In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb alleged that Amazon violated a local consumer protection law by overcharging approximately 48,000 “historically underserved” people in “two ZIP codes east of the Anacostia River”
In those allegedly high-crime areas of Wash DC, Amazn deliveries have slowed, according to an article in Ars Technica.
In a statement to Ars, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said that …Amazon started using third-party services to deliver to these areas to “put the safety of delivery drivers first.”
“In the ZIP codes in question, there have been specific and targeted acts against drivers delivering Amazon packages,” Nantel said. “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 third party delivery drivers work for UPS and USPS.
And, not surprisingly, Amazon seems to care less about what happens to them.
Liability is probably a major factor in such a decision.
As I have opined in other contexts, Amazon has become so big and has become the target of so many attempts to take their money, that they now regard keeping what they have as being a higher priority than earning more.
Some of the attemptees use guns, some use lawsuits.
I look forward to reading that some well-meaning public prosecutor is suing Amazon for failing to offer drone delivery in 'historically underserved communities".
Meanwhile, “J-Dawg’s Drone Parts” will be one of the fastest growing businesses on eBay.
I’m sure that is part of it, but remember, USPS has their own federal law enforcement division. Postal inspectors might not be on the level of the FBI, but don’t discount their authority. Violations on postal workers/postal property are federal violations which are treated much more seriously.
Part of it is also that people are less likely to harass the mailman, whereas if they see an Amazon van they think “f this company” and shoot the driver, forgetting that the driver is probably someone poor who lives in one of these bad neighborhoods.
“For those zip codes, rather than ensuring expedited delivery by using its own in-house,
proprietary delivery systems, Amazon began relying exclusively on third-party delivery services
such as UPS and USPS. Amazon’s decision has led to a significant decrease in the speed and
quality of Prime service District residents in these excluded EOTR zip codes have been receiving
when compared to the speed and quality of delivery that (1) they received prior to Amazon’s self-
styled exclusion, and (2) Prime members receive in District zip codes not subject to Amazon’s
exclusion”
Note that the basis for this suit is that the service the buyers receive is lower than other places, NOT that the Prime contract terms are being violated.
Think of what other statistical games can be played with actual Amazon deliveries.
We had an interesting talk with our postal clerk this morning.
UPS drops off packages to be delivered to rural route addresses and addresses that are in town (all who have post office boxes). Labels have both UPS tracking and USPS tracking. Post Office scans a bag (so like a scan sheet) and then the USPS tracking when it is delivered. This is not part of the last mile program but a decision that is made somewhere in UPS distribution for these packages.
As far as Amazon, there are several rural towns who are receiving pallet drops from Amazon at the local post office for delivery. Some of these towns are getting 8 to 10+ pallets at a time and those pallets are dropped off outside and under tents (in a chain linked area) and arrive on a semi truck (most rural post offices do not have ramps to handle). One local post office can’t keep help because of the pressure these Amazon drops are putting on them. Generally, these towns are 60+ miles away from the local Amazon distribution center. Obviously, these packages can not be same day or 2nd day deliveries. We would imagine that it takes at least two days for these post offices to handle once they receive the packages.
Rural areas have to be patient as their service level isn’t anything close to metro areas.
As far as crime ridden areas, their service level has always been different. It isn’t just with delivery of packages but even with simply having businesses that will serve those areas. Even grocery stores can be hard to find in those areas as companies find it hard to survive and make a profit there. And those, that are there, often have to hike prices just to break even.
This law suit is more or likely about making a name for someone than solving a problem. If the problems of the area where solved, then Amazon and other businesses would not have the issues they have in operating in those areas.
The proof of this will be interesting to see.
Which is something several of us has noticed … and we are not in high-crime areas.
The grocery stores, that we work for in Los Angeles area, had to do similar things to protect employees.
In this case, we would tend to side with Amazon because of our own past experiences in working in challenging neighborhoods.
Actually I will fight tooth and nail not to be connected. $300 once every 3 years to have my septic tank cleaned. Way less then a monthly sewer bill around here!
Whether or not Lawyer Schwalb’s assertion can ultimately be convincingly and compellingly demonstrated as factual in a court of law remains to be seen; but, as you astutely allude upthread, and others do both here and elsewhere, the politically-driven motivations - not the least of which is the chafing D.C.'s local-level leadership has long felt over the Constitutional prohibition against it becoming a full-fledged State Of The Union - would seem to me to have had a good deal of import in the decision to bring this suit.
