NORFOLK, Va. — Amazon has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that the company knowingly misled customers into enrolling in Prime memberships and made it exceedingly difficult to cancel.
According to the FTC, “Amazon will be required to pay a $1 billion civil penalty, provide $1.5 billion in refunds back to consumers harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices, and cease unlawful enrollment and cancellation practices for Prime.”
The settlement addresses customers who signed up through what the court documents call a Challenged Enrollment Flow between June 2019 and June 2025.
Amazon defines a Challenged Enrollment Flow as “any version of the Universal Prime Decision Page, the Shipping Option Select Page, Prime Video enrollment flow, or the Single Page Checkout.”
Customers who meet specific criteria will receive automatic payments of $51, which represents the total Prime membership fee during the affected time period.
To qualify for the automatic refund, customers must have used no more than three Prime benefits in a year. Court documents report that reimbursement should come within 90 days.
A second group of customers will need to file claims to receive compensation. To qualify for this group, customers must have also signed up through a Challenged Enrollment Flow or been unable to cancel Prime.
Additionally, they must not have used more than 10 Prime benefits during any 12-month period.
Once the automatic payments are completed, remaining eligible customers will receive a form within 30 days to describe how they were impacted — either through unintentional enrollment or inability to cancel their membership.
Claims Process Eligible Consumers will have up to 180 days after receiving the claims form to submit it to Amazon via electronic mail, First-Class postage pre-paid mail, or the settlement website.
The company has 30 days to review submissions and make determinations on claims.
Amazon did not admit fault in the settlement but said the agreement will help them "move forward."
As noted by the Federal Trade Commission, “the settlement requires Amazon to stop their unlawful practices and make meaningful changes to the Prime enrollment and cancellation flows by:
- Including 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”
- Including 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.
- Creating an easy way for consumers to cancel Prime, using the same method that consumers 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
- Paying for an independent, third-party supervisor to monitor Amazon’s compliance with the consumer redress distribution process.
Click here to see the full settlement.
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