Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing Amazon for allegedly excluding certain zip codes from enjoying Amazon Prime fast delivery. Schwalb claims that starting in 2022, Amazon stopped using its internal delivery systems for Wards 7 and 8 while still charging those customers the same amount for a Prime membership. according to Census Reporter, i 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 the deliveries, a decision that led to longer delivery times. Only 24 percent of parcels to these Wards were delivered within two days. Schwalb also alleged that Amazon failed to notify any Ward 7 and Ward 8 residents of these changes.
Worryingly, this isn’t the first time Amazon has been called out for excluding majority-black neighborhoods from the rich benefits of a Prime membership. A doomed 2016 in Bloomberg indicated that the practice was common in several metropolitan areas. Since then, Amazon has provided free same-day delivery to Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Chicago’s South Side, and New York City’s Bronx.
