Amazon Sued Over Slow Deliveries to Low-Income Areas
The New York Times
The District of Columbia’s attorney general said the company deliberately outsourced Prime member deliveries in certain ZIP codes.
The attorney general of the District of Columbia sued Amazon on Wednesday, accusing it of violating consumer protection laws by making slower deliveries to Prime members in historically lower-income neighborhoods.
In one of the first complaints of its kind, which was filed with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb said Amazon had deliberately and secretly stopped its fastest delivery service to the nearly 50,000 Prime subscribers in certain ZIP codes that were lower-income neighborhoods.
According to the lawsuit, Amazon has used third parties like United Parcel Service and the Postal Service to make Prime deliveries in those areas for the past two years. That resulted in slower deliveries than those made by Amazon’s own delivery drivers, who serve other Washington residents.
Amazon “cannot covertly decide that a dollar in one ZIP code is worth less than a dollar in another,” Mr. Schwalb said in a statement. “We’re suing to stop this deceptive conduct and make sure District residents get what they’re paying for.”
Amazon told Mr. Schwalb that it had made the change because of safety concerns in those neighborhoods, the attorney general said. He said the company had violated consumer protection laws by failing to disclose the change to consumers.
Amazon said that it disagreed that it had deceived customers and that it had informed Prime subscribers in those areas about each stage of the delivery process. The company said it tried to work with the office of the attorney general to support crime prevention and improve safety for drivers in those areas.
