Fortnite refunds: Am I eligible for payment and how much are Epic Games refunding gamers?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is starting to send out refunds totalling more than $72million to US players who were tricked into making purchases with Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, and there's still time to submit a claim for those affected.

Epic Games paid the FTC a settlement of $245million, which was first announced in December 2022, to resolve allegations it had tricked players into making purchases they didn't want to, let children rack up huge bills without any parental involvement and blocked users who disputed unauthorised charges.

The FTC is sending out its first round of payments to 629,344 affected players, with the average payment $114 each, and will distribute the rest at a later date.

There's still time to submit a claim using the FTC's online form - people have until 10 January 2025 to do so.

It applies to Fortnite players who were charged V-Bucks, the in-game currency, for purchases they didn't want between January 2017 and September 2022.

Parents of a Fortnite player can also apply if their child made charges to their credit card without their knowledge between January 2017 and November 2018.

And those who were locked out of their Fortnite accounts between January 2017 and September 2022 after complaining about unwanted credit card charges are also eligible.

This comes after the FTC alleged Fortnite had a confusing button configuration that led players of all ages to have unwanted charges just at the click of a button.

In some cases, players could be charged while attempting to wake the game from sleep mode, while in a loading screen or by pressing an adjacent button white trying to preview an item.

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