Settlements & Refunds · Notice
Ring refunds: $5.4 million over privacy
The FTC says Ring let employees see customer videos and left accounts open to attackers. Payments are automatic for eligible account holders.
The Federal Trade Commission is sending payments totaling more than $5.4 million to people who had accounts with Ring, the home security camera company, in a case about what happened to the video those cameras recorded.
What the FTC alleged
The FTC sued Ring for failing to protect customer accounts. According to the agency's case page, Ring's privacy failures let employees have too much access to customer videos and left accounts vulnerable to online attacks. In some cases, the FTC says, hackers took control of customer accounts, cameras and the videos on them.
The settlement did more than move money. It required Ring to pay, to delete videos it should not have possessed, and to establish a security program going forward. That combination, payment plus deletion plus a compliance obligation, is typical of FTC privacy cases and is the part that outlasts the refund.
Who is paid and how
Payments go to eligible people who had a Ring account, by Zelle, sent to the contact details on the account. Nothing has to be claimed and no form has to be filed. A Zelle payment arrives directly in the linked bank account with a note identifying the settlement.
Because these payments arrive as a bank notification rather than a letter, they are easy to mistake for a scam, and easy for a scam to imitate. The rule is the same as for every FTC refund: the agency never asks for a fee, a gift card or a bank password to release money. If a message asks for any of those, it is not the FTC.
Why a security camera case ends in refunds
A privacy failure does not look like a financial loss, which is why cases of this kind used to end with an order and no money. The FTC's approach in recent years has been to seek payments as well, on the reasoning that customers paid for a product whose central promise, keeping the household's video private, was not delivered.
The data breach cases tracker follows the private class actions that usually run alongside cases like this, and marks which have reached a settlement with a claim deadline and which are still allegations. The FTC refunds tracker carries this program with the others currently paying out.
What to do
- Watch for a Zelle payment to the email or phone number on the Ring account; the note names the settlement. Official link
- Never follow a link in a message about this refund; the FTC never asks for bank details to release one. Official link
Questions readers ask
- What did the FTC say Ring did wrong?
- That its privacy failures let employees have too much access to customer videos and left accounts vulnerable to online attacks, and that in some cases hackers took control of customer accounts, cameras and videos.
- How are Ring customers being paid?
- By Zelle payment to the contact details on the Ring account, sent automatically to eligible people, with a note identifying the settlement. More than $5.4 million is being distributed and nothing has to be claimed.
- What else did the settlement require?
- Ring had to delete videos it should not have possessed and establish a security program going forward, in addition to paying money.
Filed under: FTC refunds: who is being paid now, Data breach cases and settlements
Mentioned:Federal Trade Commission
How we reported this
Built from 2 primary documents linked in the Source Card. Every number was copied from the document, not from another outlet.
Written by Mirza Seraj Baig · Checked against the documents in the source card (editorial standards).