[The District of Columbia sued Amazon on Wednesday, alleging that 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, Amazon imposed 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.
Amazon says it made the change based on concerns about driver safety, but the District of Columbia’s attorney general’s office alleged that the company never told Prime members in the two ZIP codes about the change, even though they experienced slower deliveries as a result.
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. Prime members in those neighborhoods have ordered more than 4.5 million packages in the past four years, and are more likely to rely on Amazon since they have fewer services and retail stores nearby.
The district says that in 2021, before Amazon implemented its delivery “exclusion,” more than 72% of Prime packages in the impacted ZIP codes were delivered within two days. But last year, it was only 24%.
The district is asking the court to issue an order prohibiting Amazon from “engaging in unfair or deceptive practices” and to pay restitution or damages to affected Prime members, as well as civil penalties.
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.
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