William used his FedEx account to send a package. It only weighed a few pounds and wasn’t going far, and it cost him $13.75. They charged his credit card: all done. Then charges of hundreds of dollars from FedEx started hitting his card, and he had no idea where they came from. What was happening?

It began with a charge of $280.97 that appeared on his card from FedEx. William checked his account, and the only package he sent was that domestic one, for $13.75. He tried customer service chat, and the representative wasn’t helpful at all. “The representative said the list of charges are on my online account,” William wrote to Consumerist. “I replied that I [was looking at my online account] and the total is $13.75. She said there was nothing she could do and refused to get a manager.”

Then something changed in his account. The good news: he could finally see what the charges were for. The bad news: they were for sending heavy packages internationally. The first was from Canada to Japan, and others were similar distances. The largest charge for a single package was $304.64.

William doesn’t live in Canada, and didn’t ship these packages. He pleaded with Consumerist to help sort this out, so we contacted FedEx, sending over his statement, account number, and the other documentation that William had sent us.

Finally, the answer came: it was the logical solution, that someone had been using William’s account. By mistake, claims FedEx. “Apparently an international customer wrote down this customer’s account number instead of his own (one digit off),” a company representative told Consumerist.

The good news is that, as the representative put it, “the situation has been resolved” and William will be getting a refund and a letter of apology from FedEx.
“I’ve confirmed that the situation has been resolved. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience to [William].”

That’s great news: it’s not every day, even here at Consumerist, that we help get someone $856 back.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.