You might say that FedEx failed to deliver for William Graham. After someone made a fraudulent charge on his account, he reported it to FedEx and tried to delete his account.
And that’s when things got really strange.
“FedEx can’t verify who I am,” he told me. “I give them my correct phone number and address — which is on my FedEx account — but they claim there is no record of me in the system.”
That’s right, FedEx told Graham he didn’t exist in its records. And they wouldn’t delete his account. And they kept sending him bills for the fraudulent charge.
Graham’s case raises several important questions:
- How can you verify your account with FedEx?
- What are your rights if a company refuses to delete your account?
- How do you escalate a complaint with FedEx?
But before we get to those questions, let’s take a closer look at Graham’s bizarre FedEx problems.
“This is a true absurdist story”
Graham recently discovered a $95 charge on his FedEx account. Someone had falsely charged him for a shipment.
“I alerted FedEx to the fraud and I canceled the credit card associated with the account to protect myself,” he says. “I then called FedEx customer service on three separate occasions to have my FedEx account permanently deleted.”
Not so fast, said FedEx.
There’s no easy way to delete a FedEx account, says Graham — no one-click delete.
“You have to call customer support because they couldn’t verify that I exist as a human being,” he recalls. “Then they asked my wife to verify. Then they said they couldn’t verify who she was.”
Graham has no idea why FedEx can’t process his cancellation. He’s lived at the same address for 13 years and has had the same phone number.
“Our names and addresses are easily searchable on any public search engine,” he says. “Yet FedEx Customer Support says their software concludes that we don’t exist as human beings. Therefore, they won’t cancel my account even though my correct address and phone number are on the account.”
It’s endlessly frustrating.
“I am a sentient being writing these words,” he adds. “This is a true absurdist story”
But that’s not all. FedEx continues to send him bills for the fraudulent charges. So, at least for billing purposes, FedEx believes he exists.
Truly absurd. Perhaps those FedEx customer service agents have been reading too much Soviet science fiction in their free time.
But how do you get the system to acknowledge your humanity?
How can you verify your account with FedEx?
If you want to use FedEx to ship a package, you need to verify certain personal information. Knowing how to verify your account can save you time and hassle. Here’s a straightforward guide on how to get it done.
- Log in to your account. Start by visiting FedEx’s website. Click on the “Sign Up or Log In” button. If you already have an account, log in using your credentials.
- Access your profile. Once logged in, navigate to the dropdown menu under your name and select “My Profile.” This is where you’ll find all your account settings.
- Find your account number. In the “Account Management” section, you can view your FedEx account number. If it’s hidden, you might need to go back to the “Create a Shipment” page and select “Contact your administrator” for help.
- Complete the two-step verification (if enabled). If you’re prompted to verify your identity each time you log in, it’s likely due to two-step verification being enabled. You can adjust this setting under “Login & Security” in your profile. If this feature is bothersome, consider toggling it off.
Note: If you’re using FedEx delivery manager, you’ll also need to verify your address. This involves receiving a unique code via text that you’ll enter on the site. Make sure to do this within ten minutes, or you’ll need to request a new code.
If you encounter problems during verification, like expired codes or system errors, FedEx recommends double-checking your entries and trying again. If issues persist, FedEx recommends contacting its customer support line.
And that’s where Graham found himself. Reading between the lines of his complaint, it appears FedEx is using an AI-enabled system to verify the customer. That system was failing.
So how can he get the company to verify him?
What are your rights if a company refuses to delete your account?
Customers often find themselves at odds with companies over account deletion requests. It’s frustrating when a service won’t let you go, especially when you’ve made it clear you want your data wiped clean.
So, what rights do you have in these situations?
If you live in Europe, Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) affords you the right to be forgotten. Laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the more recent Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA) allow you to request that companies delete your personal data. This right is especially strong if you’re in states with robust privacy laws. But state laws vary.
Even if you want a company like FedEx to delete your account, it might not have to. If a company needs to retain data for legal obligations, fraud prevention, or other business purposes, it may deny your request. Since Graham’s case involved a fraudulent transfer, FedEx would have been well within its rights to retain his records — even though it refuses to acknowledge his existence.
Most reputable businesses allow you to delete your account with a few clicks. (FedEx says you can remove an account from your FedEx.com profile by clicking the “Remove” icon next to the account number. A popup window will display, asking you if you are sure you want to remove the account. However, that will not delete your entire account.)
How do you escalate a complaint with FedEx?
You may need to push your deletion request through an email sent to the FedEx site. I publish a guide on the best way to contact FedEx on this site, including executive contacts.
A brief, polite email to one of the customer service managers should help you get your FedEx account deleted.
If that doesn’t work, you may need to report the company to your state’s Attorney General or to EU regulators, depending on where you live.
Looking at Graham’s case, it appears the company was relying on an external database to verify his existence. You can tell if a company is using one of these third-party services when it asks you a series of random questions about your former address, ZIP code, or phone number.
The database could not verify Graham’s existence, which is a truly surreal thing, but not that unusual. I have faced a similar challenge. Just recently, I got the “quiz” and I couldn’t remember my old ZIP code in New York. Perhaps most unsettlingly, the system told me I only had two more tries before it blocked me.
In situations like this, it often helps to call the company and ask if there’s a workaround. For example, my bank offers an encryption key called a RSA Unified Identity Platform to securely access your account. It handles some, but not all, verification requirements for security-minded banking customers. (It’s still flawed because of how my bank implements it — but that’s a story for another time.)
Bottom line: There’s no way you should let a company keep your account active when there’s been fraud. FedEx can — and should — do better.
What FedEx has to say about this
I checked with FedEx and received the following reply: “Good morning Chris, thank you for reaching out. We will work directly with the customer on this matter.”
In other words, this is a matter between FedEx and the customer. It’s none of our business.
Oh, but it is my business. I checked with Graham and here’s what he had to say:
“Christopher, FedEx resolved my issue with the fraudulent charge. They will close my account,” he told me.
So what happened?
Graham doesn’t know. But this he does know.
“I never would have reached this result by going through their customer support alone. It was only when it was escalated to management that I got any traction. It pays to be diligent and not to take answers from low-level staffers as the final ones.”
How true, how true.
Why couldn’t FedEx delete his data sooner? That’s no huge mystery. Although the company won’t say one way or the other, it’s clear that Graham ran afoul of a database used to verify his personal identity — a necessary step in removing someone’s personal identity from FedEx.
That’s almost ironic, if you think about it.
