By
Irene Hsiao
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Brooks CEO thought university postal system would be more efficient
College Coupons is footing postage for 10 boxes of coupon booklets they weren't supposed to send through the UA mail system.
Brooks Publishing, which is known as College Coupons on campus, will pay $150 to the UA Postal Services Center.
The company violated the mail system's policy last week when they sent their smaller than index-sized coupon books to 40 UA departments. Only UA-affiliated mail is allowed to go through the system.
Reynaldo Lopez contacted Jeff Brooks, Brooks Publishing's chief executive officer, for the payment.
"I called the guy and I just said, 'Please pay me because my people are getting depressed here,'" said Lopez. "It was just a mistake."
The confusion started when a College Coupon representative dropped the books off at the postal services center. Some of the books stated "compliments of www.bookstore.arizona.edu," referring to the U of A Bookstore. The other ones stated "compliments of Arizona Bookstore," which is the Arizona Bookstore, 815 N. Park Ave.
Lopez said he approved the distribution because he only saw books labeled with the UofA Bookstore Web site and assumed they were affiliated with the UA.
"That's how come I didn't question it," he said.
Brooks said the coupons - which have been distributed at the UA for the last 20 years - were put through mail because they wanted to give them out more efficiently.
"We've always done staff and faculty, but just the slow way," he said "But if we do this - we're sure not to miss a department or floor."
College Coupons doesn't pay for using internal mail at any of the other major universities around the country, Brooks added.
"There was never an intended misunderstanding," said Brooks.
Lopez said between 10 to 15 coupons books were sent to about 40 departments. There are about 200 UA departments.
"The whole U of A didn't get them," Lopez said. "Maybe one-fourth (of UA)."
A representative from the coupon company actually placed the booklets into the mail bags, so Lopez is not exactly sure how many were distributed.
But the Arizona Daily Wildcat surveyed four departments who got the boxes of coupons: computer science, sociology, economics and psychology. The departments received between 20 to 75 books.
"We've already got in trouble whether it's one or a million books," he said.
Frank Farias, the U of A Bookstore director said, although the self-sustaining bookstore is still a UA department, they can't send advertising through the mail. Farias also denied sending anyone from the bookstore to the post office.
"We can't commercially exploit the mail system," he said.
