Claim:
Amazon sent money through PayPal to eligible customers in November 2025 after settling a lawsuit against it from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Rating:
In November 2025, social media users (archived) began posting screenshots (archived) of an email purportedly from PayPal (archived) about money they had apparently received from an “FTC Prime Subscription Settlement Fund.” Multiple Snopes readers sent us screenshots of these emails to ask if there was a legitimate Amazon settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or if it was a scam.
There was a real settlement between Amazon and the FTC requiring Amazon to refund eligible customers. PayPal was used to automatically refund people.
Snopes reached out to PayPal for confirmation that it had sent eligible customers emails regarding their settlement payments, but did not get an answer prior to publishing this story. If you have any suspicions that an email may be fraudulent, the FTC suggests you don’t click any of the links and instead go directly to PayPal’s website to check your account for any such payments.
According to court documents, the FTC filed a complaint in June 2023 alleging that Amazon essentially tricked unwitting customers into signing up for Amazon Prime and made it cumbersomely difficult to cancel their subscription. In September 2025, the two parties reached a settlement requiring Amazon to pay $2.5 billion, $1.5 billion of which would go towards refunding affected customers.
Between Nov. 12, 2025, and Dec. 24, 2025, Amazon will automatically provide refunds of up to $51 to millions of eligible Amazon Prime customers, an FTC page about the settlement said. The automatic refunds will be sent through PayPal or Venmo.
A separate FTC page did include information confirming PayPal sends emails about FTC settlement refund payments, but also urged caution regarding potential scammers.
“Once payments have been issued, PayPal will send an email telling recipients about their refund,” the FTC wrote. “Don’t click on any links in emails that seem to be from the FTC or from PayPal. It’s safer to go to the website by typing the URL into your browser: ftc.gov/refunds or PayPal.com.”
There are two eligible payment groups, both of which are restricted to customers who signed up for Prime between June 2019 and June 2025, according to the dedicated settlement website.
The first is the automatic payment group, which is made up of the people receiving automatic payments through PayPal or Venmo between Nov. 12 and Dec. 24. If persons in this group don’t accept payment over PayPal or Venmo, they’ll receive a check for the same amount.
Those in the automatic payment group don’t have to do anything to receive their payments, except to accept them within 15 days of getting them via PayPal or Venmo. For people in this group getting a check, the FTC recommends they cash the check within 60 days of receiving it.
The other group is the claims-process group. This is the group of people who have to submit a claim to receive their payment. People who are eligible to submit a claim are people who either unintentionally enrolled in Amazon Prime or tried to cancel their Prime subscription but were unable to do so, and also used between three and 10 Prime benefits (including streaming a song or video through Amazon Music or Prime Video) during a 12-month period between June 2019 and June 2025.
People in the second group don’t do anything yet; the window for filing a claim will open on Dec. 24, 2025, and people in this group should be notified between then and Jan. 23, 2026.
The FTC warned scammers may try to take advantage of this settlement to target victims. At the top of its page for the Amazon refunds, the FTC wrote:
The FTC is not contacting people about refunds in the Amazon matter. If you get a call from someone who claims to be from the FTC, it’s a scam. Report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FTC will never demand money, make threats, tell you to transfer money, or promise you a prize. And no one from Amazon will ever ask you for money to get a refund. Only scammers say they can get you special access or a guaranteed refund.
