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A parcel chatbot that swore at a customer after an update

When
· reported
Who
DPD UK
What
Customer-service chatbot
Caught at
05Evals06Monitoring

01 · What happened

A customer who could not find his parcel asked DPD’s chat assistant to tell a joke, write a poem about a useless chatbot, swear, and criticise the company. It did all four, including calling DPD the worst delivery firm in the world. His screenshots spread widely in January 2024.

02 · Reported cause

DPD: “An error occurred after a system update” on 18 January. The company said it had operated the AI element in its chat successfully for a number of years.

03 · What they changed

“The AI element was immediately disabled and is currently being updated,” DPD said.

04 · Sources

  1. ITV News · itv.com ↗
  2. TIME · time.com ↗

Facts on this page are limited to what these sources report. Checked in September 2026.

Prototype Public reports only. Our own anonymised post-mortems follow, with client consent: first one · date to decide

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