Amazon starts offering refunds for unauthorized in-app purchases

Were you one of the many parents surprised to find hundreds of dollars’ worth of Smurfberries charged to your card a few years back? Amazon’s lax in-app purchasing

standards let kids all over the country buy coins and crystals to their hearts’ content, something the FTC frowned on. News that refunds would be available soon broke in April, and the time has come at last.

Eligible customers should automatically receive an email from Amazon, or you can check here. If you think you should get a refund but haven’t heard from them, go to the Message Center in your Amazon account and see if there’s anything there (it might have gone to your spam folder).

There’s no big hurry: you have a full year to submit your requests for refunds.

If you’re curious about the specifics of the case, the FTC keeps the relevant documents here.