Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing amazon for allegedly excluding certain ZIP codes from enjoying fast amazon Prime delivery. Schwalb says that starting in 2022, amazon stopped using its internal delivery systems for Districts 7 and 8 and continued to charge those customers the same amount for a Prime subscription. According census reporter, and they are 83 percent and 82 percent black, respectively.
According to the lawsuit, instead of using its own trucks, amazon relied on UPS and USPS carriers to make deliveries, a decision that resulted in longer delivery times. Only 24 percent of packages sent to these pavilions were delivered within two days. Schwalb also alleged that amazon did not notify any residents of Wards 7 and 8 about these changes.
Worryingly, this is not the first time amazon has been criticized for excluding majority-black neighborhoods from all the benefits of a Prime membership. A damning 2016 <a target="_blank" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-amazon-same-day/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:report;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “> in Bloomberg indicated that the practice was common in several metropolitan areas. Since then, amazon has offered same-day Prime Free Delivery in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, Chicago's South Side, and the Bronx in New York City.
