Amazon has started issuing payments to eligible Prime members as part of a $2.5 billion settlement over federal allegations that it misled customers.

The online retailer agreed to the payouts in September to resolve a 2023 Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that accused Amazon of misleading customers into enrolling in Prime and making it hard for them to cancel their membership.

Under the settlement, Amazon agreed to offer $1.5 billion in refunds to customers. However, the e-commerce company neither admitted nor denied the FTC’s allegations. In a statement at the time, the company said that “Amazon and our executives have always followed the law.”

Here’s what to know about the Amazon refund, including how to determine if you qualify for the payment.

When are payments going out?

Amazon is issuing settlement refunds to eligible Prime Members, starting with automatic payments issued between Nov. 12 and Dec. 24 (see below for more details on how payments are being made).

“Our settlement required Amazon to pay those people who clearly qualify without them having to do anything,” Christopher Bissex, deputy director of public affairs at the FTC, told CBS News. “So those people are getting the automatic payments.”

Prime members who don’t receive an automatic refund can submit a claim starting on Dec. 24. Those customers will receive a notice about filing a claim no later than Jan. 26, 2026, according to Bissex.

How do I know if I qualify?

Only customers who signed up for Amazon Prime between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025, are eligible to receive a refund.

Customers qualify for an automatic payment if they signed up for Prime or unsuccessfully tried to cancel their membership through Amazon’s “challenged enrollment flow,” defined as “any version of the Universal Prime Decision Page, the Shipping Option Select Page, Prime Video enrollment flow, or the Single Page Checkout,” according to a September court order. 

The FTC also said these customers must have used no more than three “Amazon Prime Benefits” in a 12-month period.

How do I get my payment?

Eligible customers will get a refund by PayPal or Venmo, which they must accept within 15 days, according to the FTC. Those who prefer a check should ignore the PayPal or Venmo refund. 

“Once you do not claim the PayPal or Venmo payment, Amazon will mail you a check to your default shipping address listed on your Prime subscription,” the FTC said on its website. “If you get a check, please cash it within 60 days.”

How much money will I receive?

Eligible Prime customers could receive up to $51, according to the FTC.

Edited by

Alain Sherter

Amazon faces a court hearing in Seattle this week to face allegations by federal regulators that the e-commerce giant duped customers into signing up for its Prime membership while also making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions.

The case, announced by the Federal Trade Commission in 2023, centers on claims that Amazon engaged in what the agency said amounted to a “years-long effort” to trick millions of customers into automatically renewing their Prime subscriptions, specifically by using user-interface designs that were “manipulative, coercive or deceptive.”

When it announced legal action against Amazon two years ago, the FTC said consumers who used Amazon to make purchases were presented with numerous options to subscribe to Prime, but that it was less clear how to buy an item without signing up for a membership. In some cases, the button for Amazon users to complete their purchase did not clearly indicate that they were also agreeing to enroll in Prime, according to regulators. 

The government’s lawsuit also alleges that Amazon obfuscated the process to cancel a Prime subscription by forcing customers to jump through several hoops to end their membership. 

An FTC spokesperson declined to comment on the case. 

Amazon denies that its practices misled consumers. An Amazon spokesperson said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch on Monday that “neither Amazon nor the individual defendants did anything wrong.” 

“We remain confident that the facts will show these executives acted properly and we always put customers first,” the spokesperson added.

Jury selection in the trial is scheduled to begin Monday, followed by opening arguments and possible witness testimony on Tuesday. The trial, which is being held at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, is expected to last up to four weeks. The outcome will be decided by a the jury.

Prime members, who pay $14.99 monthly or $139 a year, get free shipping on certain items, faster delivery times and access to Prime Video, Amazon’s streaming service, among other benefits.

In a separate suit, the FTC has also accused Amazon of engaging in illegal behavior that allows it to inflate prices and suppress competition from rivals in violation of antitrust laws. Amazon denies that its practices reduce competition and hurt consumers. 

A new government warning highlights the risks of internet-connected smart toys including speakers, robots and educational toys. The Federal Trade Commission says these devices can expose your children’s personal information. Wired editor-in-chief Nicholas Thompson joins “CBS This Morning” to discuss what to look for when buying tech gifts for kids.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sparred Tuesday with a Federal Trade Commission attorney over the meaning of emails the Facebook founder wrote about why he wanted to acquire Instagram, as a historic antitrust trial alleging Meta illegally monopolized the social media market went into its second day.

Zuckerberg returned to the witness stand on Tuesday to defend Meta’s purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp, in a trial that could force Meta to divest the two apps, startups the tech giant bought more than a decade ago which have since grown into social media powerhouses.

Daniel Matheson, who is leading the FTC’s case against Meta, contends that Zuckerberg bought Instagram because he saw it as a threat to his company, not because he thought he could make it thrive.

While questioning Zuckerberg on Tuesday morning, Matheson noted that the CEO had referred to Instagram as being a “rapidly growing, threatening, network.”

But Zuckerberg, who is the first witness called in the trial, said while Matheson was able to show documents in court that indicated his concern about Instagram’s growth, he also had many conversations about how excited his company was to acquire Instagram to make a better product.

Zuckerberg pushed back against Matheson’s contention that the reason for buying the company was to neutralize a threat.

“I think that that mischaracterizes what the email was,” Zuckerberg said.

In his questioning of Zuckerberg, Matheson repeatedly brought up emails — many of them more than a decade old — written by Zuckerberg and his associates before the acquisition of Instagram.

