By Donovan Erskine

Copyright shacknews

Amazon will pay $2.5 billion to settle a lawsuit that alleged the company tricked users into signing up for its Amazon Prime subscription service, and sabotaged their efforts to cancel said subscription. This news comes just days into the company’s court case with the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC announced the settlement in a press release today. The government organization claims that Amazon “enrolled millions of consumers in Prime subscriptions without their consent” and knowingly made it difficult for them to cancel. Amazon will pay a $1 billion civil penalty and refund $1.5 billion back to affected customers. Amazon admitted to no wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

“Today, the Trump-Vance FTC made history and secured a record-breaking, monumental win for the millions of Americans who are tired of deceptive subscriptions that feel impossible to cancel,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. “The evidence showed that Amazon used sophisticated subscription traps designed to manipulate consumers into enrolling in Prime, and then made it exceedingly hard for consumers to end their subscription. Today, we are putting billions of dollars back into Americans’ pockets, and making sure Amazon never does this again. The Trump-Vance FTC is committed to fighting back when companies try to cheat ordinary Americans out of their hard-earned pay.”

It’s a significant ruling for a company that reported over $167 billion in earnings last quarter alone. To keep up with the latest business dealings at Amazon, stick with us here at Shacknews.