Erelle (@itzz.erellee) was still wearing her Amazon vest when they drove away. After her signal dropped, she couldn’t complete her delivery route. The Delivery Service Partner (DSP) driver says she was told the job “wasn’t for her.” She also alleges that her bosses threatened her with a 911 call if she didn’t pull over. Then two male employees showed up, and somehow, it got worse.
Her ordeal has drawn attention to the precarious conditions faced by the nearly 400,000 drivers who deliver Amazon packages via third-party contractors. The structure, critics say, allows the retail giant to avoid accountability for how it treats workers.
“So, I work for Amazon—or I did work at the 7226 Preston Gateway [Hanover, Maryland] location,” she started. “They just left me. My DSP dispatchers came. They got my van. I wasn’t able to complete my routes because of the internet. I told them that.”
Erelle provided a rundown of what she says happened to her: “Long story short, [the DSP dispatchers] came. I told the lady that I needed to go home because she told me it wasn’t for me. Her name is Leah. I told her, basically, what I told the DSP—that the internet wasn’t working and I wasn’t gonna be able to complete the route because of the internet.”
She says she told them she was on her way back to the warehouse, and that she was told “to pull the van over or they [were] gonna call 911.” Then she says two men came to get the “totes” out of her van.
She said the two men left her an hour away from the 7226 Preston Gateway site in Hanover, in Frederick, Maryland, where she was doing deliveries when she lost signal. She stated that they told her they would get her “money for Lyft,” but they had not sent it.
One of the men, whom she called Wilfredo, was a person she had “been complaining about.”
She said, “I’ve been telling these people I’ve been having issues with him. I have messages and everything. They did nothing about it.”
But despite this claim, they had him retrieve the van and her load.
“It’s a whole hour now, and I’m still out here,” she noted during the video. “My mom is coming to get me, and they left me here by myself.”
So what was Erelle supposed to do, according to Amazon? It’s not entirely clear because the DSPs operate differently under varying city/county/state transportation rules. However, the company does have a basic framework that requires a little bit of work to find.
In the DSP Fleet Safety Manual, per the Vehicle Emergency Procedure section:
The documented procedure, at least in this manual, assumes the driver stays with or near the vehicle until assistance comes. There is no provision in this document for confiscating the vehicle and leaving the driver without transportation, or whatever is being alleged in this video.
Erelle also claimed to have recorded her experience with the DSP dispatchers, including the person, Wilfredo, she claimed had issues with her. At the start of this clip, he appears to be on the phone with the police, claiming to be threatened by her. In the on-screen caption, she implies that a superior told him to call the police.
In this video, she writes in the on-screen caption, “This is the same guy I been complaining about to HR and other resources at the vako company and they did nothing about it.”
Erelle mentions a company called “Vako,” which appears to be VAKO Logistics, which is headquartered in Baltimore.
In the course of the contentious conversation, she asks Wildfredo, “So y’all gonna leave me out here?” And, right there on camera, he responds, “Yeah, we’re gonna leave you out here.” Then he says, “I don’t feel safe for my own well-being.” This suggests the area is dangerous, or he sees her as a physical threat to his life or body, which seemed hard to believe.
The other man in the short clip says nothing throughout the entire minute and 21 seconds.
“If you need Uber or something, we can definitely get you some money together,” he said, suggesting they did, in fact, plan to leave her and had no plan whatsoever to ensure her safety or passage home.
Then, he claims she is harassing him and threatening his life, which isn’t in the video.
“I told y’all I was stuck and that the area didn’t work,” she told him. “And the best that y’all could do is tell me that—y’all people are so—everybody, what they say about Amazon is true.”
The “rescue” procedure is real, though it’s hard to document via an employee policy. According to one CNN report, a driver who falls behind can be “rescued” by colleagues. They come and take some of the packages to prevent delays. Sources confirm this is standard practice across Amazon DSPs. Drivers who finish early take packages from those who are running behind or off track. But the driver would typically keep their van after taking the leftover deliveries or just going back to the base station.
Again, Amazon has a regulatory framework in place. However, apparently, every DSP creates its own handbook based on Amazon’s fundamentals.
In the first video, one commenter was explicit. “Ex Amazon driver here, and indeed they were supposed to ‘rescue’ you by taking your majority or entire load,” they wrote. “You KEEP your van and either finish the last stops or simply take YOUR van back to the station. NO WHEREEE does it say physically leave someone stranded. That’s against policy.”
Another ex-driver concurred, but also made an extraordinary claim in the process: “You’re a 100% correctt!!! I knew when my DSP told me even though there’s a tornado out take shelter in your van or the customer house you just delivered to but don’t come back to the pad without delivering your packages.”
One woman said Erelle should “sue them for endangering [her] life.”
A commenter made a critical point about the technology issue at the base. “She not lying because their servers have been going down out of nowhere for the past couple weeks,” they said. “[People] not working whole shifts due to their network.” In fact, a person familiar with the process noted, “your dsp was supposed to tell you to put your phone on airplane mode and it would allow you to continue delivering.”
Another person wrote that Erelle’s case wasn’t the first she had seen. “This is the second video where I [have] seen where Amazon has left the driver stranded in various places,” the woman said. “One guy broke down and they came and got the truck and left him in a neighborhood. I would sue big time because that is dangerous how do they expect yall to get home, every location doesn’t have a uber or a Lyft.”
At the base of this ordeal, though, isn’t just the abandonment of an Amazon driver. There are many similar stories and articles about alleged malfeasance by Amazon or its partners. Wage gaps between the Amazon delivery workers, who earn roughly $19 an hour on average, and, say, the unionized drivers at UPS, who make $35, are also an important topic.
The lack of a collective bargaining framework for DSP workers at Amazon is also a primary issue, perhaps the most important.
But what’s most striking is the literal failure in the two clips. That is the apparent abandonment of a woman an hour away from her home by two uncaring men.
AllHipHop reached out to Erelle (via TikTok comment). We also reached out to Amazon and VAKO Logistics via email. This story will be updated if any party responds.
@itzz.erellee I had no service to complete my routes my dsp’s came and took my van and gave me no ride back to the wear house left me stranded this how amazon treats there workers #amazonwearhouse #fyp #dmv #forupageシ #amazondelivary ♬ original sound – Erelle 
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