Amazon is about to hand over a staggering $2.5 billion to settle claims it duped millions into Prime memberships and made quitting a nightmare.
Sound familiar? That “free shipping” button you clicked may have cost you far more than you thought.
Under a proposed deal unveiled by the Federal Trade Commission, $1.5 billion will be refunded to customers who were unwittingly enrolled.
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson didn’t mince words.
“Amazon used sophisticated subscription traps … and then made it exceedingly hard for consumers to end their subscription.”
Prime Penalty For Amazon
He called the payout the largest civil penalty in the agency’s history — and a clear warning to Big Tech.
Prime, which offers free shipping and streaming perks for $139 a year in the U.S., has hundreds of millions of members worldwide.
But the FTC says its design tricks — from pop-ups that hid key terms to one-month trials that automatically renewed — crossed the line.
Up to 35 million Americans could qualify for refunds of around $51.
Amazon denies wrongdoing but has agreed to simplify cancellations and scrap sneaky buttons like “No, I don’t want free shipping.”
The lesson? Even retail giants can’t make “free” feel like a trap without eventually paying the bill.
