Amazon agrees to pay consumers $309M in returns policy settlement

Amazon has reached a settlement valued at more than $1 billion to resolve claims that it failed to properly refund customers for their returns. The settlement includes more than $600 million already distributed or soon to be paid in refunds, plus additional funds that will be paid out to affected consumers, according to court documents.

Under the settlement, Amazon will pay $309.5 million into a non-reversionary common fund, a pool of money set aside for members of the class-action lawsuit. The company has already issued about $570 million in refunds, with about $34 million of refunds remaining. Reuters was first to report on the settlement.

The e-commerce giant has also agreed to provide over $363 million in non‑monetary relief to enhance its return and refund processes, according to court documents. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing.

The lawsuit, filed in 2023, alleged that Amazon caused “substantial unjustified monetary losses” for consumers who returned an item but were still charged for it.

“Following an internal review in 2025, we identified a small subset of returns where we issued a refund without the payment completing, or where we could not verify that the correct item had been sent back to us, so no refund had been issued,” Amazon said in a statement emailed to TechCrunch. “We started issuing refunds in 2025 for these returns and are providing additional compensation and refunds to eligible customers per the settlement agreement.”

Amazon agreed to pay $2.5 billion last year to settle the FTC’s lawsuit that accused the company of tricking users into subscribing to Prime and making it difficult to cancel. Amazon is currently accepting claims from impacted customers.