The Washington City Attorney has filed a complaint against Amazon, which he accuses of having diverted tips intended for independent delivery people, according to a press release from the magistrate published on Wednesday.
The e-commerce giant is accused of having used these tips to pay part of the sums it owed to these delivery men.
Amazon has already agreed in 2021 to pay back $ 62 million to delivery people to put an end to lawsuits from the American consumer protection agency (FTC) on these same facts.
But Washington prosecutor Karl Racine wants a fine to be imposed on the group and a court ruling to permanently ban the company from resorting to this practice.
Amazon introduced a program called “Amazon Flex” in 2015, which encouraged customers to tip delivery people as soon as they placed their order.
However, the company changed the payment system for these delivery people in 2016, leading to a large part of the tips not being paid directly to the delivery people, but to financing part of the amount owed by Amazon.
At the same time, she continued to assure customers that 100% of tips were going into the pockets of delivery people.
“And instead of notifying drivers of changes to its tipping system, Amazon changed the way tips were displayed in the app so that delivery people could no longer see how much each customer paid,” is- he added in the release.
Even if Amazon has reimbursed the sums unduly deducted, the group “has so far escaped any liability, including any fine, for the damage caused to consumers”, underlines the Washington prosecutor’s office to justify the complaint filed. tuesday.
This complaint “concerns a practice that we changed three years ago”, reacted an Amazon spokeswoman in a message to AFP, considering that the procedure was “unfounded”.
The agreement with the FTC in 2021 also required the group to seek permission from delivery people before making any changes to its tip management, an obligation that runs until 2041.