Amazon Ordered To Pay Back $61.7 Million In Tips To Independent Drivers

Amazon Ordered To Pay Back $61.7 Million In Tips To Independent Drivers.

AMAZON will pay more than $61.7m to settle charges brought against it by the Federal Trade Commission alleging it failed to pay Amazon Flex drivers the full tip amounts they were given by customers of the company.  According to an FTC complaint, Amazon only stopped taking the contracted drivers’ tips after becoming aware of the FTC investigation.

The money collected from Amazon will now go toward drivers’ compensation.  The company claimed drivers would receive “100 per cent of the tips you earn while delivering with Amazon Flex” but later changed the way it paid drivers – without alerting them – and pocketed their wages.

“Rather than passing along 100 per cent of customers’ tips to drivers, as it had promised to do, Amazon used the money itself,” Daniel Kaufman, Acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said. “Our action today returns to drivers the tens of millions of dollars in tips that Amazon misappropriated, and requires Amazon to get drivers’ permission before changing its treatment of tips in the future.”

Amazon is one of several e-commerce firms that have been accused of misappropriating tips while promising to give the full amounts to drivers.

According to the FTC’s administrative complaint, the company regularly advertised that drivers participating in the Flex programme would be paid $18 to $25 per hour along with ‘100 per cent of the tips you earn.’

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