In a lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia, Amazon is being accused of secretly terminating its fastest delivery service to residents of two communities that are primarily Black, all the while collecting millions of dollars for a membership that guarantees the benefit.
District authorities request that the court stop Amazon from “engaging in unfair or deceptive practices.” They also want the business to compensate affected Prime members with restitution or damages and civil penalties.
The District of Columbia Superior Court complaint targets Amazon’s Prime membership, which costs customers $139 annually or $14.99 per month for expedited delivery, including same-day, two-day, and one-day shipping, among other benefits.
As per the lawsuit, the Seattle-based online retailer started depending solely on third-party delivery services like UPS and the U.S. Postal Service instead of its delivery systems in mid-2022 and imposed what it called a delivery “exclusion” on two low-income ZIP codes in the district: 20019 and 20020.
Nonetheless, Amazon claimed that driver safety concerns led to the adjustments.
In a prepared statement, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel stated that the company had decided to “put the safety of delivery drivers first” because of “specific and targeted acts against drivers delivering Amazon packages” in the two ZIP codes, as reported by the Associated Press.
Nantel stated, “We made the deliberate choice to adjust our operations, including delivery routes and times, for the sole reason of protecting the safety of drivers. The claims made by the attorney general, that our business practices are somehow discriminatory or deceptive, are categorically false.”
The attorney general’s office for the District of Columbia, however, claimed that despite the fact that Prime members in the two ZIP codes saw slower delivery as a result of the change, the business never informed them of it. Amazon also failed to inform new consumers about the exclusions when they signed up for Prime memberships, according to the lawsuit.
“Amazon is charging tens of thousands of hard-working Ward 7 and 8 residents for an expedited delivery service it promises but does not provide,” said Attorney General Brian Schwalb of the District of Columbia in a statement, referring to the two parts of the city where Amazon is alleged to exclude its fastest deliveries.
“While Amazon has every right to make operational changes, it cannot covertly decide that a dollar in one ZIP code is worth less than a dollar in another,” Schwalb noted.
Nearly 50,000 Prime members (making up almost half of the population) reside in the two ZIP codes, as per the lawsuit. Since there are fewer services and retail locations in such neighborhoods, Prime members are more inclined to rely on Amazon, and they have placed over 4.5 million package orders in the last four years, according to the city. Moreover, the area is a widely recognized food desert.
In 2001, before Amazon’s delivery “exclusion,” the district claims that over 72% of Prime deliveries in the affected ZIP codes were delivered in less than two days. But, according to the lawsuit, it was only 24% last year. 75% of the time, Prime members who resided in other sections of the city received two-day deliveries, according to the district’s lawsuit. Additionally, Amazon was increasing delivery times across the country.
When some city customers complained about the slower delivery, Amazon hid the true cause and “deceptively implied” that the delays “were simply due to natural fluctuations in shipping circumstances, rather than an affirmative decision by Amazon,” according to the lawsuit.
The Associated Press reported that this is not the first time Amazon has been accused of providing slower delivery to areas where the majority of families are Black.
Bloomberg discovered in 2016 that black inhabitants in cities such as Atlanta and Chicago were almost half as likely as white residents to live in communities with access to Amazon’s same-day delivery service.
A year later, DCist, another local news website, revealed that Amazon’s restaurant delivery service, which the company discontinued five years ago, had left out certain Washington areas, including one of the ZIP codes listed in the district’s lawsuit.
But Nantel claimed Amazon is “always transparent” with its customers “during the shopping journey and checkout process about when, exactly, they can expect their orders to arrive.”
The company stated that since 2022, approximately 1.5 million Prime-eligible purchases have been delivered in two days or fewer to Prime consumers in the two ZIP codes.
Nantel noted, “What we’d like to do, and have offered, is to work together with the attorney general and their office in an effort to reduce crime and improve safety in these areas. Nevertheless, we will proceed in the process and demonstrate that providing fast and accurate delivery times and prioritizing the safety of customers and delivery partners are not mutually exclusive.”
The most recent complaint marks the second crucial legal battle between Amazon and the District of Columbia, which has recently filed an antitrust case against the organization.
