The District of Columbia sued Amazon on Wednesday, alleging the company secretly stopped providing its fastest delivery service to residents of two predominantly Black neighborhoods while still charging millions of dollars for a membership that promises the benefit.
The complaint filed in District of Columbia Superior Court revolves around Amazon’s Prime membership, which costs consumers $139 per year or $14.99 per month for fast deliveries — including one-day, two-day and same-day shipments — along with other enhancements.
In mid-2022, the lawsuit alleges, the Seattle-based online retailer 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 U.S. Postal Service, rather than its own delivery systems.
They mention targeted attacks against drivers in these zip codes. If it’s really about race, why stop at those 2?
Not that they should hold out on their promise to subscribers but I don’t buy the race angle
Yeah, to me this reads less like a specifically racist choice and more so a tangent of POC being left/forced to live in impoverished areas, the latter of which will go hand in hand with higher crime rates. I sympathize with the frustration to the decision, but I can’t think of a good argument for forcing Amazon to put it’s employees at risk.
The thing is they shouldn’t be selling prime subscriptions to people in those zip codes then, since they advertise the fast shipping as a reason to subscribe.
I certainly agree with that - if the service can’t be provided, they shouldn’t be taking money for it.
There should definitely be a notification to people in those areas that rush delivery will not be available. There are other reasons to buy prime, so I don’t think it should be completely unavailable, but residents should be able to make an informed decision.
This is exactly it, and this is the point that is often missed in a great many discussions on modern racism and discrimination. Amazon is not refusing to deliver there because those people are black. They refusing to deliver because their drivers got attacked. The fact that those neighborhoods are mostly black has nothing to do with it. It is a correlation, not a causation. The root causes the same though, it was probably a red line neighborhood back in the mid-1900s and never recovered.
Amazon should make it clear to people buying prime in those areas though, that rush delivery will not be available and if they want to buy prime they will get all of the other benefits but not fast delivery.
Why would slower deliveries stop targeted attacks?
I may have read it wrong but my understanding was Amazon pulled back their own drivers from those zipcodes and delegated their packages to other carriers
Yeah, I didn’t read and I should have.
Should’ve spent more time with my kid instead of the computer.
I’m sorry… are you saying I’m not parenting my child? Because I posted that yesterday in the morning. You know, when kids are doing school?
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Cool. Reported for trolling and harassment.
And yes, I know I have no self-worth, you don’t have to tell me. Also, if you think I can manipulate anyone anywhere ever, you think more of my worth than I do.
And if you want my name, address and phone, DM me and you’ll be welcome to harass/attack/kill me in person. Just give me time to get the rest of my family out of the house before you do what I definitely deserve. Thanks.
Edit: Actually, only the third. You’ve got to promise the third or I won’t give it to you. Alternately, just wait four years and I will be doing it myself. That’s the plan anyway.
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Weird how OP didn’t mention that in their post description.
OP, aka ME, just copied the first three paragraphs from the story, which is what I ALWAYS do. 🤨