District of Columbia Sues Amazon for ‘Stealing’ Supply Driver Ideas
Supply vans at an Amazon facility in Denver. (Chet Unusual/Bloomberg Information)
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The legal professional normal for Washington, D.C., is suing Amazon.com Inc., in search of civil penalties for allegedly deceptive shoppers who thought they had been tipping supply drivers however had the cash diverted to cowl the couriers’ base pay.
The case, filed in Washington D.C. Superior Court docket, cites a 2021 settlement between the corporate and the Federal Commerce Fee, wherein the company discovered that Amazon withheld suggestions meant for its gig-economy drivers for greater than two years.
The corporate had pledged that drivers would obtain 100% of the worth of suggestions, however Amazon as an alternative used a portion of the gratuities to pay the bottom fee for its drivers, the FTC mentioned. The Seattle-based firm agreed to pay $61.7 million to settle the matter, which was earmarked for drivers. Amazon spokespeople on the time mentioned the corporate disagreed that its prior pay practices had been unclear.
“My workplace is suing Amazon for stealing suggestions from supply drivers via a misleading, unlawful scheme that made shoppers assume they had been rising drivers’ pay when Amazon was really diverting tricks to scale back its personal labor prices and enhance earnings,” legal professional normal Karl Racine mentioned in a publish on Twitter. Amazon didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“Nothing is extra essential to us than buyer belief,” Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti mentioned in an emailed assertion. “This lawsuit entails a apply we modified three years in the past and is with out advantage. All the buyer suggestions at situation had been already paid to drivers as a part of a settlement final yr with the FTC.”
Racine seeks restitution, a discovering that Amazon’s actions violated shopper safety statutes and civil penalties. Racine’s workplace had sued Amazon final yr, alleging that the corporate engaged in anticompetitive practices that drove up costs for shoppers. A decide dismissed the case, saying there wasn’t sufficient proof to assist the claims. Racine subsequently sought to revive it.
Amazon ranks No. 19 on the Transport Matters Prime 100 checklist of the most important personal carriers in North America.
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