JohnDThompson 

I see this a lot on department-store type bikes, assembled by inexperienced people. Bikes are shipped with the forks reversed in the box, to save couple inches of space in the truck. An inexperienced assembler will pull the bike out of the box and assume the fork is in the intended orientation, slap the rest of the parts on, and call it done. The buyer takes the bike home, rides it, and discovers it handles like crap, and let it gather dust in the back of the garage for a couple years until they get motivated to clean the garage.