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Amazon Faces $350K Fine For Shipping 'Amazing Liquid Fire' (computerworld.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The FAA has ruled that Amazon will face a $350,000 fine for shipping a one-gallon container of "Amazing Liquid Fire" by air. The corrosive drain cleaner was sent by air from Louisville, Kentucky, to Boulder, Colorado, on October 15, 2014. The container leaked during transit and nine UPS employees came into contact with the chemical, which caused a "burning sensation on their skin" that had to be treated with a chemical wash. According to Computerworld, "The FAA ruled the shipment wasn't packaged properly, wasn't accompanied by a declaration of dangerous goods, and was not properly marked or labeled as a hazardous package. It also said Amazon didn't provide emergency response information with the package and had not provided hazardous material training to employees who handled the package." The FAA said in a statement, "Amazon has a history of violating the Hazardous Materials Regulations." They apparently violated the rules 24 other times.
This fine is nothing to a company like Amazon. It's a slap on the wrist rather than a significant penalty.
...that they only have to pay a measly $350,000 (compared to the loadsamoney they make) after violating the rules so many times and for what could've potentially resulted in serious injuries or deaths, if no one washed themselves off. Why the small fine instead of something more serious?
They didn't violate the rules 24 other times, they got caught 24 other times. I would be surprised if the packages leak more than 1% of the time so they've probably violated the rules thousands of times at least.
"Liquid Fire" drain cleaner is mostly just sulphuric acid.[pdf]
Amazon can just pass the blame to the 3rd party staffing firms at the shipping centers at least some did not die / a plane did not start on fire. They need to fine all party's and not let amazon hide under some 3rd party / sub contractors?
remember ValuJet Flight 592?
UPS is union and they need to sue to recover the costs that they suffered.
If enough leaked to affect 9 employees handling the box after the flight then there's a reasonable possibility that the escaped liquid now poses a corrosion hazard to the aircraft structure. UPS should send them the bill for the complete inspection and overhaul of the affected areas of the aircraft used to transport it. Perhaps that will be more than the fine.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
ever? it's probably much closer to 24 times *a day* given their sales and shipping volume.
Imagine a drone doing that delivery !
$350m is more like it
Stop giving companies a slap on the wrist and start fucking them up the ass.
The Amazon reviews of said product suggest it's sulfuric acid.
The MSDS for the product says sulfuric acid and Rodine.
Rodine is an acid inhibitor that attempts to prevent corrosion of metals by acids.
The liquid fire MSDS doesn't say specifically the concentrations (I hate that), but other drain cleaners of that type can be nearly 100% sulfuric acid.
It wouldn't come as a surprise if the thing was almost pure H2SO4.
Sulfuric acid is essentially sulfur trioxide gas dissolved in water. If the atmospheric pressure goes down, the SO3 gas comes out of solution, where it can hang around and then redissolve on moist surfaces, such as mucous membranes and moist eye tissue.
Amazon flicks it little toenail to let a small annoyance fly.
UPS is union and they need to sue to recover the costs that they suffered.
Don't get me started on all the double standards that UPS has going on in their shipping departments with their employees. That place is a sweatshop and the Union is in on it and has been since the 1980s!
By their own rules no loader is supposed to lift a package with a circumference around its widest part greater than 70 inches or weighing more than 70 kilograms.
That being said, I got a chewing out by a manager who sent down a bundle of solid steel bars that was 3 ft in circumference and was 12 ft long and weighed about 300 pounds and I was told "Just throw it in the truck!"
I complained about it to a higher up shift manager and the next day was fired.
They are lucky that I had another job lined up otherwise I would have totally sued their asses.
Realize though UPS is a shit job, where you pay about half your income in union dues for a union that basically does nothing for the employee and you are forced to work in an environment where safety rules are never followed and in 120 degree heat.
I ship Fed Ex where possible these days.
I think that's the green stuff Tyrion Lannister used to destroy Stannis Baratheon's navy.
#DeleteChrome
As mentioned elsewhere, on Amazing Liquid Fire's Amazon page, it is frequently bought with "Red Hot Devil Lye" (Sodium Hydroxide).
If both substances come in contact during transit on a plane...things would get very exciting very quickly.
My Diet Coke can't make it past airport security but something named "Amazing Liquid Fire" can?
Meh, that stuff is weak. When my sinks clog I use fuming hydrochloric acid.
I'm not kidding.
Out of how many million? Raw numbers without context make for headlines in 99% of selected online publications.
Did these UPS employees think it was amazing liquid fire? If not then there is some kind of truth in advertising charge to be answered too.
You don't want to kill Amazon, just make it comply. I'd say that 350 K for a single transgression will get their attention. If not, the next penalty will be higher.
the Union is in on it
That's true of Verizon as well. Don't expect them to protect you as an employee.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This company thinks that rules don't apply to them. This wasn't just a case of them being cheap or anything. This wasn't negligence, it was arrogance. This happened before and they don't give a shit because they've already made UPS their bitch.