While acknowledging the documents, Zuckerberg has often sought to downplay the contents, saying he wrote them in the early stages of considering the acquisition and that what he wrote at the time didn’t capture the full scope of his interest in the company.

Matheson also brought up a February 2012 message in which Zuckerberg wrote to the former chief financial officer of Facebook that Instagram and Path, a social networking app, already had created meaningful networks that could be “very disruptive to us.”

Zuckerberg testified that the message was written in the context of a broad discussion about whether they should buy companies to accelerate their own developments.

The CEO was also questioned about why he bought Instagram and WhatsApp instead of building new apps.

“I’m sure we could have built an app, whether it would have succeeded or not, I think is a matter of speculation…  building a new app is hard, and many more times than not, when we’ve tried to build a new app, it hasn’t gotten a lot of traction,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg also repeatedly disputed the government’s claim that acquiring Instagram was bad for competition and for consumers. 

“What I was focused on is the software infrastructure of different services that they (Instagram) can plug into. I think the explicit strategy for the Instagram integration was that we wanted to let Kevin and Mike, the founders basically tell us what services they needed from Meta in order to help improve the quality of growing Instagram faster,” he said.

The trial is one of the first big tests of President Donald Trump’s FTC’s ability to challenge Big Tech. The lawsuit was filed against Meta — then called Facebook — in 2020, during Trump’s first term. It claims the company bought Instagram and WhatsApp to squash competition and establish an illegal monopoly in the social media market.

Facebook bought Instagram — which was a photo-sharing app with no ads — for $1 billion in 2012.

Instagram was the first company Facebook bought and kept running as a separate app. Until then, Facebook was known for smaller “acqui-hires” — a popular Silicon Valley deal in which a company purchases a startup as a way to hire its talented workers, then shuts the acquired company down. Two years later, it did it again with the messaging app WhatsApp, which it purchased for $22 billion.

Narrow market definition

WhatsApp and Instagram helped Facebook move its business from desktop computers to mobile devices, and to remain popular with younger generations as rivals like Snapchat (which it also tried, but failed, to buy) and TikTok emerged.

However, the FTC has a narrow definition of Meta’s competitive market, excluding companies like TikTok, YouTube and Apple’s messaging service from being considered rivals to Instagram and WhatsApp.

Meta, meanwhile, says the FTC’s lawsuit “defies reality.”

“The evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others. More than 10 years after the FTC reviewed and cleared our acquisitions, the Commission’s action in this case sends the message that no deal is ever truly final,” the company said in a statement.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is presiding over the case. Late last year, he denied Meta’s request for a summary judgment and ruled that the case must go to trial.

On Wednesday, a judge allowed a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit to move forward that accuses Meta of creating an illegal monopoly with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. CBS News MoneyWatch correspondent Kelly O’Grady explains.

A widow looking for love was scammed out of $1.5 million before her tragic death. Her daughter is now on a mission to share her mom’s story, hoping it spurs change.

Online fraudsters have taken billions of dollars from Americans in recent years and they are using social media to do it.

Since 2021, Americans lost $2.7 billion in scams from social media, the Federal Trade Commission said in a scam report published Friday. And that figure is only a fraction of the actual harm, as most cases of fraud go unreported, the agency noted. 

People continue to fall victim to social media scams in part because criminals have a trove of techniques they use for finding their prey, Emma Fletcher, a senior data researcher for the FTC, wrote in an analysis of the scam report.

“They can easily manufacture a fake persona, or hack into your profile, pretend to be you, and con your friends,” Fletcher said. “They can learn to tailor their approach from what you share on social media.”

Most money is lost to scams on social media

The FTC analysis draws on nearly 258,000 social media fraud instances reported directly to the federal agency as well as reports provided by Sentinel Data. One in four people who reported losing money to fraud since 2021 pointed to social media as the origin of the scam. Americans lose money to fraud on social media platforms more than any other method of communication, including websites, phone calls, e-mails, online advertising or mail, the FTC said. 

Most cases of fraud on social media this year have stemmed from a user trying to buy clothes, electronics or other goods that had been marketed on Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, the FTC report reveals. In such instances, a user would order the product, but the item would reportedly never be delivered.

Fletcher said more than half of money reported lost due to social media went to investment scammers. These scammers promote themselves as successful investors but are often just trying to trick people into investing in bogus apps or websites by promising huge returns, she said.

The FTC report said Americans also often fall for so-called “romance scams” via social media, in which case a stranger sends someone a friend request and soon starts asking for money. 

More skilled at deceiving victims

Cybercriminals have become more creative and skilled at tricking victims through text messages, by phone and online. Cybersecurity experts say the first defense against scams is looking for telltale signs such as someone creating a sense of urgency while soliciting you for money.

Here are tips provided by the FTC on steering clear of scams on social media:

• Social media users can reduce their chances of getting scammed by limiting the number of people online who can view their posts. All platforms collect information about you from your activities on social media, but visit your privacy settings to set restrictions.
• If you get a message from a friend requesting money or letting you know about a financial opportunity, it may be that their account was hacked by a scammer. Call them up to verify the message, particularly if they ask you to make a payment by cryptocurrency, gift card, or wire transfer. 
• Beware if someone reaches out to you on social media to start a friendship or romance. Read here about romance scams. Never send money to anyone you haven’t met in person.
• Research any company found on social media before making a purchase. Search its name plus “scam” or “complaint.”

You can learn more about how to spot scams, as well as how to recover money if you’ve been scammed, at ftc.gov/scams. To report a scam, contact the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.