by Liberty Best
lbest@cherryroad.com
Amazon quietly came into Sevier County and built a small distribution/sorting center locally.
According to Malcolm Nash, Sevier County Administration and Economic Development, the distribution center came in looking for property via a Salt Lake real estate company, wanting to keep the project very quiet.
“They just said there is a large company interested in the area but nothing more. They were interested in sites of a certain size and needed good access to roads and highways. I helped them find a couple and provided contact information and they took it from there. There were a few follow-up calls to confirm some information but that was about it,” Nash said.
The building was up and running just prior to Christmas 2024, and since the inception of local sorting for Amazon, there has been several issues that the community has noticed. Going to the length of writing letters to the Richfield Reaper.
The following is a letter that was sent to Amazon from a local resident and later sent to the Reaper.
“Dear Amazon,
Amazon recently opened a new delivery center in my community – being WUT4. There are alarming issues from this center. The local community is outraged by the service (or lack of) being provided by Amazon deliveries. The local Facebook page (Rant & Rave Sevier County) is full of Amazon delivery complaints. Amazon rants are easily the #1 topic commented on. Local post office staff also get earfuls of complaints about Amazon since USPS used to deliver the Amazon packages. Frequent complaints include drivers throwing packages, packages delivered to wrong address (high frequency), and packages delayed in transit. Packages are sitting in the warehouse for DAYS. Personally I’ve had a package at the warehouse since Saturday morning, now Wednesday afternoon and still not out for delivery. That’s 5 days!! (Order #114-6099832-0689840)
If these problems existed at UPS, regional management would be on site fixing the problem. A 2 day delay is unacceptable in shipping. 5 days is a business that simply does not care about it’s customers. Amazon expanded the volume at this facility faster than it had staffing to do so.
[Amazon lies]. In addition, Amazon is telling customers the delays is “due to severe weather.” Well, we’ve had absolutely beautiful weather over these days. So weather delays are an outright lie to customers.
I worked for UPS for 15 years, have a business degree, and deliver Flex 1-2 times per week. I see the issues from multiple angles if any at Amazon wants additional input from me.
I know Amazon’s response will be “sorry for the delay” or “packages are delivered by 3rd party drivers, not Amazon.” What I would like to hear is HOW AMAZON is working to FIX this problem.
A copy of this email will also be sent to the local newspaper and I may even send it to state news outlets since WUT4 covers a large delivery area.
Sincerely,
Toby Jackson – in behalf of customers in the delivery area of WUT4”
Amazon public relations have not responded to media requests by the time of publication of this article.