Fuck Amazon.
It sure doesn't seem accidental, and intentional mis-shipping of hazmat is Serious Business:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I've even heard of someone who (allegedy) got locked up because he ground-shipped sodium to Alaska, not realizing that in Alaska even ground packages go by air.
GP's story is a bit suspect when he couldn't be bothered to name just who "the Union" is (Teamsters). Where was the shop steward during this supposed firing?
What union is found at Verizon, may I ask?
That wouldn't be a slap on the wrist - and is self regulating
CWAor IBEW in the legacy ex-Bell System wireline division. Anything involving a wire that is not long distance is handled by union crews - FIOS, DSL, Phone, special circuits. Local and medium mile.
I have worked at UPS in probably the exact role you briefly did, "part time package handler," for twelve years now. You aren't wrong that it's drudgery and physical hardship, but you're kind of full of shit.
If you'd wanted to keep your job, wanted to complain, the union and the regulatory environment you live in in the United States are almost the most supportive environment for that you'll find on the planet. Some places are more careful; however all major institutions in society that have a large workforce are by design and nature keystone cop operations. You were the one who had a problem, and you didn't do anything about it. You seem, like lots of people, to want the excuse that those in authority let you down and you had to act as you did in response, that you got fired, not quit; that you were victimized.
I don't know if I have ever seen a 300 pound object in my building, in all my years there. Yes, I have seen things above the 150 pound weight limit, perhaps three or four a year. Hardly ever on the belt if not never, almost always on the floor, if not always. The people just like you and I who unload the trucks and the people who sort what's unloaded have no incentive to send something like that across. It could have happened, and I'm not calling you a liar. My experience leads me to suspect you're exaggerating the details though, both the severity of the hardship you encountered and the severity of the response.
I only bother to say all of this because I think this is the Santa Claus myth endangering civilization right now, that people are competent and institutions are as well, and they need to be treated as such and relied on to live up to their promises, and that we as individuals can place some misfortune from our own lives at their feet. I totally disagree. Every moment of my life has taught me the opposite.
Adult human beings and organizations so comprised are fallible, negligent, and in way way over their heads in exactly the ways you would take for granted that little children are. Looking down on a bunch of uneducated, sweaty middle aged men who yell into walkie talkies and nag other grown men to do physical chores that they themselves angrily thought, mistakenly, that they wouldn't have to do anymore upon promotion to full time management...well, that's mean. Even if they are paid well, and even if they have people beneath them they mistreat, everyone's expectations are too high. The ones in charge at a place like a UPS building are crabs terrified of being dropped back in the bucket. They abuse other people through their incompetence and small amounts of petty malice, but they are simply men who statistically tend to be morons, in charge of others from a larger population which is probably even less competent on average.
Christianity did a good job of advancing the cause of accepting an imperfect world, but something needs to come along to teach people to deal rationally with an imperfect creation and ultimate authority no more competent than its cast offs.
As a Prime customer the one gripe I have with Amazon is their lousy packaging. I don't know what kind of low IQ people run the packaging but lately I think Amazon has been trying to save money in packaging and shipping. Now, that said. Amazon is not the only one's to blame here as I believe the package delivery services are also not as careful about packages either. I ordered a video card and it was packaged in a good solid retail box in a reinforced shipping box. It had been seriously crushed on one end but lucky for me the card was not damaged. Obviously, hazardous materials need to be better protected which does fall on the shipper.
I don't know if I have ever seen a 300 pound object in my building, in all my years there.
Oh come on now. I am sure other slashdotters work there, too.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I thought they called that Napalm.
Next time they skip UPS and deliver by Amazon drone.
What could possibly go wrong?
Is UPS hiring competition weightlifters!? 70 kilograms (around 154 pounds) is a seriously heavy object to be lugging around single-handed!
IIRC freight companies in Europe have a max limit around 40 kilograms for 'parcels' (things you stack up to 8 feet high in a semi / throw in the back of a delivery truck)..
. . . .because I was on a team that made software to do just that.
In 2000.
It was a plug-in to standard shipping systems, that printed labels, generated paperwork, and specified packaging, based on the MSDS of the chemical, the size and type of the container, method of transport, and destination. . . .
And we were not the only solution in the market. . .
Amazon is rapidly becoming just a bazaar of sketchy products and even sketchier vendors. Just last night I was reading about some OTC eye ointment. Three of the reviews were 1 star, pointing out what they received was actually product that had already been recalled due to quality issues (like shards of glass in my eyes, was one reviewers phrase).
But since it wasn't directly provided by Amazon, they seem to see their role now more as an ISP (hey, not our problem; caveat emptor).
I suspect shady crap like this doesn't happen in the EU, at least not with such a prominent retailer.
70 lbs is the limit, not kilo's.
Cheap storage VM.
