Missing the point- gross margin percentage points

While recently dealing with a customer, a subsidiary of a multi billion dollar corporation, I found that the customer had deducted thousands of dollars from my invoices for damages that were supposedly kept in their warehouse 40 miles from my office. After repeatedly calling the customer to try and arrange a time to view these "damages" I finally made my way down to the corporate warehouse to find out-"to my surprise" that the damages did not exist.

This started me to thinking about how many dollars the typical apparel manufacturer loses each year by failing to follow up on basic items.

I would be interested in hearing other manufacturers similar stories of how they found out they were losing dollars by not having the time to follow up with their customers regarding deductions and with their staff with regard to actual costs.