People are dragging UPS for a now-deleted tweet saying they would shred any letters addressed to the North Pole this holiday season.
“If your child addresses a letter to the North Pole, you can leave it with us. We do shredding,” the tweet said.
Staci Reidinger, a public relations and social media manager at the UPS Store told the Washington Post UPS was “trying to find a way to get you looking and paying attention to our brand.”
Unfortunately, it totally backfired. Parents did not find it funny. People went off on Twitter calling UPS a “Grinch.” The company even received complaints by phone, the Washington Post reports.
“Can’t call @UPSStore a Grinch because the Grinch had a heart that was able to grow three sizes,” one person said. “This is just plain heartless.”
https://twitter.com/betteirene/status/1074753649971159040
“Who hurt you, @TheUPSStore?” someone asked.
https://twitter.com/MikeLawry126/status/1074644022956879873
Others took the joke to the next level, speculating what UPS will do next. “Can’t wait for the viral UPS video of a delivery man driving by a Santa meet-and-greet and yelling “Santa isn’t real!” to all the kids,” another person wrote.
Can’t wait for the viral UPS video of a delivery man driving by a Santa meet-and-greet and yelling “Santa isn’t real!” to all the kids.
— Nick Wing (@nickpwing) December 17, 2018
“Can you also flip off my child and tell him there is no Santa for an additional cost?” someone on Twitter asked.
Can you also flip off my child and tell him there is no Santa for an additional cost?
— Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) December 17, 2018
After seemingly realizing this wasn’t the kind of attention they were looking for, the company deleted the tweet.
“We were, like, maybe this isn’t in alignment of where we were going to go with our holiday personality and posts,” Reidinger said.
Here’s hoping at least some of our letters made it to Santa and didn’t end up in the shredder.