Mail sorted, Waihola people told

New Zealand Post is confident it has stamped out problems with its post code system after Waihola residents discovered their mail was ending up in opposite ends of the country.

Letters send from businesses to Waihola addresses were ending up in places like Te Aroha and Gore, said a Waihola resident, who did not want to be named.

"Everyone round here has had their business mail sent to Gore and Te Aroha for some reason.

"There appears to be some glitch in the system."

New Zealand Post spokesman Keith FitzPatrick confirmed complaints about the problem had been received.

"We have been aware of some issues since about mid-2007 and have been addressing them."

Waihola-bound mail was sent to Te Aroha and Gore due to a "misreading of addresses in our automated sorting system", he said.

"Our engineers have rectified this and, with the move to PO boxes and additional manual sorting of Waihola mail at our Dunedin Mail Centre, we do not expect this to be an ongoing problem."

The introduction of PO boxes to replace the former counter delivery service would resolve the problem in the town, but people should be reminded to use the appropriate post code, he said.

The post code for Waihola PO boxes is 9243 and for customers on RD1 Outram, their post code is 9073.

Previously, Waihola had a counter delivery system, with mail addressed to the the local post centre, with a rural post for parts of the surrounding area.

There had been a 90% uptake in the number of people wanting to use the free PO box service, with only one disgruntled resident opening up a PO box in neighbouring Milton, he said.

NZ Post would work with businesses to update their files so as to include the new PO box address.