Amazon To Pay $61.7 Million For Stealing Tips From Delivery Drivers

Amazon will pay $61.7 million after being accused of withholding tips from their Amazon Flex delivery drivers, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Tuesday.

The Amazon Flex program allows drivers who are classified as independent contractors to deliver goods using their own vehicles. Amazon repeatedly advertised that drivers would be paid between $18 and $25 an hour in addition to keeping 100% of customer tips, the FTC complaint alleges. Customers were also told that the drivers would keep 100% of the tips, according to the complaint.

“Rather than passing along 100 percent of customers’ tips to drivers, as it had promised to do, Amazon used the money itself,” Acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Daniel Kaufman claimed in a statement.

An Amazon Flex driver loads their personal vehicle with packages outside the 1.2 million-square-foot BWI2 Amazon Fulfillment Center in the Chesapeake Commerce Center April 14, 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Amazon lowered the hourly rate that the drivers were being paid in late 2016 without disclosing the change to the drivers, using some of the drivers’ tips to make up the difference, the FTC alleges. This practice allegedly continued for 2 1/2 years, stopping in 2019 once the company became aware that the FTC was investigating, according to...

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