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It's confirmed Amazon takes 30% of you tips. Here is how we know.

30K views 111 replies 38 participants last post by  kksauntie 
#1 ·
Here was the first sign that we knew Amazon took some of our tips they don't give you a detail of what the customer has tipped you out like doordash. The second sign was that Amazon tells customers to tip in the app instead of giving them the option to tip in cash. So how did we find out? We have asked each customer on our route, "How much should you tip?" And when the total comes out in 2 days we saw a difference from what was paid out. You can do the same and then you can see the Amazon steals your tips! Tell customers to tip in cash.
 
#9 ·
3 of us did this on a 4 hour shift, a customer has no reason to lie, sounds like you are trying to defend Amazon!! You need to prove they don't steal tips, not the other way around, what a shady company!



They don't steal the whole tip, just a percentage. Their are cases were customers wanted to tip they just closed out the ap to quick.

These F@$& Gig economies companies...
Get away with it because... you're not an actual employee.
Agreed!!
 
#109 ·
I delivered to my first lower-income area yesterday. West Side of Chicago. Dangerous area. 90% Black / 8% Hispanic. 9 stops/43 packages. $5 in Tips on top of the $37.50 2.5hour base pay. Worst day since starting Flex, just before Thanksgiving 2021.

What happens if I get that route again, and tell Amazon I'm not doing it, due to safety reasons? Maybe I should tell Amazon my concerns right now? Advice please.
 
#6 ·
hahaha I'm not going to ask each & every customer if/how much they tipped, some people might be really offended by it.

I tested it when my bf delivered an order I placed for a 2-hour route, and they passed the whole tip along back then, but that was nearly a year ago.

another driver at my warehouse said he placed a 1-hour order, tipped $5, driver said he didn't receive it, emailed Amazon and then had a tip adjustment for the next pay statement.

they're not allowed to make our tips part of our hourly wage in California, so stealing tips would be a huge lawsuit
 
#10 · (Edited)
On the one instant order I delivered the other night I ended up with no tip. $8 to deliver 6 pizza's on an $80 order to a million dollar beach home and not a penny. I find that hard to believe. Pizza's were fresh, delivered early and stored in a pizza bag for the 5 minute drive from the restaurant.

I've seen a marked decrease in my tip amounts from 6 months ago. I believe Amazon is now allocating tips in California and are taking the position that the California law does not apply to us because we not are employees.
 
#11 ·
They take $3 of our tips per half hour. If we receive tips on a 2 hour Prime now block, Amazon takes the first $12 of tips and we get the rest. I proved this awhile ago. I wanted to prove my theory as I was on an 830-10 block. It was slow and I had no orders so I decided to place a one hour order as a customer myself as I knew I would be the next driver to deliver this one hour to my house. I "tipped" myself what I thought was $12.27 but Amazon only gave me a $3.27 tip. If they weren't taking $3 per half hour of our tips then I should have been paid $27+12.27tip=$39.27 for the block. Instead I was paid $27+3.27tip=$30.27?!?
See the $9 difference? That's Amazon's cut. Mafia style
 

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#12 ·
We already know amazon has a set amount they will pay for that shift. If the amount they set for that shift is less than the "Guaranteed" amount they will cover tips until you reach the threshold and you will get the extra. If the "Guaranteed" amount is already set at $18, you will get all the tips on top of that and you will not notice. It all depends on what that amount is set before the shift and we will never know since Amazon will never tell us.
 
#13 ·
I've seen a marked decrease in my tip amounts from 6 months ago. I believe Amazon is now allocating tips in California and are taking the position that the California law does not apply to us because we are employees.
I'd love to test it again, especially for 1-hours, but my address is outside of their delivery region for one hour deliveries.
 
