Case Studies - FedEx

On January 6th, 2026, I went intonthe FedEx Office store inside the Hyatt Regency in downtown Denver. I needed to print off the disabilty application that my doctor needed to fill out and sign for my disabled parking placards. 

I got there right at 8am on the dot as they opened. A gentleman working there, in FedEx attire, helped me to their printing center and showed me how to work it briefly. In short, it is a terminal that you use to send files into their print and go system, swipe your credit card and wait for it to go through their system and activate the i/o to the printer and viola, you can print on paper.

The terminal was not functioning correctly and kept reading the .pdf I was sending as corrupt, which it wasn't. I explained to the gentleman, who was still out in the main area, what the problem was. It is always difficult for me to communicate clearly to folks in this situation because I know far too much about computers and computer science on up through the latest developments. I create the latest developments myself, so it's hard to dumb it down and not be rude. 

He asks me to send the file to him, which I did and it printed immediately,  hence me knowing it was the terminal that was bugged. I didn't say anything during this time and just went with the flow. He handed me the 6 pages and that was done. He then asked me for payment and I put my card over the NFT terminal and it was declined. I looked at my account and saw that there were x2 pending charges from FedEx and their bugged terminal. I told this to the FedEx employee standing in front of me and he immediately demanded payment again for this service. He was the only employee there so it was just he and I in there. He proceeded to continually demand $2.60 from me and I explained again that I had already paid, twice, totalling $10. I told him to just consider that my payment and we could be done. He told me to give him the papers back that were printed and I said no. I said we could just wait a minute and these pending charges should drop and free up the funds to pay him the $2.60. I even offered to go home, 1.5 blocks away and get another form of payment, i.e. cash. He told me that he would call hotel security and the police. I held up my phone with my Wells Fargo app showing the pending charges as the root of all this and he said he didn't care. Suddenly, I think he realized in that moment that I was in the right and said: "Just go; just get out of here."

This is the state we are in. People have to be right and they will burn everything down in that pursuit.