FedEx employee allegedly steals woman’s package with daughter’s Christmas gift inside

EMPORIA, VA (WWBT) - It’s been a rough Christmas season for an Emporia mother trying to fulfill her daughter’s Christmas dream.

"So my 12-year-old daughter, the only thing she's asked for, for Christmas is an iPhone, so on Cyber Monday I found that Straight Talk had special that they were running for $200 off of the iPhone 10," Kim Swenson.

She actually ordered two phones, one of them being for herself, for a total of about $1,500. They were supposed to arrive on Dec. 1, but they didn't. Five days later when they still hadn't gotten there, Swenson called FedEx to inquire.

"They placed a trouble ticket, gave me a routing number that I could use to call back to get information," Swenson said.

Then she called Straight Talk and was floored to learn one of the phones had been activated.

That's when she reached out to the Greensville County Sheriff's Office to file a report and within hours she would learn more disturbing information from authorities.

"I was told the phones had been turned in by a FedEx employee. One of the phones had been activated on Dec. 1, the other one had been sold to someone in Norfolk," Swenson said.

Officials with FedEx confirm the driver who allegedly stole Swenson's phones has been fired.

Meanwhile Swenson placed another order with Straight Talk for the phones which she has received, but by then, that Cyber Monday special had gone away and she had to pay $424 more to order the same items.

She's hoping FedEx will reimburse her for the additional money she had to pay, and she's hoping her credit card company will refund the $1,500 she paid for the first order she never received.

Swenson said she spent seven hours on the phone with Straight Talk alone trying to get this straightened out.

"Seven hours spent knowing that now I'm going to have to go to court to follow up on this. And how you decide, um, this person doesn't need this, let me take it into my possession. That's wrong. That's just wrong," Swenson said.

Now, she has a warning for others, especially at this time of year.

“You need to follow through, you need to track your packages and make sure you get them,” Swenson said.

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