Amazon Sued For Halting Deliveries To Two Black Neighbourhoods

Amazon is facing more legal action over its Prime membership, after the District of Columbia sued the e-commerce giant on Wednesday.

The Associated Press reported that the District of Columbia sued Amazon over allegations the firm secretly stopped providing its fastest delivery service to residents of two predominantly Black neighbourhoods, while still charging millions of dollars for a Prime membership that promises fast deliveries.

The FTC is also investigating Amazon over its Prime service, after the American regulator alleged the firm had engaged in a ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process for millions of customers.

District of Columbia lawsuit

But this week a lawsuit has been filed in District of Columbia Superior Court.

Amazon had launched its Prime membership program back in 2005 and it has grown to become one of the most popular subscription services in the world, with more than 200 million members globally.

Prime generates billions of dollars for Amazon, and it gives users the option of speedy deliveries, and access to its streaming TV and music content.

Amazon’s Prime membership in the United States costs $139 per year (£95 in UK) or $14.99 (£8.99 in UK) per month for fast deliveries, which can include one-day, two-day and or even same-day shipments.

The District of Columbia complaint alleges that in mid-2022, the e-commerce giant imposed what it called a delivery “exclusion” on two low-income ZIP codes in the district – 20019 and 20020 – and began relying exclusively on third-party delivery services such as UPS and the US Postal Service, rather than its own delivery systems.

Driver safety

Amazon however has stated it made the change based on concerns about driver safety, the Associated Press reported..

“There have been specific and targeted acts against drivers delivering Amazon packages” in the two ZIP codes and the company made the change to “put the safety of delivery drivers first,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel was quoted by the Associated Press as saying in a prepared 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,” Nantel reportedly said. “The claims made by the attorney general, that our business practices are somehow discriminatory or deceptive, are categorically false.”

The District of Columbia’s attorney general’s office allege Amazon never told Prime members in the two ZIP codes about the change. Amazon also did not tell new customers about the exclusions when they signed up for Prime memberships, the lawsuit alleges.

“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,” District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement, referencing the two areas in the city where Amazon is accused of excluding its speediest 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 was quoted by AP as saying.

The lawsuit says Amazon has nearly 50,000 Prime members who live in the two ZIP codes, a number that represents nearly half of the population.

The area is also a notorious food desert, AP noted.

A food desert is a reference to locations in the United States, where supermarkets close down their shops (usually due to high levels of crime, such as shop lifting). This means residents have to travel outside their neighbourhoods in order to purchase food.

District officials are reportedly asking the court to issue an order prohibiting Amazon from “engaging in unfair or deceptive practices.” They also want the company to pay restitution or damages to affected Prime members, as well as civil penalties.

Other areas

This isn’t the first time Amazon has been accused of offering slower deliveries to some places where Black people make up most of the households, the Associated Press reported.

In 2016, Bloomberg published an investigation that said Black residents of cities like Atlanta and Chicago were about half as likely as white residents to live in neighbourhoods with access to Amazon’s same-day delivery service.

Meanwhile local news website DCist reported a year later that Amazon’s restaurant delivery service – which the company shut down five years ago – had excluded some neighbourhoods in Washington, including one of the ZIP codes mentioned in the district’s lawsuit.