Amazon to pay $2.5 billion to settle claims it duped customers into enrolling in Prime

Amazon has reached a historic $2.5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which said the online retail giant tricked customers into signing up for its Prime memberships and made it difficult for them to cancel after doing so.

The Seattle company will pay $1 billion in civil penalties — the largest such fine in the agency’s history for a rule violation — and $1.5 billion will be paid back to consumers who were unintentionally enrolled in Prime, or were deterred from canceling their subscriptions, the agency said Thursday.