{"id":28936,"date":"2023-03-14T19:50:38","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T23:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/?p=28936"},"modified":"2023-03-14T19:54:03","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T23:54:03","slug":"ftc-orders-epic-to-pay-refunds-to-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/ftc-orders-epic-to-pay-refunds-to-players\/","title":{"rendered":"FTC orders Epic Games to pay $245m in refunds to Fortnite players"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The developer of <a href=\"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/fortnite-battle-royale\/\" title=\"Fortnite betting guide\">Fortnite<\/a>, Epic Games, has been ordered by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to pay $245 million in refunds to Fortnite players for using \u201cdark patterns to trick players into making unwanted purchases and let children rack up unauthorised charges without any parental involvement\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In a complaint announced in December as part of a settlement package with Epic, the FTC said that the company deployed a variety of design tricks known as &#8216;dark patterns&#8217; aimed at getting consumers of all ages to make unintended in-game purchases. <\/p>\n<p>The FTC claims that \u201cFortnite\u2019s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button\u201d, making it easy for children to make purchases while playing Fortnite without any parental consent.<\/p>\n<p>According to the FTC\u2019s complaint, Epic locked the accounts of customers who disputed unauthorised charges with their credit card companies.<\/p>\n<p>The FTC has ordered Epic to pay $245 million, which will be used to provide refunds to consumers, as well as barring the company from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorised charges.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the $520 million settlement announced in December last year, Epic agreed to pay $275 million for violating Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).<\/p>\n<p>Fortnite players who believe that they have been impacted by the practices can visit the official Fortnite page on the FTC website for more information.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/news\/\" class=\"contentLinkBtn\">More esports news<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of a $520m settlement, Epic Games have been ordered by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to pay $245m in refunds to Fortnite players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":19931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3089,345,87,3090,3088],"class_list":["post-28936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-dark-patterns","tag-epic-games","tag-fortnite","tag-in-game-purchases","tag-u-s-federal-trade-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28936"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28939,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28936\/revisions\/28939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}