Try buying a pair of Apple Earpods - something like 90-100% of the items listed when I searched for "Apple Earpods" are knockoff brands that fall apart or have horrible dynamic range (even compared to the mediocre performance earpods). I'm surprised Apple hasn't (or can't) come down on Amazon like a ton of bricks for enabling such fraudulent listings/sales.
I sure as hell don't buy Apple stuff on Amazon anymore; I wonder if some of the other stuff I bought was really branded or a knock off.
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To be fined a really large amount, like half a billion dollars, your company would have to do something monstrous like Google advertising low-cost online prescriptions:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr...
Automation bro. No reason a robit can't go and grab the items to be shipped and deliver them and a label to someone to physically pack it.
the union and the regulatory environment you live in in the United States are almost the most supportive environment for that you'll find on the planet. Some places are more careful
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaah ha ha. Phew. Ok got that out of my sys.... nope. hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha
Thanks for providing me some satire / comedy for my afternoon.
I have the opposite problem. The people at the local Kinkos/Fedex have terrible customer service. You walk in when the place is completely empty and still wait 10 minutes for help. When you’re going to ship a package, they always try to sell you in the most expensive option. When the place has a few people waiting, they take customers out of order. If you didn’t box something yourself, they charge an enormous amount of money for packaging, and anything not FedEx-related is also enormously expensive. I dread going in there.
On the other hand, the local UPS office is run by nice people who are very efficient. All they do is shipping, but that’s usually all I need. They respond instantly to customers coming in, customers get handled quickly, and they make you feel like you actually matter as a customer.
Are they actually sold by Amazon or are you simply seeing listing on the Amazon Marketplace? Most of the time when I see stuff like that on Amazon, the items are listed and sold by a marketplace seller - not Amazon directly.
Almost anyone can setup an Amazon Marketplace account and list almost anything they want for sale (much like eBay's Buy It Now option). Marketplace sellers can put up new listings at almost any time.
If Amazon receives enough complaints for a particular marketplace seller (selling counterfeit goods for example) they have been known to disable the seller's account and pull all of their items from sale. The problem is, new sellers often pop up faster than they can be removed.
I have a hard time seeing how fraudulently labeled "Amazon Marketplace" is different from say, Walmart putting same items on their retail shelves. In both cases, the retailer (Amazon/Walmart) is collecting the cash before the vendor/seller is actually getting the payment for the product.
Essentially, Amazon gets to poison the well for stuff they can't directly compete with, and compete unfairly with their own vendors (see Rain Design).
In both cases, it's unclear what Rain Design or Apple could do to prevent the highway robbery.
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Once I ordered an office chair and received a bobcat instead.
Really, really poor choice of product name on the part of Liqui-Fire people.
Apparently they know it, too.
Doesn't excuse Amazon; just points out the fact you need to confirm.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Christianity did a good job of advancing the cause of accepting an imperfect world
I was with you until this point. Christianity, at least during my lifetime, has been responsible for more hatred than anything else I can identify. You and your own attitude appear to be very good and decent, but far too many people wield their Christianity as a weapon of intolerance, not a badge of acceptance.
I'm waiting for the Amazon drones to start delivering leaky drain cleaners. Can't you imagine it. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's caustic drone!
Back in the day I worked at RPS. Management feared and hated UPS because it was unionized resulting in something like twice the pay (and, no, half of that did not go to the union). They were on to something because people only stayed at RPS until they could get a job with UPS. I was fired when I put in my two weeks notice because they would not believe me that quitting was due to moving (too far to commute to a hub), not because I was switching to UPS. Stupid, but that they really hated and feared UPS.
I could relate some anecdotal stories about what RPS was like from the shipping side, but what's the point? They're just anecdotes. But I have a hard time believing that working in a union shop would be worse than what went on there. And our working conditions were much better than what you claim.
A lot of these warehouse operators aren't going to get into automation any time soon. Their market is cheap available warehouse space and that involves cheap labor, including illegals. They don't have the motivation to invest in it nor do they want too (Even though it would mean less claims and lower prices, but they don't see it that way).
How many union meeting have you attended while you were a member? how many grevances did you bring? I say that because to a man its guys like you who complain/laugh the loudest but never have any time for meetings or giving your steward a heads up. or say its not my union. A union is only as strong as its members that's a fact.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Not arguing against Unions, but rather laughing at the absurd notion that you think the US is a supportive environment for them.
Your unions are weak and roll over easily. The refining shutdown in 2015 was laughable, and your collective efforts are quite absymal to some of the things that go on in countries which either respect workers rights, are outright socialist, or actually have a strong union movement.
But you are right about it now. A union is as strong as it's members and the regulatory environment doesn't change that (lucky for you).
Also one per month since I started work, and 2 grievances in total, interestingly one of those was against the union itself.
Maybe UPS will stop beating the shit out of all their packages. No one ever holds UPS accountable for the fucked up shit they do to my packages. They have shit quality care for their service and it burned them.
they could have paid off the wounded employees $30k each and come out ahead, with no bad press.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.