman, living at number 9 on Shearer Drive in Oakura.
The address written on the envelope was 771800Streetlights NPDC Control Point 394, 9 Shearer Drive, Oakura 4650. There was no name written on it except for “the occupier.”
Saleman was initially startled to see a cut-off alert but, when he thought it over, he realized that his family uses a different power supplier.
"We were a little bit alarmed about what was going to happen to us. Then we thought, hang on a minute, we're not with Meridian Energy, we're with Nova Energy," he recalls.
He jokes about wanting to deliver the mail but not knowing who to give it to. The obvious answer was that the post was inhabited, and its residents were cheating the power company.
"Now I'm thinking, is there somebody living there in that street light?
"I went down to the light and knocked on the door to see if they wanted their mail, but no-one came out," he says.
They called the Meridian call center but got through to an operator who didn't quite understand the situation. He kept asking them about their information.
"He still wanted those details even though it wasn't our issue.
"I don't think he was comprehending how silly the situation was," Saleman's girlfriend, Libby Baker, adds.
A Meridian spokesman finally wrote back and explained that an "automated administrative process" had generated the letter.
"The residential address in question was used only as a reference for the street light's location and should not have been sent this letter," he said.