Publishers Clearing House to refund customers $18.5 million in FTC settlement for 'deceptive' practices

cnbc.com:

Publishers Clearing House will refund $18.5 million to customers and make changes to its online business practices as part of a settlement reached with the Federal Trade Commission, the agency said Monday.

The FTC had sued the company — which runs sweepstakes contests and is well-known for surprising people on their doorstep with oversized checks — for allegedly using so-called dark patterns and other deceptive consumer practices like surprise fees.

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It's unclear how many customers will receive refunds and how soon that might occur.

PCH didn't return a request for comment on the settlement or allegations by press time.

The FTC also sued Amazon last week for allegedly using «dark patterns» to trap people into recurring subscriptions for its Prime service without consent.  

Dark patterns are a «manipulative» and unlawful design trick, examples of which include pre-checked boxes, hard-to-find-and-read disclosures and confusing cancellation policies, the FTC said. They pose «heightened risks» for consumers online, it added.

«This is our second dark pattern lawsuit over the last week,» Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection, said of the PCH lawsuit in a written statement. «Firms that continue to deploy deceptive design techniques are on notice.»

In the PCH case, the FTC claimed the company used «manipulative phrasing and website design» to convince consumers they needed to buy a product of some kind to enter the company's sweepstakes or increase their odds of