TRUMP AND VANCE - THE GOOD GUYS*

*  I never thought I'd ever write that.

Following the landmark $2.5 billion settlement reached by the Trump-Vance FTC, Amazon started sending payments in November 2025 to eligible Prime customers affected by misleading enrollment and cancellation practices. By September 2026, Amazon issued over $845 million in refunds to eligible Prime customers. Under the revised settlement order, Amazon will continue to send automatic refunds to eligible Prime customers through April 2027.
According to the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit, Amazon allegedly enrolled tens of millions of customers in Amazon Prime subscriptions without their knowledge or consent and made it difficult for customers to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions.
As the result of the Trump-Vance FTC’s  settlement, Amazon is required to pay $1.5 billion for refunds to customers affected by its unlawful Prime enrollment and cancellation practices. Amazon is also required to pay a $1 billion civil penalty and cease unlawful enrollment and cancellation practices for Prime subscriptions. See: FTC PRIME settlement 

Yesterday I received this in the mail:

That was exciting but there's a sting in the 'tale'.

I took the cheque (check as it's in US Dollars) to my bank to deposit it only to be told that NZ banks no longer accept overseas cheques. The teller pointed out in the letter that if cheques could not be processed then application has to be made back to FTC for a PayPal transaction. WTF?

I spent about 3 hours yesterday trying to reactivate an old PayPal registration and was stymied on all fronts. I had to start up another PayPal account. I followed all of the links in the FTC letter to no avail. I sent an email to FTC asking for the money to be sent via PayPal even though I didn't have a PIN number but so far haven't heard back.

The USD29.98 I guess is useless but instead of ripping it up I might keep it and frame it. It is, after all, the only good thing I'll ever get from Trump but it's not surprising that it doesn't work.