What's the worst clerical error you've seen?

[FrodoSwaggins]

There's a Reddit post making the rounds about someone who missed out on a full ride college scholarship because their brother stole the acceptance letter as a "prank." (Brother is a psycho, take him to court!)
What are some of the worst clerical errors you've seen? How did they impact people?
I'll go first: maybe not technically an error. At one point, I achieved the American dream briefly, getting hired as a temp and then using that position to move into full time. When I took parental leave, the weekly pay was going to be driven WAY down by the weeks of temp work hourly pay driving down my annual average. It was so much money, I actually delayed the leave to an almost silly amount in order to max out the benefit. It was embarrassing and I feel like if I had talked to someone with a brain overseeing that program, they maybe could have sorted something out.

[gorzek]

I lost what was probably 100 or so points on my SAT because I think someone messed up the papers.
There was a section which began with question numbers in the 30s. Knowing that not everyone is given the same copy of the test (to deter cheating), I didn't think anything of it, and just started with #30 on the bubble sheet for that section. Now, I am not someone who ever leaves questions unanswered, so when it came back that I hadn't answered 20-odd questions I knew what had happened, but I was 0% assertive at that time so I just never said anything to anyone.
It was a decent share of the math section so I'm sure it cost me at least 100 points. Might have benefited me with paying for school, and I might have actually finished, if not for that. Ah well.

[FrodoSwaggins]

I lost what was probably 100 or so points on my SAT because I think someone messed up the papers.
There was a section which began with question numbers in the 30s. Knowing that not everyone is given the same copy of the test (to deter cheating), I didn't think anything of it, and just started with #30 on the bubble sheet for that section. Now, I am not someone who ever leaves questions unanswered, so when it came back that I hadn't answered 20-odd questions I knew what had happened, but I was 0% assertive at that time so I just never said anything to anyone.
It was a decent share of the math section so I'm sure it cost me at least 100 points. Might have benefited me with paying for school, and I might have actually finished, if not for that. Ah well.

That's terrible! Seriously that sucks. Did you ever take the SAT again?

[gorzek]

No, I didn't. There wasn't much of a reason to since I only took it to get into colleges and once I did that there wasn't much need for it again.