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New Jersey Lawmaker Calls For Investigation Into UPS Delivery Delays

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A New Jersey lawmaker is calling for an investigation into the delivery delays at UPS and FedEx that left some customers empty-handed on Christmas.

State Sen. Kevin O'Toole is calling on the Division of Consumer Affairs to look into possible fraud, claiming the companies guaranteed shipments to arrive before Christmas and then failed to deliver the goods, CBS 2 reported Friday.

UPS and FedEx admit to leaving thousands of customers without their promised packages. Both delivery companies blamed higher than anticipated volume and weather conditions in the Midwest for their failures.

"Millions of customers across the United States and in particular here in New Jersey took that 'guarantee' to mean that they will be able to bring Christmas joy to their loved ones that they could not be with. Unfortunately, that was not the case," O'Toole said.

Sen. O'Toole also wrote to the companies and urged them to fully refund all customers affected by the delays for the delivery charges they paid.

UPS said it received O'Toole's letter and plans to respond to him directly.

"We appreciate that he acknowledged the hard work of UPS employees during the busy holiday season. The volume of air packages in our system earlier this week simply exceeded the capacity of our network," the company added.

FedEx issued a response saying, "Our 300,000 team members were focused on safely and reliably delivering our customers' packages this holiday season and we are very proud of their outstanding performance. The fact is FedEx was projected to handle 275 million shipments in this shortened holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we operated with very high service levels -- over 99 percent at FedEx Ground, for example -- during our busiest time of the year."

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