Diaper Service Is Forced To Close

Some customers of Anderson Diaper Service Inc. must have registered surprise last week, when a Baby Diaper Service truck pulled up to their homes to keep them in cloth diapers.

It's not clear whether Anderson notified customers that it was closing its doors and giving their names to a competitor.

And it was a bit of a scramble to notify Anderson's remaining 200 customers, said Brian Smithson, president of Baby Diaper Service.

"We think we reached about 80 percent of them," Smithson said.

Sometime in the next week directors and shareholders of Anderson Diaper will consider bankruptcy among other options, according to Mel Simburg, their attorney.

Another bottom-of-the-bucket chapter in the diaper industry.

Earlier this year Procter & Gamble and the City of Seattle announced that it wasn't economically feasible to recycle disposable diapers, dashing the hopes of consumers who prefer the paper kind to the more labor intensive, old-fashioned cloth diaper.

Last summer the state charged Anderson Diaper with misleading consumers into believing it could recycle disposable diapers, when the company took them "wholly untreated" to the dump.

But Irma Anderson and her daughter, Vanessa Anderson, said the company took only some disposable diapers to the dump because its recycling machinery had broken down.

The corporation charged from $16 to $20 a month to pick up soiled paper diapers for recycling, but most diapers ended up at a South Seattle transfer station and later a landfill in Oregon, according to Doug Walsh, an assistant attorney general.

Even in the early days of Anderson's recycling program, it was having trouble finding a source to recycle the diapers' plastic liner, Walsh said.

Two years ago the picture for Anderson Diaper was considerably brighter. Irma Anderson's husband, Gene Anderson, then owner of the Rainier Beach corporation, was the subject of a national television show featuring companies with environmental, ecologically sound businesses.

But then Anderson fell ill and had to be cared for by his wife, while his brother, Ken, ran the business. And that added to management difficulties, said Simburg, their attorney. Gene Anderson died last February.

Simburg also said "an outside company" that failed to complete the new diaper plant was responsible in part for problems.

Walsh, who will continue to pursue the consumer protection case, has sued Irma Anderson and Ken Anderson as individuals in addition to suing the corporation.

IT'S FOR REAL

Sometimes you just can't win.

That's what the state Department of Revenue learned recently when it sent out claim forms to consumers affected by litigation.

Consumers who paid sales tax on extended warranties for motor vehicles after Feb. 5, 1986, are due refunds because of a successful court challenge.

Since 265,000 motorists are affected, the Department of Revenue hired an outside firm, Conrad and Buckingham, to handle claims. The revenooers figured it would be easier if mail went directly to that company.

So an explanation was sent with a post card for response. The Department of Revenue's name did not appear prominently. Notices, mailed in window envelopes, bore the announcement:

"Important Vehicle Information Enclosed." There was a post office box for the return address.

Inside, the "offer" explained there was a refund settle of $57, but first consumers would have to pay $6.75 in attorneys' fees, plus administrative costs for a refund of about $48.

Uh-huh.

Frankly that sounds just like some of the too-good-to-be-true offers we see every day.

Vigilant consumers began calling state agencies and us, asking what we knew about the latest scam in "tax refunds."

Some consumers threw the whole thing away believing it was junk mail.

"I guess this could be considered a windfall but we don't want to fall into a trap," wrote an Edmonds reader. "The small amount we could collect wouldn't amount to anything if somehow by returning the (post) card we would be hiring a lawyer."

Well, folks the "offer" is legit. If you tossed yours, send your name and address and an explanation to Conrad and Buckingham, Class Counsel, 610 Evergreen Bldg., 15 S. Grady Way, Renton, WA 98055.

Shelby Gilje's Troubleshooter column appears Thursday and Sunday in the Scene section of The Times. Do you have a consumer problem? Write to Times Troubleshooter, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. Include copies, not originals, of documents indicating payment, guarantees, contracts and other relevant materials.