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Amazon Delivery Traps Customer in Own Apartment (Updated)

UPS delivered an Amazon box that happened to be the perfect size to stop an apartment door from opening.

Updated September 6, 2017
Generic Amazon

UPDATE: Jessie Lawrence, the man who claimed UPS left the package under his door handle and trapped him in his apartment, has now tweeted a retraction of his story. UPS did not deliver the package in question and he says he owes them a big apology. He did not take the time to confirm who the carrier was, and it was only after UPS sent someone to see him to "make things right" that Jessie realized "I made a huge mistake." UPS played no part in this.

Original Story:

Most complaints lodged at Amazon about its deliveries usually involve damaged goods, late deliveries, or orders simply not arriving at all. But Jessie Lawrence had a new and unique complaint on Sunday: his Amazon delivery managed to trap him in his own apartment.

Jessie Lawrence UPS Amazon Delivery Trapped Tweet

As CNET reports, the long, thin Amazon parcel was delivered by UPS and left against the door of his apartment. The box happened to be the perfect height to lodge underneath the door handle. Regardless of which way a door opens, you can't open it without first pushing down on the handle. The Amazon box stopped that happening, and so Lawrence was trapped inside his apartment with no other exits available.

A quick call to maintenance saw someone come and rescue him by removing the offending package, but whether by accident or on purpose, the UPS delivery person has some questions to answer.

Lawrence initially tweeted an image of how the box had been left under his door, but has since deleted the tweet, most likely to stop his Twitter app crashing because of the tweet's popularity. Of course, images of the tweet have been shared across social media so as to not lose the evidence of what UPS did.

UPS responded to Lawrence's tweet and managed to fail again, only this time it was on grammar:

While an amusing situation for onlookers, Lawrence lives in an apartment on the fifth floor. As he rightly points out, if there had been an emergency he was trapped and this could have been a very different story.

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About Matthew Humphries

Senior Editor

I started working at PCMag in November 2016, covering all areas of technology and video game news. Before that I spent nearly 15 years working at Geek.com as a writer and editor. I also spent the first six years after leaving university as a professional game designer working with Disney, Games Workshop, 20th Century Fox, and Vivendi.

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