Amazon is refunding nearly $1 billion to customers - are you eligible?

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• Amazon is sending refunds to customers over mishandled returns.
• The affected returns window dates to 2017.
• The company is also committing $363 million to improve returns.

If you ever returned an Amazon purchase and didn't get your money back, you might finally have a resolution coming.

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As part of a 2023 class action settlement centered around mishandled returns, Amazon has agreed to send almost $1 billion back to customers -- $600 million in refunds for individual purchases and $309.5 million towards a "common fund for the benefit of Settlement Class Members" (money that will be distributed evenly among every eligible person). 

Who is eligible to get part of the settlement fund?

Anyone who sent an item back to Amazon after Sept. 5, 2017, and requested a refund but never received it is eligible to get money.

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The company actually started refunding some of these customers last year, ahead of the court's decision. In some cases, customers got surprise refunds for things they ordered as long as eight years ago, and some received more than $1,000. Amazon attributed that decision to "a recent internal review" where it found "a very small subset of returns that were unresolved." 

Those refunds are all part of the $600 million, but court documents refer to that as money that is "already or will shortly be in class members' hands," so it seems like the refunds are ongoing. In addition, there's still the $309.5 million that Amazon just agreed to distribute as a common fund. 

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In addition, the company is committing more than $363 million in "non‑monetary relief" to improve its return and refund practices. Court documents outlined a six-step plan that includes improving return and refund practices, increasing monitoring of refunds, auditing potential technical issues related to refund processing, improving customer communications, and adopting automatic and manual refund processing redundancies.

Can you file a claim?

There's currently no way to file a claim for the separate funds, but that will likely come once the current settlement has its final fairness hearing. Some customers reported receiving a message from Amazon about the refund, so keep an eye on your email and on the statement for the card you used to make purchases.

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This class action settlement comes while a separate Amazon class settlement is paying out funds. You have until July 27, 2026, to submit your claim there.