FedEx Corp has given mixed accounts over why it prevented a Huawei phone from being delivered to the United States, just weeks after the U.S. delivery company said an error led to the Chinese firm's packages being misdirected.

The fresh incident took place last week, when a PC Magazine writer, Adam Smith, tried to ship a Huawei P30 smartphone from a UK office to the U.S., but was surprised to find that his package had been sent back a few days later.

In a statement sent to the media on Sunday, FedEx said the package was "mistakenly" returned to the shipper and apologized for the "operational error."

However, the company earlier gave a different reason to why the package was returned, according to Sascha Segan, Smith's colleague and a PC Magazine writer, who had taken to Twitter to complain about the package being sent back. 

Segan shared the reply he received from the FedExHelp Twitter account in an article. "On May 16, 2019, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and 68 of its global affiliates were included on the 'Entity List' which sets out a list of certain entities that US companies are restricted from doing business with. My apologies for the inconvenience this has caused you," the message read.

This is not the first time that the U.S. delivery giant mishandled Huawei packages after Washington moved to block the Chinese tech company from doing business in the U.S., alleging risks to national security.

In May, the U.S. firm diverted two packages from Japan, addressed to Huawei China, to the U.S., and attempted to divert two more from Vietnam – all without authorization.

FedEx apologized at the time, posting on Chinese social platform Weibo, "We value all our customers who hand more than 15 million packages to us per day. We apologize for the erroneous shipment."

Huawei said it was reviewing its relationship with FedEx in the light of the incident.

On Sunday, the Global Times quoted an expert as saying the U.S. company is likely to be added to China's "unreliable entities list."

The list was announced by China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) in late May and will target foreign firms and individuals that seriously undermine the legitimate interests of Chinese companies.

The United States and China have been engaged in a trade fight since last year. A telephone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last week, as well as confirmation the two will meet in Japan on the sidelines of the G20 summit, have rekindled hopes of a detente.

(With input from Reuters)