Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing Amazon for excluding certain ZIP codes from enjoying Amazon Prime’s fast delivery. Schwalb claims that starting in 2022, Amazon stopped using its delivery system to the 7th and 8th Wards, but is still charging those customers the same amount for their Prime subscriptions. According to Census Reporters, the 7th and 8th Wards are 83% and 82% black, respectively.
Instead of using its own trucks, Amazon relies on UPS and USPS carriers for deliveries, a decision that results in longer delivery times, according to the complaint. Only 24% of packages to these districts were delivered within two days. Schwalb also claimed that Amazon did not notify residents of Wards 7 and 8 about these changes.
Worryingly, this isn’t the first time Amazon has been accused of excluding Black-majority communities from Prime membership benefits. A damning 2016 report from Bloomberg showed that this practice is common in some metropolitan areas. Amazon has since offered Prime free same-day delivery service to Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Chicago’s South Side and New York City’s Bronx.
