Nikki Freitas has been feeling like she lives in the Bermuda Triangle instead of Douglas, Wyoming lately, with her Amazon packages somehow ending up in Gillette instead.
That feeling intensified after learning she wasn’t the only one with similar problems.
“I’m a (Nurse Practitioner) student at the clinic, so I’ve been hearing from the nurses and other providers there that nobody’s been getting their packages,” Freitas told Cowboy State Daily. “And there’s a doctor in Glenrock who hasn’t been getting his either. They’ve been like stuck in Gillette.”
Amazon officials told Cowboy State Daily they are investigating the situation and encouraged customers to call customer service if they are experiencing these difficulties, to better highlight that it’s a trend occurring. Because Amazon handles hundreds of thousands of packages, it can be easy for such trends to hide but calls to customer service can help flag that there is a more widespread issue.
So far, normal customer service hasn’t been able to resolve the issue, Freitas said, but she is among customers who have called.
She’s lost 10 packages so far over the past three weeks, receiving only a couple of the multiple items she’s ordered.
“They all have the same messages, saying, ‘Sorry, your package is late,’” she said. “But they are still expecting them to arrive at such and such date.”
Most of the packages never arrive. Instead, Freitas eventually gets a message that advises her she can put in for a refund.
Workers at the Casper Amazon Flex location sort packages for delivery. (Courtesy Amazon) 
Workers at the Casper Amazon Flex location sort packages for delivery. (Courtesy Amazon) 
The Amazon Flex delivery warehouse in Casper is one of the state's first two hubs in Wyoming. The other is in Gillette. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
First Two Distribution Centers In Wyoming
Gillette and Casper were the first two Amazon distribution centers in Wyoming.
Placement of the facilities was based on demographics for deliveries, Cowboy State Daily was told last year when the centers opened.
“Amazon follows the data on where our customers are,” Amazon’s Regional spokesman for Wyoming and Montana, Scott Seroka, said then. “It’s based on volume and demand.”
Seroka denied that weather-related delivery problems were the reason for the new centers. Although weather has contributed to some delivery issues in the past, like the time 13,000-plus packages landed in Cheyenne and fouled up USPS deliveries for days.
Drivers for the Gillette and Casper centers are part of the Amazon Flex system, who work independently, much as an Uber driver might. Flex drivers use their own vehicles for deliveries, covering the costs of fuel, maintenance and tolls, if any.
Media reports have since suggested Amazon is setting up in other communities, including Cody, where the city council approved a lease with Amazon for a small shipping container at Yellowstone Regional Airport.
Amazon has also added a number of secure lockers and drop-off points in the Cowboy State, to give people more options for deliveries, or if they’re unsure they will be home and porch pirates have been an issue.
Amazon Helps Fill In Rural Gaps
Freitas is an Amazon Prime customer and, like many living in rural Wyoming, uses the service to obtain everyday items that either aren’t available in her community, or whose cost is dramatically higher, like specialty vitamins for her baby, her favorite tea, and the seemingly never-ending packages of diapers that she needs right now.
“It made my life very convenient for living in a rural Douglas area,” she said. “Up until this point, where they’ve made this change where Gillette has been sending us packages, which, they’re not coming.”
Freitas has been forced to make several long-distance drives to go shopping in places like Casper to get items and is starting to rethink whether a Prime membership is worthwhile.
“Maybe I’ll just go directly to the source and order instead from Sam’s Club and Walmart instead of Amazon,” she said. “Being that I have an Amazon subscription to most of these items and pay for the monthly $15.99 is it? For the free delivery. You would hope that you would just get your packages, right?”
Others Urging Email Campaign
Freitas isn’t the only one who has publicly highlighted ongoing issues with Douglas or Glenrock-bound packages landing in Gillette, where they become lost or undeliverable.
A Facebook post by Taylor Berge Lipe in the Glenrock Public Bulletin Board urges others living in the area to send emails to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and other higher ups at Amazon about what he described as a “systemic delivery routing failure for Glenrock and Douglas, WY.”
In his email, Lipe notes that packages had been arriving as they should, until suddenly getting routed to Gillette for unexplained reasons.
“Once the packages arrive in Gillette, they do not move and are eventually marked as ‘lost’ or ‘undeliverable,’” Lipe wrote. “It is affecting many residents in both Glenrock and Douglas and is causing repeated delivery failures.”
Lipe said in a subsequent comment on the post that he had actually heard back from Amazon customer service about the issue after sending emails he believes belong to Bezos and was told an investigation has begun.
“Please send those emails!” Lipe said. “The more people who email, the more seriously this will be taken.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
