NEW YORK (WABC) — If you signed up for Amazon Prime, then tried to cancel your subscription and couldn’t, you may have some cash coming your way.
The FTC originally sued Amazon for making their Prime membership difficult to disenroll.
This resulted in a $2.5 billion-dollar settlement, of which $1.5 billion is to refund customers.
That means $51 is on the line if you’re eligible, but you’ve got to work for it if you want it.
This is part of what the FTC calls a “historic” case that was settled in September. If you didn’t get an automatic refund, you need to watch out for a form in the mail or your email.
The FTC claims the evidence showed Amazon used sophisticated subscription traps, designed to manipulate consumer into enrolling in Prime, resulting in automatic enrollment, then stuck customers with no easy way to cancel and made it exceedingly hard to end subscriptions.
Amazon neither admitted nor denied the allegations as part of the settlement, saying in a statement, “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.”
Regardless, the delivery giant has now begun sending notices to eligible Prime customers and says the company will issue refunds in stages.
Amazon customers will get a notice by mail and email to the address associated with your Prime membership.
The notice will detail the information from that you need to file to process your refund.
You must meet three requirements. First, be a Prime member in the U.S. who either signed up for Prime between June 23rd, 2019, and June 23rd, 2025, or tried to cancel but had trouble in that same six-year period.
Second, to be eligible depends on how many perks you used. Aside from free shipping, you had to have used less than three, like Prime Music or Video.
Lastly, you had to have joined unintentionally through a “challenged enrollment” flow. What that means is a check out page, a shipping option selection page, or a Prime Video selection page which somehow signed you up.
Then you had to clear an easy way to get out of it.
This is allegedly a dark hush-hush practice some companies use, and a problem for a lot of customers.
Rocket Money’s cofounder Yaya Mokhtarzada created a way to make it easier for people to cancel unwanted subscriptions.
“It should be easy to get out of subscription that you don’t want and when you sign up for these things, you should have confidence that you’re getting what you paid for, and if you don’t it should be easy to cancel,” Mokhtarzada said. “For consumers, the most important thing is developing a system for yourself that really works for you, so you can keep those tabs on where your money is going. For that, you can use a tool like Rocket Money, use a spreadsheet, or check your credit card statements, whatever works best for you. It’s easy to procrastinate and say ‘I’ll get to that later’ – don’t do that. If you see charges that you don’t like or you’re not happy with, get on the phone, send an email, it’s as simple as just requesting it.”
If you’re eligible, you should be receiving a claims notice which will have instructions on how to file.
You can opt to get your payment through check, PayPal, or Venmo.
You have until July 21st of this year to submit your claims.
If you are having trouble filing, go to www.subscriptionmembershipsettlement.com or email Amazon at admin@subscriptionmembershipsettlement.com.
But beware of scams! The FTC put out a warning stating they are not contacting people about this refund. Remember, the FTC won’t make threats, tell you transfer money, or demand money to get this refund.
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