A FEDEX customer service system has come under fire for an insensitive response to a post reporting on the misplacement of human remains in transit.
Jeffrey Merriweather Jr’s corpse was meant to ship from Atlanta to St. Louis, but never arrived at its destination and has not been located in the three years since.
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a story detailing the unfortunate circumstances which have caused the Merriweather family immense pain.
The famed city paper shared a link to the story with their one million Twitter followers.
FedEx’s verified customer service account responded “Hello there. My name is Gaby. This is not the experience we want to provide. I am very sorry for the pending delivery. Please send a direct message, I would be happy to assist.”
The graceless response has been removed but not before backlash in the press and on social media.
“AI is not always the answer,” Jennifer Brett, senior editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweeted in response.
The Independent reported that Twitter users trolled the FedEx account by posting words that would trigger an automatic response.
Though the FedEx customer service account is very likely powered by a bot, the account does not have the automated account label that Twitter assigns to non-human pages.
FedEx has responded with a mixture of sympathy and disapproval of the medical examiner’s office that shipped the remains.
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“Shipments of this nature are prohibited within the FedEx network,” a FedEx spokesperson told Daily Mail.
“Our thoughts and concerns remain with the family of Mr Merriweather, however, we request that further questions be directed to the Fulton County Medical Examiners’ Office.”
The court determined that Merriweather was killed in a drug deal gone south, but his remains were mysteriously skeletonized just two weeks after he was last seen alive.
The medical examiner’s office sought the assistance of a trauma lab in St. Louis to make an assessment of Merriweather’s cause of death.
The last known location of the package is a hapless FedEx package processing center that locals have petitioned for poor performance.
“At this point in time, all I want is what’s left of my son and put him to rest,” Merriweather’s father told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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