More mail madness. It involves mail going missing, mail being found but delivered to the wrong address, mail disappearing and postage stamps offered up as compensation.

It also involves NZ Post customer Patti Homan's frustration and disappointment. Frustration at the 'off-handedness of NZ Post” and disappointment at the indifference of some members of the public.

'What I cannot understand is why whoever received our letters did not deliver them to us, did not take them back to a Post Shop or repost them.”

And she's 'upset” with NZ Post because something very precious and personal to the family has been lost and gone forever.

For its part New Zealand Post says: 'We closed the case without final communication with the customer which is not our usual practice”. And it will be contacting Patti to apologise.

'One missing envelope contained pages from a very old photograph album for my genealogy collection,” says Patti. 'Sadly, they are the only copies we had of these relatives.”

That letter was sent from her cousin in Beachlands, Auckland, in December and never arrived at Patti's Brookfield address. No ‘tracking' was paid for this item. And NZ Post says that makes it difficult to provide a definitive answer.

Misdirected mail with no return address should end up at the Returned Letter Office. 'Correct processes were followed and we are keeping an eye out for this letter.” But the mail has been missing four months. Patti is not hopeful.

But a lesson was learned because a second envelope dispatched from the cousin in Beachlands contained just a copy of another valuable photo and tracking was paid on this item. But then more mail muddles.

'We know it was delivered the day after posting,” says Patti. But it wasn't delivered to her as the intended recipient.

It was apparently delivered to a Goods Rd address. So wrong street and wrong suburb. 'How did they confuse Goods Rd, Pillans Point, for Jacob St in Brookfield? It is beyond us.”

New Zealand Post supplied a photo of the envelope. And it suggests the handwritten address could be interpreted as either 'Jacob” or 'Goods”, even though it's 'Street” on the envelope as in Jacob Street and not 'Road” as in Goods Road.

On the envelope it also specifically says Brookfield, not Pillans Point. And it doesn't explain why NZ Post, if it was unsure, didn't ask at the Pillans Point address whether the envelope was intended for them before leaving it in the letterbox. Or it could have quickly checked 'Mrs P Homan” in the Tauranga phone book.

It's clear in the phone book. Homan R R & P A, 21 Jacob Street, Brookfield – not Pillans Point. In fact, there is only one Homan in the phone book and that's Patti and her husband.

What hurts Patti even more is the fact the mail was never passed back to the sender, the recipient or NZ Post. It too has just disappeared.

'Our postie said some people just won't take the time to re-post them. So I guess our mail, our photos, were thrown out in the rubbish,” says Patti.

Under the 1998 Postal Services Act a person who gets someone else's mail is required to forward it to the correct address or return it to NZ Post for redelivery. 'Although we have no reason to believe this is the case in this situation,” says NZ Post.

It tried to smooth things with a compensatory book of stamps, a 'gesture of goodwill” from NZ Post to the sender, Patti's cousin.

Patti didn't want stamps, she wanted answers so she climbed on NZ Post's 0800 number. 'After three or four calls they were sympathetic. But they also explained there was nothing they could do. I was devastated.”

Patti contacted The Weekend Sun after reading the story of a Bethlehem man's mail problems. Yes, the mail was getting through but it wasn't his mail. While it was the right number, it was always the wrong street. And someone else was getting his mail.

'I am at the opposite end of this problem” says Patti.

Since The Weekend Sun raised the issue with NZ Post, its Tauranga manager has been back to the Pillans Point address. 'They have been sympathetic and supportive of our investigation,” says a NZ post spokesman. 'But unfortunately we have been unable to retrieve the missing item.”

The NZ Post manager also intended to make a personal visit to Patti. There will be apologies, perhaps stamps, but to-date no photos.