A Florida man received two blue Joe Jonas hands in the mail and is looking for some answers.
Joe Jonas, an American singer and actor known as one of the Jonas Brothers, had partnered with the travel booking company Expedia in May to give away blue promotional 3-D-printed replicas of his hand with his signature in silver.
"So stoked to share that I'm partnering with @Expedia to lend a Helping Hand to travelers who can’t wait to travel the world again," Jonas tweeted on May 4.
A May Expedia report found that most American adults felt stressed at the thought of booking international trips and that they needed more help when booking travel compared to pre-COVID. Expedia's Helping Hand campaign was launched to help reduce the stress and uncertainty that travelers feel when booking a trip.
But, Sean O'Farrell, 56, in from Indialantic, Florida, received one of the blue hands in the mail.
According to The Washington Post, who first reported on the situation, the package only had a box and bag with the Expedia brand name. There was no explanation attached to the package.
“The bag said Expedia, so it wasn’t like the hand of death just arrived from FedEx,” O'Farrell told the Post. “Clearly you could see someone was trying to do something. I opened it, and then I had to become like Nancy Drew here. I had to go figure out what the heck it was.”
O'Farrell did a Google search to find out more about the mysterious blue hand, when a previous Washington Post article appeared about the Expedia Helping Hand campaign to support travelers amid the pandemic.
There were only 550 hands, and people had to enter a giveaway to get one. So, the question remained: Why did he receive one?
The Washington Post reports that he had not logged into his Expedia account for nearly five years, and he also didn’t enter a contest to win a celebrity’s hand.
O'Farrell moved on and forgot about the hand.
Until he received another one.
“I’m like, 'You have got to be kidding me,’ ” he told The Post.
That's when he reached out to the Washington Post reporter who wrote the original article about the Helping Hand initiative.
Expedia told the Post that 250 hands were supposed to go to customers in the U.S., while the rest were supposed to go to Canada and the U.K.
If a customer wanted a hand, they had to go to a certain website and submit their personal information, including their name, address, phone number and email address, but the company was flummoxed as to why O'Farrell got them, suggesting that maybe an acquaintance had entered his information.
Instead of selling the hands, O'Farrell has decided to give the hands away to a "true fan who won’t resell them or return them to Expedia if the company wants." He wants to donate the money he will receive to charity.
“I feel like one of them was wasted on me, and two of them are even worse,” he said.
