Woman receives FedEx box of strangers' sensitive documents

Shipper claims it sent her cereal, not papers

Woman receives FedEx box of strangers' sensitive documents

Paging Sherlock Holmes. Your talents of deduction are needed to help solve the mystery of a woman who says she received a FedEx box full of strangers' credit card information and medical records.

Jerri Crabtree told CBS-Sacramento that she has no idea why the documents were sent to her. Oddly, neither does Reckner, the company that, according to the package label, sent the package.

Crabtree said she found the FedEx box on the doorstep to her Carmichael, Calif., home. Her name was on the address label. Ditto her cellphone number.

From CBS-Sacramento:

“I thought it was mine, until you start going through pages and pages, and you realize it’s got somebody else’s name, somebody else’s social security number, their address, their phone numbers, their subscriber number, their health insurance information,” she said.

All in all, not the kind of stuff you want to fall into the wrong hands. Crabtree reached out to CBS-Sacramento for some help in getting answers. The station spoke to David Reckner, owner of the marketing research company listed on the return address label.

In an odd twist, Reckner said his company did send Crabtree a package, but it was a box of breakfast cereal for research purposes.

From CBS-Sacramento:

“We don’t handle medical records, we don’t handle credit card receipts, we don’t,” he said. “That’s not our business. We would never have come into possession of those."

Yahoo News reached out to FedEx for a comment. Scott Fiedler, a spokesperson for the company, responded.

"FedEx follows delivery instructions based on the information provided by the shipper. In this case we delivered the package according to the address the shipper placed on the label. As in all cases, recipients should immediately contact the shipper to resolve any issues with the package contents and, if appropriate, return the contents to the shipper.”

So, to summarize: A woman says she got a box of papers she should not have gotten. The company on the return label says it didn't send the documents. The shipping company says they do what the label says.

Still, somebody must have sent the box. But who? And why? And, most importantly, what happened to the woman's breakfast cereal? (Cue the ominous crash of thunder.)

Hurry, Sherlock, we need you.

Follow Mike Krumboltz on Twitter (@mikekrumboltz).