Amazon fined $2.25M for withholding evidence from fraud victims

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says Amazon will pay a $2.25 million civil penalty to settle charges that it blocked identity theft victims' access to transaction records.

As alleged in a complaint filed with the Justice Department, Amazon failed to provide many fraud victims with records of fraudulent transactions made in their names, as required by Section 609(e) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

To make matters even worse, the FTC said that Amazon customer service agents denied many consumers who contacted the company to request records of fraudulent transactions due to "privacy" or "security" reasons. Also, even when it shared the requested records, the company did so after the 30-day timeframe required by the FCRA.

"The complaint alleged that in other instances, Amazon agents told consumers they were not able to access the requested records," the FTC said on Tuesday.

"Amazon even refused to provide application and business transaction records to law enforcement agencies who had been authorized to, and who did, submit requests to Amazon on behalf of consumers who were victims of identity theft. Some frustrated consumers resorted to sending copies of the FCRA and FTC guidance to Amazon in hopes of receiving the requested records, but Amazon still failed to comply with the law."

According to the proposed order, in addition to the $2.25 million fine, Amazon will also have to provide access to lawfully requested records to identity theft victims and law enforcement agents within 30 days, as guaranteed by the FCRA.

Amazon was also ordered to notify consumers who had requested records since April 2024 but had not received them that they may request additional records.

Kohl's Department Stores also paid a $220,000 fine six years ago to settle similar charges after refusing to provide records of fraudulent transactions to victims whose personal data was used for identity fraud.

In July 2023, Amazon also agreed to pay a $25 million fine to settle allegations that it violated children's privacy laws related to its Alexa voice assistant service.

More recently, in September 2025, Amazon paid another $2.5 billion to settle a Prime membership lawsuit alleging it used dark patterns to trick millions of users into enrolling in its Prime program and to make it as difficult as possible to cancel recurring subscriptions.