This small business owner is already giving her customers a tariff refund

As some of the biggest U.S. companies sue the Trump administration to obtain tariff refunds, one small company is already giving money back to consumers. 

Alexandra Fine, CEO of Dame Products, a sexual health and wellness company, said she is giving consumers automatic refunds for costs they incurred from import tariffs President Trump imposed last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Supreme Court ruled last week that the emergency tariffs were illegal.

“We are giving that money back to the people because if somebody charges you something and it’s unlawful, they should give you your money back,” she told CBS News. 

Dame, which last year implemented a $5 “Trump tariff surcharge” on customer purchases, in 2025 paid a total of $70,000 in tariffs stemming from IEEPA. Fine also said she hopes the federal government, as well as other businesses, will follow suit and provide customers with tariff refunds.

“Just clicking a button”

“We have all the information. We can see every customer that had this surcharge tacked on, so we are just clicking a button and sending them their money back,” Fine, who co-founded Dame in 2014, told CBS News. 

Consumers and businesses last year paid nearly 90% of U.S. tariffs in the form of higher costs, according to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, although other analyses have found somewhat lower “pass-through” rates to shoppers. 

The Trump administration, which claims that foreign governments and exporters absorb most tariff costs, vehemently disputes the New York Fed’s findings.  

Businesses could be owed up to $165 billion in refunds of IEEPA tariffs they paid in 2025 and early 2026, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research initiative focused on public policy analysis. 

Fine introduced her business’ tariff surcharge in April 2025, after Mr. Trump announced country-based tariffs on dozens of U.S. trade partners. Tariffs on China, where Dame manufactures its products, ultimately settled at 20%. 

Today, Dame now faces 15% tariff on imports from China after Mr. Trump, responding to the high court’s ruling against his use of IEEPA, last week invoked another trade law to impose a temporary, across-the-board duty on U.S. imports.

Fine said Dame paid a total of roughly $100,000 in tariffs last year, about $70,000 of which stemmed from IEEPA duties. She has already processed some customer refunds and expects to deliver rebates on thousands of additional product orders within a few weeks. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling didn’t touch on the issue of tariff refunds, leaving open the question of how businesses could file for reimbursement. 

A field day for lawyers

Another consumer goods company, Cards Against Humanity, said in a post on social media this week that it will give customers who “overpaid” for one of the company’s games a partial refund. The catch: That refund is contingent on the business getting its own tariff refund from the federal government.

Meanwhile, several major companies, including Bausch & Lomb, Dyson, FedEx and L’Oreal, have sued the federal government for IEEPA tariff refunds.

“If refunds are issued to FedEx, we will issue refunds to the shippers and consumers who originally bore those charges,” FedEx said in a statement on Thursday. “When that will happen and the exact process for requesting and issuing refunds will depend in part on future guidance from the government and the court.”

Consumers are also suing retailers to demand refunds for tariff-related costs. Law firm Morgan & Morgan on Friday filed a proposed class action against FedEx on behalf of a plaintiff who paid the duties for imported tennis shoes. A similar suit has been filed against Ray-Ban sunglasses maker EssilorLuxottica.

“Our goal is to return to American consumers every penny they were improperly charged,” Morgan & Morgan attorneys John Morgan and John Yanchunis said in a statement to CBS News.