Amazon shuts down a customer’s smart home for a week after the delivery driver claims he heard racial slurs through the Ring doorbell – even though no one was home
- Brandon Jackson, of Baltimore, Maryland, returned home on May 25 to find he had been kicked out of his Amazon Echo
- When he contacted an Amazon executive, he was told that a delivery driver had reported hearing “racial slurs” from his doorbell and that it was being investigated.
- Six days later, he would regain access to his accounts without an explanation from Amazon
Amazon reportedly shut down a customer’s smart home after the delivery driver claimed he heard a racial slur through the doorbell, even though no one was home.
Brandon Jackson, of Baltimore, Maryland, returned home on May 25 to find he had been locked out of his Amazon Echo, to which many devices, including his lights, are connected.
He would later learn that Amazon banned him from their account after a delivery driver dropped off a package the day before. Jackson, an engineer at Microsoft, said “everything seemed to be fine” after the package arrived at his home and initially thought he was locked out because someone had tried “to access my account multiple times, triggering a lockout”.
But none of that was true. A rep directed him to an email he received from an executive who provided him with a phone number to call. When he called the number, he was told in a ‘somewhat accusatory’ tone that the driver had reported ‘receiving racist remarks’ from his doorbell.
“This incident has left me with a house full of unresponsive devices, a silent Alexa and lots of questions,” he wrote on AVERAGE.
Brandon Jackson, of Baltimore, Maryland, returned home on May 25 to find he had been locked out of his Amazon Echo, to which many devices, including his lights, are connected.
A day earlier, an Amazon driver dropped off a package and “everything seemed to be fine.” However, after contacting Amazon, he found his account was under investigation and was told in a ‘somewhat accusatory’ tone that the driver had reported ‘receiving racist remarks’ from his doorbell.
Jackson, who is black, said most of the neighborhood’s residents and his delivery drivers are also African American and that it would be “highly unlikely that we would make any such remarks.”
“Finally, when I asked what time the alleged incident happened, I realized that it was virtually impossible for anyone in my house to have made these comments, because no one was home. at this time (around 6:05 p.m.),” he wrote.
After reviewing the doorbell images, he learned that the device had given an automatic response saying, “Excuse me, can I help you?”
He also said the video showed the driver wearing headphones during the interaction and “must have misinterpreted the message.”
The next day, he was completely locked out of his account and “rendered unusable during their internal investigation”.
The Baltimore native claimed to have sent video evidence to Amazon and had no response for days. When he did, he was told it would take two working days to fix the problem.
When he reviewed the doorbell images, he discovered that the device automatically responded, “Excuse me, can I help you?” He said he was still locked out of his devices for days, despite handing over the footage
It wasn’t until six days later that he regained access to his account, with “no follow-up emails to let me know of the resolution”, which “caused me to question my relationship with Amazon”.
“After nearly a decade of loyalty, I have been harshly reminded that a misunderstanding can lead to such drastic action,” he wrote. “It seems more reasonable to deal with these issues in a more compartmentalized way, rather than a blanket shutdown of all services.”
“Because of this experience, I am seriously considering discontinuing use of Amazon Echo devices and will warn others about this incident.”
The University of Maryland graduate said he now plans to use Raspberry Pi devices, rather than those connected to Amazon.
DailyMail.com has contacted Amazon and Jackson for comment.
