So when the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweeted about its investigation of the case on Thursday evening, FedEx was swift to reply. But as an alternative of getting solutions, the newspaper and people following the case acquired an impersonal response from what gave the impression to be a Twitter bot, an automatic account that publishes heaps of content material.
“Hello there. My name is Gaby,” FedEx Help, the corporate’s customer support account, replied in a tweet that has since been deleted. “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.”
While the generic response from customer support was met with ridicule and laughter on Friday — “Good God @FedEx” — very severe questions stay about why the health worker despatched Merriweather’s remains through FedEx. The apply of sending remains by way of FedEx is prohibited, based on the company’s user manual. Transporting deceased our bodies throughout state strains are normally executed through airline, however the U.S. Postal Service says it’s legally certified to hold human remains throughout the nation below strict tips.
“It’s a nightmare you can’t wake up from,” Kathleen Merriweather, Jeffrey’s mom, instructed the Journal-Constitution of the state of affairs.
A FedEx spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark early Friday. Though the corporate has lengthy famous that the majority FedEx packages arrive on time, a spokesperson maintained to People magazine in April that clients ought to by no means use the service to ship human remains.
“Our thoughts and concerns remain with the family of Mr. Merriweather, however, we request that further questions be directed to the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office,” the assertion learn. “Shipments of this nature are prohibited within the FedEx network.”
It’s unclear why the health worker used FedEx to ship Merriweather’s remains. A spokesperson with the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
On June 22, 2019, Jeffrey Merriweather’s partially decomposed physique was found behind a home in southwest Atlanta, based on authorities. Police consider Merriweather was killed in a capturing associated to a drug deal gone mistaken, however the circumstances surrounding how his physique had decomposed had been a thriller, based on WSB-TV.
“Since he was partially skeletonized, we couldn’t determine a cause of death,” Jan Gorniack, then the chief health worker for Fulton County, instructed the TV station on the time.
When it got here time for the health worker’s workplace to ship Merriweather’s remains to an skilled in St. Louis for a trauma evaluation, what was left of the 32-year-old had been shipped for $32.61 on July 5, 2019 in a FedEx field that was anticipated to reach inside two days, reported the Journal-Constitution.
Then, someplace alongside the 555-mile route from Atlanta to St. Louis, the person’s remains acquired misplaced. Merriweather’s household wasn’t notified that his remains had been missing till Aug. 19, 2019, practically six weeks after the remains had been scheduled to reach, based on WAGA.
“I don’t know how this could have happened when you got to sign for stuff,” Merriweather’s father, Jeffrey Merriweather Sr., instructed WSB-TV. “You got tracking numbers.”
Gorniack instructed the station that the remains had been final tracked to a FedEx facility in Austell, Ga., however that the remains haven’t been positioned since then.
The facility in Austell, solely about 17 miles west of Atlanta, has been criticized by residents in recent times for the excessive quantity of packages which have been misplaced there. More than 4,200 individuals signed a Change.org petition in 2020 asking FedEx’s Austell facility, “Where are the packages?” TrustDALE, a client web site, went one step additional final April in describing the Austell location, which has a 1.4 score on Google, as “a black hole.”
“We know that FedEx’s Austell facility is known for being a black hole when it comes to packages,” the web site wrote. “We’ve received lots of complaints in the past year from people whose packages went into Austell but never came out.”
On Twitter, observers acknowledged the seriousness of the case, but in addition took time to lampoon FedEx’s customer support account for the cringeworthy response.
“This entire thread is a tour de force in the absolute uselessness of using AI instead of employing people to deal with customers,” one critic wrote. Jennifer Brett, a senior editor on the Journal-Constitution, agreed: “AI is not always the answer.”
Another observer responded, “Oh FedEx, no. Not like this.”
Merriweather’s household has repeatedly referred to as for accountability from the health worker’s workplace and FedEx within the years since their son’s remains went missing. Kathleen Merriweather instructed the Journal-Constitution that since they’ve been unable to bury her son’s remains, the household, together with his three kids, has not had the possibility to maneuver on greater than three years later.
“Now we can’t even have that closure,” she stated.