Lost Ebike Delivery Leads to Frustrating Chatbot Nightmare

A few months ago, my fiancée and I decided to treat ourselves to a pair of electric bikes. We live in an especially hilly pocket of Atlanta, a city already known for its steep inclines, and both of us had just received work bonuses. That made the nearly $2,000 price tag per bike feel, at least temporarily, reasonable.

We placed the orders online. Her bike arrived at our doorstep a few days later, sleek and fully loaded. Mine, which I bought separately from a different retailer, was delayed. Then delayed again. And again.

Then came the breakthrough that wasn’t. One Wednesday evening, a text from FedEx popped up on my phone, confirming my bike had been delivered to my address and signed for. That seemed impossible, given that when the notification arrived, I was standing in my kitchen,bike-less, air-frying chicken thighs.

I stepped outside to check our apartment entrance. Nothing. I pulled up the order confirmation and saw the package had been signed for by someone with the initials “M. M.” That doesn’t match me, my fiancée, or anyone in our building. Whether the bike was stolen, misplaced, or dropped at the wrong address mattered less than finding a fix. The next day, I called FedEx customer service to start the process.

What followed was a monthslong descent into customer service hell. I spent hours trapped in virtual waiting rooms governed by chatbots, bouncing between FedEx, the bicycle company, my bank, my credit card issuer, and even the local police. I desperately tried to find a living, breathing human who would talk to me, let alone solve my $2,000 problem.

The New “Sludge”

The strangest part of my ordeal is how ordinary it has become. In recent years, corporations have thrown artificial intelligence into their customer service operations with remarkable enthusiasm, often at the expense of human employees.

An April survey of customer service leaders found that 31 percent have already cut or plan to cut headcount because of AI adoption. Most said they were shifting human agents into new roles or piling on extra tasks rather than simply laying them off.

But some have been more direct. Verizon CEO Dan Schulman recently told Bloomberg that AI will likely replace a “large percentage” of the company’s customer service work, calling it one of the sectors most exposed to the technology’s changes.

For consumers like me, this has turned bad customer service,the long waits, the repetitive hold music, the empty promises,into something more inhuman and demoralizing. Worse, some companies intentionally deploy these systems through a tactic called “sludge,” designed to wear customers down until they give up seeking help.

Ryan Hamilton, a marketing professor and consumer psychology researcher at Emory University, says AI has simply given sludge a new look.

“Sludge existed before AI,” Hamilton explains. “But AI, like with everything else, has just sort of ramped up the dystopian nature of it.”

Whether it’s organic dysfunction, intentional sludge, or a mix of both, shoppers are clearly unhappy with AI-led customer service. A May report surveying consumers in the US, UK, and Canada found that 59 percent were frustrated with AI customer service agents, while 85 percent said they’d rather talk to a real person.

My Personal Chatbot Hell

When my ebike went missing, nearly every call I made led straight to a chatbot. FedEx’s AI agents often ignored my requests to speak with a real human.

Even my local police department made the process more cold and impersonal. When I called to file a missing property report, I was prompted to leave my information with a chatbot and wait for an officer to get back to me.