The app told her to deliver to the porch. Jennifer Anderson, a 43-year-old gig worker for Amazon Flex and a single mother, had brought packages to the house before – so she didn’t think much of it when she saw two unsecured dogs: a heeler and a chihuahua, which was barking at her. Dogs are everywhere in eastern Idaho, and Anderson’s own dog was a herding breed similar to the heeler. “I’ve never had a fear of dogs my entire life,” she says.

When she got to the doorstep, the chihuahua suddenly started biting her, but barely broke the skin. Anderson told the tiny dog to “stop” and started walking to her car. That’s when the heeler lunged, sinking his teeth into her ankle. Anderson screamed and managed to get back in her vehicle. The wound was bleeding badly. “I was just shaking and completely shocked,” she says. The owner came out but didn’t seem overly apologetic. “I know I need to get a collar for him,” he told her casually, “but my last dog was way worse.”

The July injury made Anderson one of a growing number of drivers delivering for Amazon who have suffered dog bites and haven’t gotten help afterward from the e-commerce company or the legal system. As a result, workers often avoid getting medical care because of costly bills and keep working while injured.

The first number Anderson dialed was Amazon’s: she was worried about getting penalized by the company’s algorithm for not finishing all her deliveries. Amazon says she wouldn’t be. “Our goal is to prevent and reduce these injuries, which is why we regularly work with our delivery partners to provide dog avoidance training and remind drivers that no one is required to complete a delivery if they feel unsafe and they aren’t penalized for doing so,” says Steve Kelly, a spokesperson for the company.

Anderson says Amazon paid her for the unfinished delivery, but she couldn’t tell whether the company would help her beyond that. The support rep who answered recommended that she call an ambulance, but added: “I honestly cannot guarantee that you’re gonna get reimbursed.” Anderson decided not to call the ambulance. “We live in America – that’s not really a financial option. So I just held pressure on it,” she says, while driving the 45 minutes back to the distribution center. There, Amazon staff helped her unload the packages, but also couldn’t tell her whether she would get reimbursed for any doctor’s expenses.

Typically, people bitten by dogs are able to claim worker’s compensation, which offers protections to US employees who get injured on the job. But Amazon considers its “Flex drivers”, such as Anderson, to be independent contractors, not employees – which, the company says, allows them to “be their own boss and create their own schedule” in a similar arrangement to drivers for Uber and Lyft. Because of this, the company emphasizes to drivers who are bitten by dogs that they are not entitled to worker’s compensation, according to a number of Flex workers who spoke to the Guardian.

“This is so unfair,” says Kenneth M Phillips, a lawyer whose practice has solely focused on dog bites for more than 30 years. “Amazon knows that these people are bitten by dogs, because it’s happening more and more. And if these people don’t have health insurance, and the knowledge to contact an attorney, then they’re screwed.”

Ultimately, Anderson decided not to visit a nearby urgent care facility – where the base fee would have been $183 before the cost of tests and treatment. “Luckily, one of my best friends is a wound nurse, so she just washed it and helped me,” she says. But she could barely walk for a week afterward, forcing her to take that time off unpaid.

Shortly after she returned to work, she encountered another dog, a big German shepherd, which jumped on the side of her car, leaving big scratches. Anderson reported the damage to Amazon – that time, when the damage was to her vehicle, rather than her body, they paid her a check to cover it immediately. “I thought that was very interesting,” she says.

Amazon says it contacted Anderson following her first dog attack but that Anderson hadn’t submitted information for reimbursements. After the Guardian asked about her case, the company says it contacted her again.

There are no official national statistics for dog bites from Amazon but the US Postal Service reports that more than 5,300 employees were attacked by dogs while delivering the mail last year. (Amazon workers are often at greater risk than those posting only letters, who are able to use outside mailboxes.) Aggressive dog behavior is a common safety concern USPS employees face, and a CDC study estimated that more than 4.5 million people were bitten by dogs each year from 2001 to 2003. Increasingly, Phillips says, the victims are delivery drivers.

