A local woman who lives abroad vowed never to use courier comopany Fedex again after she nearly lost $1,800 when a bank draft she sent to her son was delivered to the wrong address in the US.

From her home in Hurst, Texas, Rosehelen Cowen recalled the four-month chain of events.

"I was in Bermuda in April this year when I sent a cheque for $1,800 to my son," she said.

"A couple of days later, he said Fedex had come to his house, but he wasn't there."

Mrs. Cowen said she was told by her son that the courier visited her son's residence a second time, and again they missed him and his wife.

"So they thought they would come back again," she said.

However, according to Mrs. Cowen, they heard no more from the company - and were yet to receive their $1,800.

Less than a week later, Mrs. Cowen said she returned to Texas and called Fedex herself, only to be asked for the tracking number and given the promise that someone would call her back. A short time later, she said she received a telephone call from a man who requested to speak to her son about a package that was accidentally delivered to his house.

"He told me that he lived 50 miles away in Azle. He said that his wife had received the parcel and signed for it although my son's name was on the envelop," she said.

Mrs. Cowen said the man told her that his wife would mail the cheque to them. Before he hung up, Mrs. Cowen asked the man for his telephone number.

Upset and concerned about how this could have happened, she said she called Fedex, who could not provide an explanation. Mrs. Cowen said all they did was advise her to put a stop payment on the cheque.

"I was leery about stopping payment as he said he would put it in the mail," she said.

When the cheque still did not arrive after a while, Mrs. Cowen said she called the man again.

This time, she said, alarms went off in her head when he told her that his wife had gone to Alabama and he did not know what had become of the cheque.

"I told him to take it back to Fedex, but he didn't," she said.

Mrs. Cowen informed Fedex of the situation hoping they could assist her further, but to no avail.

"They said other than putting a stop payment on the cheque, the most compensation they could offer me was $100, but that wasn't nearly enough."

A former employee of the Bank of Butterfield Ltd., Mrs. Cowen said she took matters into her own hands and got a friend to do some investigating for her because she suspected that the cheque may have been cashed by that time.

"They were able to find that his wife not only deposited the check, but the cash had since been withdrawn from the bank and the account closed," she said.

Mrs. Cowen said she contacted the Azle Police Department. They contacted the man and gave him 48 hours to respond. He did not, and when they tried to reach him again, they discovered his telephone service was disconnected.

Although the couple had pocketed the cash, all was not lost. Once Mrs. Cowen provided a forgery affidavit from a local bank along with copies of the cheque, she was able to get her money back - albeit four months after she originally sent it.

But Mrs. Cowen said she still has one unanswered question.

"Who changed the address?" she asked. "Nobody would tell us."

And while she said she would use a courier service again, she vowed: "I will never send anything through Fedex."

"I felt so secure in sending the draft until this happened, but from the the service I received, I feel raped."

When contacted by The Royal Gazette, the courier's legal department, located in Tennessee, said it would not comment on the matter until they had a copy of the complaint in writing.