Millions of Amazon customers could soon see money flowing back into their pockets under a sweeping federal settlement that reads like a reckoning for dark-pattern design. The amazon prime ftc refunds lawsuit follows a landmark agreement between Amazon and the Federal Trade Commission totaling $2.5 billion, with $1.5 billion earmarked for consumers and $1 billion imposed as a civil penalty.
Federal regulators say the case exposes how digital convenience can turn into a maze—one that allegedly nudged users into paid subscriptions and trapped them there.
FTC Says “Tens of Millions” Were Affected
The lawsuit centers on allegations that Amazon relied on “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs” to sign customers up for Prime memberships and then made cancellation unnecessarily difficult.
Christopher Bissex, the FTC’s deputy director of public affairs, told CT Insider that “tens of millions” of users were impacted by the company’s enrollment and cancellation practices.
The complaint, first filed in 2023, scrutinized Prime sign-up flows and cancellation hurdles that stretched across multiple years.
