Amazon has been sued by the District of Columbia for providing slow delivery service to customers in two low-income neighborhoods — including shoppers who pay $139 a year for Prime membership.
Customers in zip codes 20019 and 20020 pay a steep Prime membership fee for delivery service that typically takes 1 to 2 days.
But for the past two years, most of their Amazon Prime packages have taken up to a week to arrive, as per complaint,
That’s because the Seattle-based e-commerce giant has made a strategic decision to remove its Prime delivery vans from those ZIP codes in 2022, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Attorney General of the District of Columbia.
Instead, Amazon — which the company internally dubbed “delivery exclusion” — relies mostly on slower, third-party delivery services in those areas, according to the lawsuit — including UPS and the U.S. Postal Service. .
In 2021, before Amazon’s “exclusion” policy, more than 72% of Prime packages were delivered to ZIP codes within two days. But according to the complaint, last year it was only 24%.
“Why is my Prime delivery taking seven days when I use 20020 for the address. When I use 21403 for the address delivery is in 2 days,” one angry customer wrote to Amazon, according to the complaint.
Amazon did not dispute that its packages take longer to arrive in those areas, but said it changed its policy after crime increased in those areas, including carjackings, vehicle thefts, armed robberies, assaults and gun violence. Is.
“In the referenced ZIP codes, specific and targeted actions have been taken against drivers who deliver Amazon packages,” Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “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 in any way discriminatory or deceptive are patently false. We want to be able to deliver as quickly as possible to every zip code across the country, Nantel said, however, at the same time we must put the safety of delivery drivers first.
The AG’s complaint alleges that many customers in those “excluded” ZIP codes rely on Amazon Prime for basic necessities, including groceries and child care.
Other fed-up customers accused Amazon of discrimination: “So this has nothing to do with the racial/socio-economic divide that coincides with your delivery divide.”
The median income in those neighborhoods is $48,106.
“Amazon is charging thousands of hardworking Ward 7 and 8 residents for expedited delivery service that it promises but does not provide. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement that while Amazon has full authority to make operational changes, it cannot secretly decide that a dollar in one ZIP code is worth less than a dollar in another.
Schwalb also called out Amazon for “doubling down on its deception” and blaming slow deliveries on “other circumstances” when its customers complained.
In a statement, Nantel said Amazon is “always transparent” during the checkout process on when packages will arrive.
