The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has approved $126 million in refunds to Fortnite players who were charged for unwanted purchases while playing the game.
In December 2022, Fortnite creator Epic Games agreed to pay $245 million in refunds for tricking millions of users into making unwanted charges using so-called “dark patterns.”
These included displaying confusing purchase prompts, promoting misleading offers, allowing underage account holders to make purchases without parental consent, and charging players unintentionally by waking the game from sleep mode.
On top of that, Epic was ordered to pay an additional $275 million penalty for violating children’s privacy law. That makes a total of $520 million, making it the FTC’s largest refund amount in a gaming case and its largest administrative order in history.
“Epic put children and teens at risk through its lax privacy practices, and cost consumers millions in illegal charges through its use of dark patterns. Under the proposed orders, the company will be required to change its default settings, return millions to consumers, and pay a record-breaking penalty for its privacy abuses,” Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said at the time.
In December 2024, the FTC issued the first round of refunds. A total of 629,344 payments had been made, totaling more than $72 million.
As part of the latest refund round, the FTC sent 969,173 checks and PayPal payments on June 25th and 26th to consumers who filed a valid claim. This brings the total refunds the FTC has issued to consumers related to Epic’s deceptive billing practices to nearly $200 million.
Eligible consumers who have not yet submitted a claim have until July 9th, 2025, to submit one. They will have to prove they played Fortnite between January 2017 and September 2022 and made unwanted purchases because of the dark patterns Epic Games used.
On a different note, Epic recently banned a prolific Fortnite cheater for life who exploited competitive tournaments. The company also gave him a hefty fine of $175,000.
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