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  • 2022-12-08 (xsd:date)
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  • Will Amazon Give Delivery Drivers $5 if You Thank Alexa? (en)
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  • Amazon, the gigantic e-commerce company, announced in late 2022 it was thanking drivers for their hard work over the holiday season in a new way. According to a screenshot of a statement sent to us by our readers, anyone who tells Alexa (Amazon's virtual assistant technology) to Thank my driver would prompt the company to give the driver $5. Screenshot via About Amazon This is a real program from Amazon but will apply only to the first 1 million drivers who received thank-you's from customers. According to Amazon's news release, posted on its website, the program marks a special milestone of 15 billion Amazon packages delivered in the U.S: It was unclear at the time of this writing how impactful the program would be in light of news about alleged poor working conditions at Amazon. Its delivery drivers have long complained that holiday season traffic made their lives hell, and that they have often sacrificed their own safety to ensure late-night deliveries. According to a recent Vice report, many of them were still peeing in bottles on their routes to keep up with the pace of deliveries. Additionally, on Dec. 7, 2022, the District of Columbia sued Amazon for allegedly misleading consumers while stealing tips from drivers. According to a news release from D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine's office: In February 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) required Amazon to pay out almost $62 million to its drivers deprived of tips between 2016 and 2019. In response to the D.C. attorney general's suit, an Amazon spokesperson said, Nothing is more important to us than customer trust. This lawsuit involves a practice we changed three years ago and is without merit. All of the customer tips at issue were already paid to drivers as part of a settlement last year with the FTC. So, for consumers, while thanking drivers through Alexa did indeed appear to be a real tipping program at Amazon in late 2022, it was unclear whether drivers were actually getting the money or better working conditions. Until we learn more about the program's implementation, we have thus rated the claim Mostly True. (en)
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