Amazon Prime customers were tricked and are owed $1.5B, feds say. Who gets it?
Amazon is accused of tricking customers into signing up for a Prime membership and making it difficult to cancel the subscription, federal officials said.
The Seattle-based company has been ordered to pay $2.5 billion in a historic settlement, the Federal Trade Commission said in a Sept. 25 news release.
Of that money, Amazon has to refund $1.5 billion to impacted customers and pay $1 billion in civil penalties, officials said.
Federal officials said the company misled customers into signing up for Prime, sometimes without their knowledge, by using “confusing and deceptive user interfaces.”
Amazon is also accused of making it difficult and complicated for customers to cancel their subscription, with hopes the consumer wouldn’t cancel, officials said in the release.
The investigation uncovered documents that showed Amazon executives and employees “knowingly discussed these unlawful enrollment and cancellation issues,” federal officials said.
In a statement to McClatchy News, an Amazon spokesperson said “Amazon and our executives have always followed the law and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers.”
“We work incredibly hard to make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up or cancel their Prime membership, and to offer substantial value for our many millions of loyal Prime members around the world. We will continue to do so, and look forward to what we’ll deliver for Prime members in the coming years,” spokesperson Mark Blafkin continued.
Who qualifies for a refund and how much?
Amazon was ordered to send notices to eligible customers electronically and by mail.
Some customers may qualify for an automatic payout of up to $51 if they enrolled in Amazon Prime and used no more than three Prime benefits within a 12-month period. A claim doesn’t need to be submitted.
Customers who do not qualify for an automatic payout can submit a claim if they were “unintentionally enrolled” in a membership or couldn’t cancel it from June 23, 2019 to June 23, 2025.
They have up to 180 days from when they receive the claim form to submit it, and they could be paid up to $51.
How do you submit a claim?
Amazon was ordered to create a website with information about who qualifies and provide instructions on how to submit a claim. Links to the website have to be shared on Amazon’s websites for the first 30 days of the settlement program.
A link to the website has not appeared on Amazon as of Sept. 25.
McClatchy News reached out to Amazon Sept. 25 regarding when a website would be published, but the company did not give an answer.
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Amazon Prime customers were tricked and are owed $1.5B, feds say. Who gets it?."
