Amazon has agreed to pay $309 million and provide additional remedies in a class-action settlement over claims that customers were wrongly denied refunds after returning items. Plaintiffs say (PDF) the deal delivers over $1 billion in total value, including more than $600 million in refunds and operational changes. Reuters reports: Amazon denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement. "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," an Amazon spokesperson said, adding that the company had taken steps to resolve the issue.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, said Amazon caused "substantial unjustified monetary losses" for consumers who in some instances properly returned an item but were still charged for it. In a court filing, Amazon said customers accepted the terms of the company's return policies, including the possibility they would be recharged for failing to return the product within a specified time frame. The proposed settlement class covers U.S. purchasers of goods on Amazon from September 2017 who allegedly did not receive timely or correct refunds, or who were later charged despite returning items. Class members are expected to recover the full amount of any incorrectly denied refund or retrocharge, plus interest, the plaintiffs told the court.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, said Amazon caused "substantial unjustified monetary losses" for consumers who in some instances properly returned an item but were still charged for it. In a court filing, Amazon said customers accepted the terms of the company's return policies, including the possibility they would be recharged for failing to return the product within a specified time frame. The proposed settlement class covers U.S. purchasers of goods on Amazon from September 2017 who allegedly did not receive timely or correct refunds, or who were later charged despite returning items. Class members are expected to recover the full amount of any incorrectly denied refund or retrocharge, plus interest, the plaintiffs told the court.
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