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A man in Tennessee claims that a package containing his father's ashes was stolen from his doorstep after a shipping company delivered it at the wrong time.
Thomas Ewing, of Memphis, was visiting family in Portland, Oregon, in February and was gathering some belongings of his late military veteran father, WREG reports. In an attempt to bring home the items, like a small memento urn of his ashes and a memorial flag, Ewing used FedEx to ship everything back to his apartment in Tennessee.
Ewing said he was given a delivery date of when he would be back in town but that the shipping company later changed it to a day he wouldn't be there. This change, he said, meant his valued belongings would be vulnerable to porch pirates.
"This was problematic because I wasn't going to be in Memphis to receive it," he said. "Had it been delivered at the time I had scheduled none of this would have happened."
He called and told the company to hold his packages rather than delivering them so he could pick them up himself to ensure their safety. They ended up only holding one package, he said, and delivered a large package containing his father's ashes and a piano.
"When I got back to my apartment, it was indeed gone – stolen," he said. "I knocked on my neighbor's doors and they verified they had seen a big box and it was no longer there, and there was no tracking it down from that point."
After months of back and forth with FedEx, Ewing felt "unheard" in his concerns and gave up.
"They said, 'We delivered it, what is the issue?' I said, 'It was delivered, that was the issue,'" he said. "The issue was I requested both of these packages be held."
WREG reached out to FedEx for comment, with the company sending the following statement: "We understand how important these shipments are to Mr. Ewing and regret that this happened. We are currently looking into these claims and will work directly with Mr. Ewing on this matter."