#14 ·
They take $3 of our tips per half hour. If we receive tips on a 2 hour Prime now block, Amazon takes the first $12 of tips and we get the rest. I proved this awhile ago. I wanted to prove my theory as I was on an 830-10 block. It was slow and I had no orders so I decided to place a one hour order as a customer myself as I knew I would be the next driver to deliver this one hour to my house. I "tipped" myself what I thought was $12.27 but Amazon only gave me a $3.27 tip. If they weren't taking $3 per half hour of our tips then I should have been paid $27+12.27tip=$39.27 for the block. Instead I was paid $27+3.27tip=$30.27?!?
See the $9 difference? That's Amazon's cut. Mafia style
Wow.

I am sure a good attorney company would be more than happy to jump on that class action lawsuit.
 
#16 · (Edited)
It’s been discussed a lot elesewhere but the bottom line is that each market and each block has a variable base amount. This can be equal to or less than the hourly guarantee amount. Tips are then added to this variable base. If the variable base was less than the hourly rate, your tips start to get applied toward the hourly minimum.

Some markets and blocks may have the base equal to the hourly rate. This means you get all your tips. In my case, when this started it equated to about a $13 base per hour. Then the first $5 per hour of tips got applied toward the $18 (or taken away basically).

Before all this started, my one hour, one delivery blocks were almost always $23. After it, they all went to down to $18. One time I saw one for $19.

The rest of my blocks similarly went down about $5 per hour or about $200 per week.

Some states and areas and times can be different. So some people’s experience does not mean it is the same company wide.

Amazon flat out refuses to give the actual amounts. But they will reply with an email about how they used to do it is different because now there is a variable base component. You just won’t know what it is.

Try asking them sometime exactly how much your tips were for a block, day, week, or anything. They’ll refuse on a so-called privacy concern.

Lyft used to do this with their hourly guarantees also (except they did disclose the tip amounts). They recently just changed it though to give you your tips on top of the hourly guarantees.

It’s not likely to change for the better at Amazon. Their delivery costs are always under pressure for this segment of their business. There’s not much, if any profit here for Amazon like there is with their web services.
 
#18 ·
It's true that technically we get all of our tips from customers. What is also true is Amazon can lower their base pay to us anyway they want as long as we are getting at least $18/hr. Amazon basically pays $12/hr base out of their pocket to drivers. Hell of a deal for them and still not a bad deal for us when we have a lot of stops and make good tips.
 
#22 ·
Been seeing this on instant offers for restaurants as well more than on restaurant scheduled shifts here. On scheduled shifts I usually end up with ~$4 in tips per delivery compared to ~$1 on instant offers.

I'm guessing this means the hourly base pay is on or near the minimum for scheduled shifts, in fact I'd say equal since if I do 1 delivery in 4 hours I get the tip. On the other hand the base pay for an instant offer seems to be set several dollars lower than the offer's face value.

I don't have any concrete proof like some other posters, but so far on 9 instant offers that have been finalized I have yet to receive an electronic tip higher than $2. Considering the default is $5 and how often I get that much on scheduled shifts, about 50% of orders it seems, the chances that every single one of my instant offers has been a shitty tipper isn't very likely. I'd be willing to gamble that the instant offer base is set $3 lower than the minimum for the offer, that would explain the $1-2s that I keep seeing. Of course just for wrongness' sake the instant offers always have a $5 variable, insinuating that you would get to keep the whole $5 default tip.
 
#23 · (Edited)
Variable base pay is admitted directly by Amazon Flex support. It's right there in the second paragraph below. This was in response to my inquiry about what was going on with tips after they dropped here early in 2017.

They admit that they had just recently introduced it and it was not like that before. They clearly state in the first paragraph below that before this, there was a fixed base of $18 plus all tips added to that. Now, in the second paragraph that is replaced with an undisclosed variable base pay.

As stated by them, their commitment to $18-25 did not change. But your ability to exceed it is much harder with variable base pay absorbing some of the tips.

