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NEED TO KNOW
- Amazon announced it will issue payments to some customers in a $2.5 billion settlement related to the company’s Amazon Prime subscription
- Payments to eligible customers will be issued between Nov. 12 and Dec. 24
- Customers will be notified of their payment eligibility via email, and receive the payments from PayPal or Venmo
Amazon Prime will issue payments to some customers in a $2.5 billion settlement following federal allegations that the company mislead its customers.
A 2023 lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged that the company misled some customers into to signing up for an Amazon Prime membership, and in turn made canceling the monthly membership overly difficult, according to NBC News.
Per the settlement, the online retail giant will pay $1 billion in civil penalties, and $1.5 billion will be paid directly to eligible customers. Those payments will be issued between Nov. 12 and Dec. 24, CBS News reports.
“Our settlement required Amazon to pay those people who clearly qualify without them having to do anything,” Christopher Bissex, deputy director of public affairs at the FTC, told CBS News. “So those people are getting the automatic payments.”
Those who qualify to receive a payment must have signed up for an Amazon Prime subscription through a “challenged enrollment flow,” including the universal Prime decision page, shipping selection page, single page checkout, or the Prime Video enrollment flow, between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025, according to CBS News and NBC News.
The amount of the payment will be up to $51, per the outlets.
“If consumers are eligible to submit a claim but were not eligible for automatic payments, they will be notified between December 24th and January 23, 2026,” Amazon spokesman Mark Blafkin told NBC News.
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Amazon agreed to the settlement in September, and wrote in a statement, “Amazon and our executives have always followed the law and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers.”
The company also said that it works “incredibly hard to make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up or cancel their Prime membership.”