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A Colorado man needed to repair his damaged screen door, so he went on Amazon to order fiberglass screen mesh. When the package arrived, Don Thompson was shocked to discover a .20 gauge shotgun inside the box.
The 78-year-old Thompson said he orders things from Amazon all the time, usually getting four of five packages delivered every day, but this was the biggest shipping mistake he has ever encountered.
"I was totally dumbfounded. It's terrifying, absolutely terrifying to me," Thompson told KCNC.
Thompson reached out to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, which dispatched an officer to retrieve the gun. A preliminary investigation revealed the shotgun had been reported stolen.
"It does appear that it was stolen, but we've barely begun our investigation, and there is apparently a lot to unravel," said Jenny Fulton with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.
It is unclear how the mix-up happened because Amazon does not stock or sell firearms. The news station confirmed that the tracking number Thompson received for the screen mesh was the same as the number on the box with the shotgun.
The label also showed that the package, which was shipped by the United States Postal Service, came from a fulfillment center in Illinois.
Amazon said it is investigating the incident and has refunded Thompson for the cost of the screen mesh and credited his account with an additional $250.
"I'm terribly sorry to hear we've shipped you a firearm instead of the screen you purchased. This certainly isn't what we want our customers to expect, and I can assure you the firearm was shipped unintentionally," an Amazon representative wrote in an email to Thompson. "We're conducting an internal investigation of the errors leading to this shipping out from our Fulfillment Center to ensure this doesn't happen to any other customers."