Amazon to Distribute Checks from Record $2.5 Billion Settlement for Misleading Prime Membership

Amazon had to settle a whopping $2.5 billion to close the chapter on a class action lawsuit about its Prime subscription service. If you’re one of the up to 35 million Prime members who got tangled up in the controversy, you should have received a payment in late December. The Federal Trade Commission accused Amazon of using sneaky tactics to lure customers into signing up for Prime, making it tough for users to cancel their memberships.

FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson didn’t hold back in saying that Amazon bamboozled its customers. He mentioned that Amazon set up tricky traps to enroll people in Prime and then made it a headache to cancel. As a result, Amazon was nudged into squeezing out $2.5 billion in payments without admitting any misdeeds.

The settlement will automatically dole out money to Prime members who signed up from June 23, 2019, to June 23, 2025, based on the fees they shelled out. But there are some criteria to be met to snag these payments, like trying and failing to cancel a Prime subscription or signing up through certain tricky pages like the Universal Prime Decision Page. Also, eligible users shouldn’t have milked their Prime benefits more than three times in a year. If all boxes are checked, each claimant can potentially bank up to $551. It’s clear that Amazon wants to make it easier for its customers to navigate Prime services moving forward.