Font Number Document Screenshot
 
#24 ·
Variable base pay is admitted directly by Amazon Flex support. It's right there in the second paragraph below. This was in response to my inquiry about what was going on with tips after they dropped here early in 2017. They admit that they had just recently introduced it and it was not like that before:

View attachment 196048
Wow! Thanks for this. No wonder no one's making money on one hours! I will try to avoid them from now on! It's kind of amazing VBP is not allowed in California but many employers still do it because no one's watching!

Anyone in for a lawsuit or two?

EDIT: Oops I mean tip credits are not allowed. I'm not too sure about VBP.
 
#25 ·
To put this in perspective, if you work 40 hours a week and Amazon steals $3/half an hour as suggested by the screenshots, Amazon could be stealing from you

$6 x 8 hours = $48 per day
$48 x 5 = $240 per week
$240 x 4 = $960 per month
$960 x 12 = $11,520 per year !!!

If that screenshot represents a typical skim, this company steals from you 11,520 damn dollars per damn year!!!

Given how shady they are and do not now disclose the "service fee" as they should according to the contract, God knows for how long they have been scamming and robbing you.
 
#28 ·
Variable base pay is admitted directly by Amazon Flex support. It's right there in the second paragraph below. This was in response to my inquiry about what was going on with tips after they dropped here early in 2017.

They admit that they had just recently introduced it and it was not like that before. They clearly state in the first paragraph below that before this, there was a fixed base of $18 plus all tips added to that. Now, in the second paragraph that is replaced with an undisclosed variable base pay.

As stated by them, their commitment to $18-25 did not change. But your ability to exceed it is much harder with variable base pay absorbing some of the tips.

View attachment 196048
Welcome to upfront pricing 2.0.
 
#29 ·
I can assure you Amazon is now doing variable base pay in California as well...
I don't get how they can legally do this in California, even with our variable base pay, it says "plus tips" and they still advertise drivers receive 100% of tips from customers.

Amazon is ****ing stupid, all of these other platforms have been sued for a lot less and Amazon has been walking a fine line since the beginning.

I'm gonna test it this week, and if the driver I do it with receives less than what I tipped, i'm not going to even bring it to Amazon's attention, i'm brining it straight to an attorney along with a list of all of the other shady shit Amazon has been getting away with since the beginning.
 
#32 ·
I don't get how they can legally do this in California, even with our variable base pay, it says "plus tips" and they still advertise drivers receive 100% of tips from customers.

Amazon is &%$@!*ing stupid, all of these other platforms have been sued for a lot less and Amazon has been walking a fine line since the beginning.

I'm gonna test it this week, and if the driver I do it with receives less than what I tipped, i'm not going to even bring it to Amazon's attention, i'm brining it straight to an attorney along with a list of all of the other shady shit Amazon has been getting away with since the beginning.
The California law explicitly states that it applies to employees. Until we get a California court to rule that we are employees then the laws covering California employees don't apply to us.

When you have billions laws don't apply to you in the same way. Even if a court were to find Amazon in violation of the law there isn't any penalty except for payment of the correct back wages which is why all of these companies keep getting away with it. Pretty much these laws are all bark and no bite.

Amazon could also very well have their system take into account unusual large tip amounts and have those passed untouched to the driver to avoid just this type of test.

Let's assume VBP is allowed. It's still shady because they don't TELL US what the base pay is!
GREASY!

 
#33 ·
3 of us did this on a 4 hour shift, a customer has no reason to lie, sounds like you are trying to defend Amazon!! You need to prove they don't steal tips, not the other way around, what a shady company!
Actually, you need to prove Amazon is steeling tips. You are making the claim that Amazon is skimming 30% of the tip, you need to back it up with verifiable evidence. Buyers are liars. The customer may deviate from the tip in the following ways:

1) He says $5.00, but actually rounded up his purchase to a whole dollar and tipped you $4.72.
2) A husband says he tipped you $5.00, but the wife placed the order and tipped you $3.50.
3) He was embarrassed to say he only tipped you $3.00 and told you it was $5.00.

