The Federal Trade Commission is sending more than $5.6 million in refunds to people who bought Amazon's Ring camera during a time when the devices were being used to potentially violate their privacy.
The payments come to 117,044 consumers who had certain types of Ring devices, the result of a settlement of allegations that Amazon allowed employees and contractors to access people's videos, the FTC said in a statement earlier this week.
Recipients will receive a PayPal payment of $150.00 or $47.70, the agency told CBS MoneyWatch. The refund amount depended on several factors, including the type of Ring device owned and when the consumer had the account.
People should redeem their PayPal payment within 30 days, the FTC said.
The refunds come nearly a year after the regulator and Amazon settled claims that the company failed to protect customer safety, which in some cases led to hackers threatening or sexually propositioning Ring owners.
In a statement to CBS News at the time, Amazon said its Ring division “quickly addressed these issues on its own years ago, long before the FTC began its investigation.”
“While we disagree with the FTC's allegations and deny that we violated the law, this settlement resolves this matter so that we can focus on innovating on behalf of our customers,” the trading company said electronic
Some of the allegations outlined in the lawsuit occurred before Amazon's acquisition of Ring in 2018. For example, in 2017 there was an alleged incident involving an employee who viewed videos of 81 women.