I’ll be following the developments in this case with as much perspicacity as I can muster, as I strongly suspect that Amazon might well wind up cutting bait, and implementing another of its sledgehammer-rather-than-scalpel incisions upon published policy which affect us all (a long-observable phenomenon which, as most all of us know, has had a marked tendency to sweep out the baby with the bathwater in many a circumstance).
Amazon is starting to deal with this. They have been starting to serve some of these areas with Gig Economy drivers in their own vehicles. Too early to tell whether this will prove scalable.
60+ miles from a DC is not an a priori reason for using a common carrier to deliver.
Much of the rural route deliveries in parts of the country are served by USPS contract drivers, not USPS employees so there is reason to hope the Amazon experiment will work.
Which is how our town receives 90% of our Amazon orders. Our town is 30 miles from the Amazon distribution center. Most of these gig drivers can make at least two passes at the distribution center in a day if they want to because of the 30 mile distance. Once it gets to 60 miles, then it is harder to do two passes at the distribution center and maintain an eight hour day and limits the amount of money they can make.
We are not as rural as Wyoming. The drivers who pick up and drop off the mail to the local post offices are contract but the people working at the post offices and the rural route drivers all work for USPS.
Our reference to how our Amazon deliveries happen to our area was to give contrast to what these two neighborhoods in the law suit are going through. We doubt that a law suit would ever happen because rural areas have slow delivery times and often have to pay a higher price for delivery.
The town in which my place in Maine is located, which is not as rural as Wyoming and about 60 miles west of Portland is served by a contract driver on its rural route. They operate from a single employee post office. All of the mail for the town, including packages, is delivered by a single vehicle, which is not necessarily a truck. The next town across the border in NH is delivered by a contract driver in a car.
Here in Portsmouth, my 11 unit condo has Amazon deliveries several times a day. We are 30 miles from a distribution hub. The early morning deliveries are by gig workers, the mid morning and afternoon deliveries are by Amazon truck - independent contractor owned.
Often the deliveries are small and compact packages which can readily fit in a car. Fewer and fewer boxed products it seems.
I think this is a situation which it is tempting to generalize and probably inappropriate to generalize.
We all know that punishing Amazon is now a religious virtue in some parts of the country, because Bezos believes his business and its integrity is more important than their and his own political beliefs.
I do not love Amazon, I do not share Bezos politics, but I support his efforts to do business efficiently and profitably. But perhaps that comes with my politics.
…But I FEEL marginalized, and that is all it takes in this emo rage warrior filled society. Some Karen/Ken somewhere will be outraged for me, due to the massive self imposed guilt from the overwhelming weight of their percieved privilege.
Those rural households aren’t paying for sewer services.
If I was paying for Prime with the promise of 2 day delivery, and I lived in an area that was not covered by that promise and Amazon didn’t tell me, I would be upset. I would want my Prime fees back. The lawsuit claims that only 1 in 4 Prime orders arrive on time. If my On-Time Delivery Rate was 25% I would have been kicked off the platform ages ago.
My issue, and apparently the AG’s issue, is that Amazon kept charging people for a program which included terms they did not intend to fulfill. It’s not like Amazon was purchasing more expensive UPS shipping to get the packages delivered on time. Amazon isn’t able or willing to deliver to those areas - fine. But then they shouldn’t be charging for it.
To be clear, I have no idea if the allegations in the lawsuit are true, but from what I read Amazon is not denying anything, only that they should be responsible for it.
I believe you are correct about Amazon not guaranteeing 2 day delivery as an automatic part of Prime membership. However, they were (according to the lawsuit) still offering the same expedited Prime delivery options at checkout to these buyers that they were to their non-excluded neighbors, then simply not meeting those promises. Amazon didn’t exclude these buyers from access to their Prime shipping options, they offered them and then ignored them and packages were delivered late.
I don’t think anyone, even the initiators of this lawsuit, is claiming Amazon did anything wrong by not wanting to service those areas. The fault was in presenting as though they would, taking people’s money with the understanding that they would, then failing to do so. If they had told people at checkout that their zip code was not eligible for Prime delivery options, this would be an entirely different conversation. The same would be true if Amazon had paid for faster delivery options with their third party carriers to meet the delivery promises.
Those customers know this going in, and the delivery options available to them are reflective of that. This case is not the same.
It may be time to arm the drivers, or to add a second employee who is armed. After all, delivery companies that can shoot back is a hallowed American tradition - we still have the phases “to ride shotgun” and “shotgun seat” because it was a standard practice.
On reflection, I am sure that Amazon will not undertake the expense of an additional person. Nobody will ride shotgun. Their trucks will be escorted by armed drones controlled by some $2/hour employee in Asia.