Hunters hear surprising call of the wild
Fowl-up puts fishy number on wildlife agency mailing
For a good time, call the . . . U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service? Callers this week who dialed a toll-free number they found on 3.5 million cards distributed by the federal wildlife agency expected to get information on buying a stamp needed to hunt ducks.
Instead, they got a different kind of wild offer from a breathy female voice offering “to turn you on,” for $1.99 a minute.
The mix-up occurred because federal officials provided the Amherst company that produced the cards with the wrong phone number. Instead of the correct number, 1-800-782-6724 (or 1-800 STAMP-24), the agency requested the cards carry the number 1-800-872-3724 (1- 800-TRAMP-24).
By Friday afternoon, the TRAMP number was no longer a working sex chat line.
Stories about the snafu began circulating late Thursday. Some reports may have left readers with the impression that Ashton Potter Security Printers of Amherst was to blame for the wrong number.
But the fault did not lie with the company, said Joseph Sheeran, the company’s senior vice president; he said the company simply printed the cards containing the number it had been provided.
Asked if someone from Ashton Potter called the number provided by Fish and Wildlife to determine if it was correct, Sheeran said:
“That’s actually not our job. Our job is to receive the copy from the customer and reproduce that accurately.”
The stamp on the card is the Migratory Bird Conservation and Hunting Stamp, also known as the duck stamp. It must be carried by waterfowl hunters 16 and older.
The wrong number was discovered within the past week when people who had purchased the stamps contacted the agency, said Rachel Levin, a Fish and Wildlife spokesperson.
“It’s a really unfortunate error, and we certainly regret that it happened,” she said.
She said the agency decided not to recall the cards, which she estimated would have cost about $300,000.
“Printing uses a lot of paper and ink and a lot of resources. Since this is a conservation stamp, we really felt like that money could be better used,” she said.
Levin stressed that the stamp is still usable. She also noted that the correct number to order more copies of the stamp appears on the card twice, with the incorrect number appearing once.
Sheeran said company representatives and agency officials had discussed the error. He said he does not expect it to affect their business relationship.
“It’s an unfortunate thing obviously, and we’d rather not be tied to it,” he said. “But at the end of the day, Fish and Wildlife does a lot of good things and it’s kind of a drag for them to get all this negative publicity.”
