Two people sued Amazon alleging that the company has not refunded customers for the higher prices it charged them because of IEEPA tariffs. “Amazon is now legally entitled to recover those costs in full from the federal government,” according to the complaint filed in federal court on Friday. “Yet Amazon has refused to seek a refund.”
The lawsuit alleged that Amazon raised prices on imported goods due to tariffs later invalidated by the Supreme Court and alleged that “Amazon has refused to seek a refund – not because it lacks a legal basis to do so, but because it seeks to curry favor with Trump by allowing the federal government to retain the funds.”
But did Amazon raise its prices due to tariffs? Reuters reported in January that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy publicly stated it was starting to see sellers raise prices on its platform:
“Amazon.com is starting to see an uptick in product prices on its e-commerce platform as sellers respond to cost pressures stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the tech giant’s CEO, Andy Jassy, told CNBC on Tuesday.
“The company had pulled forward its inventory shipments early last year and urged third-party sellers to bring in more stock ahead of time to circumvent tariff-driven surges in shipping costs, but “that supply has run out in the fall,” Jassy said in the interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.”
However, as Aiinvest pointed out in its coverage of Friday’s lawsuit, pricing on Amazon is complex:
“Amazon’s prices change thousands of times per day, driven by algorithms that respond to competitor pricing, inventory levels, demand signals, and dozens of other variables. If the price of a Chinese-made kitchen gadget was higher in 2025 than it would have been without tariffs, the plaintiffs have to prove that the tariff – and only the tariff – pushed it up, and that the tariff – and only the tariff – kept it up.”
The lawsuit complaint (via Court Listener) provided some examples of items the plaintiffs purchased on Amazon and included charts showing the pricing history of the products (charts begin on page 5):
“For example, on December 6, 2025, she purchased a Bissell AeroSlim Lithium Ion Cordless Handheld Vacuum from Amazon.com, which was made in China, which was priced at $41.19. On July 17, 2025, Plaintiff Markland also purchased a Belkin SoundForm Connect Airplay Adapter & Receiver directly from Amazon. This product was priced at $99.99 and was made in Vietnam. These prices were higher than the prices Amazon.com charged for the products before the IEEPA tariffs went into effect.”
It also cited a July 2025 Wall Street Journal study that found of the 2,500 products it examined, Amazon had increased the price of 1,200 of them: “On average, prices for these inexpensive goods had increased by 5.2% between January and July 2025,” according to claims in the lawsuit.
Friday’s lawsuit, which is a proposed class action, also stated:
“Amazon’s decision to forgo recovery serves its own political and commercial interests at the direct expense of the consumers who bore the tariff costs in the first place. Amazon has not returned any portion of those costs it passed on to consumers, and it has no intention of doing so. It has, in short, generated and retained a windfall from unlawful government action, and consumers – not Amazon – are the ones left paying for it.”
Reuters broke the news of the lawsuit on Friday, writing that it asserts claims of unjust enrichment and violation of Washington state’s consumer-protection law.
