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In response to a newspaper report on a mail bag containing about 400 pieces of mail items left unattended at Wanchai Road, Hongkong Post issued the following statement today (October 7):
"According to Hongkong Post's record, the same sender made a bulk posting of over 3,000 local and overseas mail items at the Causeway Bay Post Office on October 4 at 2.45pm. Upon acceptance of the mail items, our staff immediately made up the mail bag for direct dispatch to the Mail Processing Centre at the General Post Office in Central. The mail items reached the Mail Processing Centre before 5pm and were processed on the same day for delivery on the following day.
In dispatching the mail items from Causeway Bay Post Office to the Mail Processing Centre, the mail van had not routed through Wanchai Road. Staff at the Mail Processing Centre had also verified the number of mail items against the acceptance record.
As a matter of fact, the abandoned mail bag was one of those provided by Hongkong Post for use by customers. We have been providing customers with mail bags to facilitate their processing of bulk postings. We believe that the customer dropped the mail bag in question during his journey to our Causeway Bay Post Office.
Upon receipt of the report of the incident, Hongkong Post immediately arranged to pick up the mail bag and take temporary custody of the mail items concerned. We will contact the sender for follow-up and understanding of the posting arrangement.
Hongkong Post would like to take this opportunity to thank the media for bringing the incident to our attention and appeal to bulk mailers who are using Hongkong Post's mail bags to exercise greatest care to safeguard their mail items as well as the personal data contained therein before they tender their posting. We would also like to urge people to inform us immediately upon spotting of any unattended mail bags in the street. The Hongkong Post hotline is 2921 2222."
Ends/Sunday, October 7, 2007
Issued at HKT 21:10
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