The Cost of NOT Proofreading

I read an article recently about a typo that cost the New York City transit system $250,000 to replace maps that had a typo in the minimum cost of the pay-per-ride card. Paying attention and proofreading are valuable skills in the marketplace. I wondered what other errors might have cost businesses and government agencies money and embarrassment that could have easily been prevented. Here are just a few examples that I found in my research:

• Proofreading errors have been made throughout history. The 1632 edition of the King James Bible left a word out that completely changed the meaning of the seventh commandment when that edition read “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The printer was fined for the mistake and all copies of the Bible with the error had to be destroyed.
• Tattoo artists are sometimes sued for negligence in misspellings that are permanently inscribed in flesh. This happens much more frequently than one would think.
• The University of Wisconsin gave its 1988 graduates diplomas that said “University of Wisconson.”
• Air Canada used luggage stickers reading “This Baggage Has Been X-Rated at Point of Origin.”
• Australian Publishing Company Penguin Group had to reprint a cookbook at a cost of $18,500 because a recipe for pasta called for “salt and freshly ground black people.”
• A trader on the Toyko stock exchange in 2005 was too quick to place his order and traded 610,000 shares at 1 yen each instead of 1 share at 610,000 yen. That mistake cost his firm $18.7 million.
• In 2010, a Chilean man authorized the production of 1.5 million 50-peso coins that misspelled the country’s name as “C-H-I-I-E.” The managing director of the Chilean mint was fired once the mistake was discovered. All 1.5 million of those coins remain in circulation to this day.
• In June 2010, the gift shop at Australia’s Parliament House unpacked a delivery of mugs that had been ordered to celebrate Barack Obama’s visit to Australia. The mugs, however, welcomed “Barrack Obama” in large letters. They lost approximately $2,000 in expected revenue.
• A new water tower in the city of Stoughton, Wisconsin, was painted with the word “Stoughon.” The contractor fixed his error free of charge.
• A clerical error in 2006 may have cost an Italian airline $7.72 million USD. They advertised a flight from Toronto to Cyprus for $39 instead of $3,900. By the time they discovered the error, 2,000 tickets had been sold and the airline had to honor the price.

Follow