“I’ve been getting, I’d say for the last year, a really disturbing number and a growing number of dog bite reports from Amazon delivery drivers,” says Phillips, the attorney focused on dog cases. “And the circumstances that they’re describing are absolutely disgraceful. One of the worst things you can do if you own a dog is pick up the phone and order food, or get a package from Amazon, and not confine your dog.”

Mark, a 24-year-old Flex driver, was bitten by a dog while working in Portland, Oregon, over the summer. While Amazon advises Flex drivers not to do deliveries if they feel unsafe, Mark says that there’s pressure to do it anyway, because any undelivered packages will affect a driver’s performance metrics and put them at risk of deactivation. “Sometimes, you can email support and tell them: ‘Hey, I didn’t feel safe delivering the package,’ but they can be unhelpful and say: ‘After further review, this hasn’t changed our decision,’” Mark says.

In July, Mark pulled up to a house and the owner, who was outside doing yard work, waved at him. After handing the owner his package, Mark was about to re-enter his car when “basically out nowhere, without warning, his dog comes running out and bites me – I had no idea he was there”. Mark kicked the dog – a terrier mix – and yelled at the owner, who came running down the driveway to grab the animal. “I pulled up my pant leg and my sock down and there was blood and bite marks and it was bruised. I was kind of shocked,” Mark says. The owner looked “extremely nervous, he offered me money, but honestly I just wanted to leave, and I left”.

Mark drove himself to a nearby emergency room while wiping the blood with one hand. Then he contacted Amazon, which advised him to rest – but reminded him that if he took time off, it wouldn’t be compensated because he wasn’t an employee. Amazon told him that if there were medical bills, he could submit documentation but that there would be no guarantees they would be reimbursed. (Luckily, Mark was enrolled in Medicaid, which covered his hospital bills.)

When he got home, he called a lawyer. But the lawyer told him there wouldn’t be much of a case beyond a possible claim against the dog owner’s homeowner’s insurance – so Mark opted not to pursue anything. “I wasn’t out to try to really screw the homeowner, because I understand that accidents happen.”

The next day, he was back to work. The wound ached and it was hard to wear shoes and socks. “But I mean, I needed the money,” he says.

Phillips thinks the other lawyer shouldn’t have dissuaded Mark from making a claim: “He can bring a case against the owner of the dog based on negligence,” he says. And it’s a common misconception that suing a dog owner will ruin their lives – provided they’re insured, “it’s not going to hurt them at all. Because the liability coverage comes from the homeowner policy or the renter’s policy, and the deductible is zero. So the only person who gets hurt is the victim.”

Beyond bloodied limbs, dog bite victims also suffer underappreciated psychological harm, the attorney says. “I’ve had grown men cry on the phone because it’s almost like your world is turned upside down. All your life you thought this creature was friendly; now all of a sudden you’re looking at dogs differently. Amazon drivers are then forced to go to work under circumstances that they perceive as being unsafe, and this is extremely stressful.”

Kelly, the Amazon spokesperson, says the company tracks data specific to dog encounters, and “our data shows we’re making progress”, though he didn’t provide any numbers. “We’re also encouraging our customers to help by securing their dogs when a delivery is scheduled, so drivers can deliver packages safely,” Kelly says.

Mark, who considers himself a dog lover, says he’s “definitely more cautious around properties with dogs” now. He wishes he could carry a weapon on the job, but he thinks Amazon wouldn’t allow it. (Amazon says Flex workers are free to carry dog deterrent devices as long as they comply with state and local laws.)

Anderson says she now finds herself nervous around dogs – even her own. “My dog likes to sit right at my ankles, or herd me which way he wants me to go, and that was hard for a bit,” she says. When she delivers to a home with dogs, she tries to push through the fear “to just go back to how I was before”. She reminds herself that she’s working to support her daughter. And she tries not to blame the animals.

“That dog that bit me, he’s a herding dog,” she says. “And he was just doing his job, according to his world.”

• This article was updated on 28 September 2023 with additional comment from Amazon.