KEY POINTS:
It could have been an international identity scam ...
But instead, 13 passports feared missing or stolen were being sent back and forth between the mail centre and a courier depot.
Embarrassed NZ Post officials yesterday apologised for the blunder and blamed a combination of human error and technology problems for the "logistics loop".
"We are embarrassed by the problems that affected the service in the past three weeks," said postal services chief executive Peter Fenton.
"We sincerely regret the inconvenience and concern this has caused to all customers affected and acknowledge the anxiety it has caused where the item has been a passport."
Police had earlier warned that identity fraudsters could be behind the disappearance of the passports, which went missing after they were sent from Auckland to the Indian High Commission in Wellington.
Mr Fenton said some passports had been found and delivered and inquiries were continuing to find the others.
"We have resolved the errors, and missing items related to them have been located and returned to the correct network for delivery. We expect the service to resume providing the high standards that it did previously."
That is little consolation to Mike Dinwiddie, who needed his passport to travel to a friend's wedding in Sydney last Saturday.
He cancelled his trip and missed the wedding.
NZ Post reimbursed him for postage costs and for passport photos - totalling about $20. Mr Dinwiddie said he was frustrated by the "inconvenience" of missing the wedding.
Mr Dinwiddie's parcel was sent from Takapuna on February 9 and was last tracked to the Carbine Rd mail centre in Mt Wellington on February 11.
He said it was strange that the company did not notice the problem.
Mr Fenton said the NZ Post had not known about the issue because there was no trend suggesting a particular problem or multiple issues with missing parcels.
"Once the problems were discovered, staff moved quickly to rectify them."
The company would take the appropriate action if it found misconduct to be the reason for any errors.
