Business
Amazon Prime Customers Have Until Tonight to Claim Up to $51 From a $2.5 Billion Settlement
By Mike Harper · July 27, 2026
The deadline is tonight, and most people who qualify have no idea.
Amazon Prime customers who were enrolled without clear consent or who struggled to cancel their subscriptions have until the end of the day Monday to file a claim for up to $51 under one of the largest consumer settlements in Federal Trade Commission history. After today, the claims portal closes permanently.
The settlement stems from a 2023 FTC lawsuit that accused Amazon of enrolling tens of millions of people in Prime memberships without their knowledge or informed consent, then deliberately making cancellation difficult. The agency said Amazon used what it called “manipulative, coercive or deceptive user-interface designs” to push consumers into auto-renewing subscriptions.
Amazon settled in September 2025 without admitting wrongdoing. The company agreed to place $1.5 billion into a consumer refund fund and pay a separate $1 billion civil penalty — the largest civil fine ever imposed in an FTC rule violation case, according to the agency.
The first wave of automatic refunds went out between November and December 2025 to customers Amazon identified as clearly eligible. But millions more may qualify and haven’t been paid.
To be eligible, consumers must meet three requirements: they must be U.S. Amazon Prime customers who signed up through one of the enrollment methods the FTC challenged — including the universal Prime decision page, shipping selection page, single-page checkout, or Prime Video enrollment — or who tried to cancel online but could not, between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025. They must have used fewer than 10 Prime benefits in any 12-month enrollment period. And they must not have already received an automatic payment.
Amazon determines whether a customer enrolled through one of the challenged methods. Consumers don’t have to figure that out themselves.
Approved claimants can receive reimbursement of their Prime membership fees, capped at $51. Payments can be issued by check, PayPal, or Venmo, with Amazon expecting to begin distributing them in late 2026.
Claims can be filed at SubscriptionMembershipSettlement.com. Consumers who received a notice by email or mail with a claim ID and PIN can use those credentials. Those without can still file using their name, address, and Amazon account details.
The FTC is also warning consumers about scams piggy-backing on the settlement. Neither the agency nor Amazon will contact anyone to demand a payment for a refund, and anyone promising guaranteed approval or special access is running a scam.
“No one from the FTC or Amazon will ask you for money to get a refund.” the FTC said on its settlement information page.
The settlement covers an estimated 35 million people. How many will actually file before midnight is unclear, but the math is simple: every eligible claim filed reduces the per-person payout slightly, but not filing at all means leaving money on the table entirely. The portal closes tonight.