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Millions of Customers Will Soon Receive up to $200 From Amazon’s $2.5 Billion Settlement
Find out if you qualify for the new round of refunds announced by the FTC — the result of a lawsuit accusing the company of using deceptive business practices
Isabella Falsetti/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Key takeaways
- A new revised order raises the refund cap from $51 to $200.
- Eligible customers may start receiving automatic payments next month.
- The lawsuit settlement, announced in 2025, was based on the FTC’s allegations that Amazon engaged in unfair business practices.
Millions of Amazon Prime customers have received money from Amazon, thanks to a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Now millions more can expect payments. The FTC announced today that Amazon will expand and accelerate its payments to eligible customers, making them automatic and raising the cap from $51 to $200.
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The new payouts stem from a revised order in the FTC’s settlement with Amazon. In that settlement, announced on September 25, 2025, the company agreed to pay $1.5 billion in refunds to an estimated 35 million customers affected by “deceptive enrollment practices.” Amazon was also required to pay $1 billion in civil penalties.
The government charged the company with enrolling customers in Amazon Prime memberships without their consent — or, as the FTC pointedly put it, “knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime.” Amazon also made it “exceedingly difficult” for customers to cancel their Prime memberships (annual memberships are $139).
The first stage of payments sent at the end of last year included automatic refunds of up to $51 for qualified customers. Then came another round of similar payouts through a claims process, which closed in July. (See details below.)
The expanded payout plan requires Amazon to provide refunds of up to $200 to eligible customers.
Who is eligible for the new round of payments
You can expect a refund if:
- You are an Amazon Prime customer in the United States.
- You signed up for an Amazon Prime subscription through one of the challenged processes or tried to cancel online but were unable to do so between June 23, 2019 and June 23, 2025.
- You used no more than 20 Amazon Prime Benefits (including Prime Music or Prime Video products offered for free to Prime subscribers) in any 12-month period following Amazon Prime enrollment.
What else to know
1. You must meet all three requirements noted above to be eligible.
2. Eligible customers will receive automatic payments starting on October 1. There are no claims or forms to submit.
3. Recipients can opt for payment by check, PayPal or Venmo.
4. If payments “do not reach the required threshold by February 2027,” Amazon will be required to send an additional $149 to customers who received $51 in the first round.
5. You can find more information at SubscriptionMembershipSettlement.com. For questions about payment, you can contact the administrator at admin@SubscriptionMembershipSettlement.com or 1-888-999-8094. Don’t contact Amazon directly; Amazon notes on its site that, “Customers who may be eligible for payment will receive notice from the settlement administrator,” and that its customer service team can’t answer questions about the settlement.
Note that the FTC has stated it will not contact customers directly. If you do hear from someone claiming to be from the agency, it is likely a scam.
Details on the previous refunds
To qualify for the first payouts, you had to be a U.S. consumer who signed up for Prime between June 23, 2019 and June 23, 2025; enrolled through the process the FTC alleged was unfair; and used no more than three Prime benefits in a 12-month period from June 23, 2019, to June 23, 2025
To qualify for the next round of refunds, you needed to submit a claim (the process is now closed) and be a U.S. consumer who signed up for Prime, and unintentionally enrolled in a Prime membership through a method at issue in the FTC’s lawsuit from June 23, 2019 to June 23, 2025; or tried to cancel your Prime membership through the online cancellation process from June 23, 2019 to June 23, 2025, but were unable to do so; and used less than ten Prime benefits (such as. shopping, streaming, reading) during any 12-month period of enrollment in Prime.
How Amazon misled customers, according to the lawsuit
The lawsuit against Amazon, filed in 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (Amazon is based in Seattle), alleged that the company “used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ ” to get consumers to enroll in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions.
It noted that, for example, during the checkout process, the button presented to consumers to complete their transaction sometimes didn’t make it clear that clicking it meant they were agreeing to sign up for Prime. Such practices are “not only frustrating” for users, they “also [cost] them significant money,” said then-FTC Chair Lina M. Khan.
Amazon released a statement following the FTC settlement: “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.”
Required changes to Amazon’s business practices
According to the FTC, along with the $2.5 billion Amazon is paying in penalties and refunds, the settlement requires that the company:
- include a clear and conspicuous button for customers to decline Prime. Amazon can no longer have a button that says, “No, I don’t want Free Shipping.”
- include clear and conspicuous disclosures about all material terms of Prime during the Prime enrollment process, such as the cost, the date and frequency of charges to consumers, whether the subscription auto-renews, and cancellation procedures.
- create an easy way for consumers to cancel Prime, using the same method that they used to sign up. The process cannot be difficult, costly, or time-consuming and must be available using the same method that consumers used to sign up; and
- pay for an independent, third-party supervisor to monitor Amazon’s compliance with the consumer redress distribution process.
“This settlement definitely sends a message,” says Frank McKenna, chief innovation officer for Point Predictive, a San Diego-based fraud-prevention company. “When the FTC can secure $2.5 billion from one of the world’s most powerful companies, it essentially puts every other business on notice that these practices are no longer acceptable.”
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