In addition, each state has there own tip credit/independent contractor laws. You cannot make a blanket statement about Amazon's policies when it varies from state to state. The State of Ohio allows for employers to apply $4.15 of tips to an hourly wage. In California tip credits are illegal against any hourly pay, but are allowed against bonuses and single contract jobs.

Variable base pay is admitted directly by Amazon Flex support. It's right there in the second paragraph below. This was in response to my inquiry about what was going on with tips after they dropped here early in 2017.

They admit that they had just recently introduced it and it was not like that before. They clearly state in the first paragraph below that before this, there was a fixed base of $18 plus all tips added to that. Now, in the second paragraph that is replaced with an undisclosed variable base pay.

As stated by them, their commitment to $18-25 did not change. But your ability to exceed it is much harder with variable base pay absorbing some of the tips.

View attachment 196048
Again, it varies from state to state. California drivers did not receive this email. However for restaurant deliveries, Amazon is testing a Postmates model (called Instant Offers). What is shady is that Amazon just doesn't disclose to their drivers the formula. The nondisclosure may be what gets Amazon in trouble.
 
#34 · (Edited)
Actually, you need to prove Amazon is steeling tips. You are making the claim that Amazon is skimming 30% of the tip, you need to back it up with verifiable evidence. Buyers are liars. The customer may deviate from the tip in the following ways:

1) He says $5.00, but actually rounded up his purchase to a whole dollar and tipped you $4.72.
2) A husband says he tipped you $5.00, but the wife placed the order and tipped you $3.50.
3) He was embarrassed to say he only tipped you $3.00 and told you it was $5.00.

In addition, each state has there own tip credit/independent contractor laws. You cannot make a blanket statement about Amazon's policies when it varies from state to state. The State of Ohio allows for employers to apply $4.15 of tips to an hourly wage. In California tip credits are illegal against any hourly pay, but are allowed against bonuses and single contract jobs.

Again, it varies from state to state. California drivers did not receive this email. However for restaurant deliveries, Amazon is testing a Postmates model (called Instant Offers). What is shady is that Amazon just doesn't disclose to their drivers the formula. The nondisclosure may be what gets Amazon in trouble.
That's really the problem. There should be disclosure on pay line items including how much is wages and how much is tips. I think they'd still have plenty of drivers. I'm not sure what they really benefit from hiding it. This model is applied in other gigs and jobs where I've always seen full disclosure.

Also, nobody really 'got' the email per se as if it were sent as a notice. It was only sent to a very few as a reply when an inquiry was made about their tips and pay. As far as I know this email was never sent nor there was never any voluntary disclosure to anyone until they asked about it in a support ticket.

It will be difficult to prove it because amazon has control over the finances and refuses to state the actual numbers. But the email which I received makes no sense unless they were applying tips in some cases. Also, at least here, it's really hard to explain how you almost never get any tips unless you exceed one stop per hour. I've seen other drivers also show me days where they got stuck on single stop, one hours all day long and never exceeded $18 per hour when before this it was usually $23.
 
#39 ·
That is the exact opposite of what Amazon states. At least for my market.

Has Amazon disclosed that they do skim tips in any market?
Actually, tips are considered a gift and must be paid to the employee in full. What employers in some states are allowed to do is reduce the hourly wage. This is called a tip credit.

But here is where Amazon is testing the limits of the law. Under the FLSA, employers that practice tip credit must disclose the reduce wage rate that they pay.

This is not happening here in California, so I have been sheltered from this debate. What I cannot believe is that after nine (9) months this debate is still going on. Hasn't somebody by now gone the distance and taken Amazon to their state labor board and compel them to disclose their tip credit practices?
 
#40 ·
Sooner or later they will be forced to disclose and be transparent if someone does complain to one of the state agencies. The problem is the public loves Amazon too much. Some are claiming the practice is happening here California despite the law, due to our being "independent contractors." There is not enough conclusive data as to whether Amazon is partaking in such practices here but I don't doubt it given Amazon's history of illegal creative accounting and being sheltered from such due to popular public opinion (see sales tax avoidance).
 
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