The Federal Trade Commission began mailing 640,038 payments worth more than $23.8 million to Grubhub drivers and diners on August 12, 2026, closing out an enforcement case that accused the food-delivery company of misleading workers about their pay and cutting some customers off from accounts and gift-card balances they had already funded. The money is arriving with no claim to file and no form to complete, which is unusual for a consumer payout. It also carries a quiet catch that can erase it entirely: a paper check left uncashed for 90 days simply expires.
Why 640,038 Grubhub drivers and diners are owed money
The payments trace back to a December 2024 lawsuit that the FTC and the Illinois attorney general filed against Grubhub, accusing the company of deceiving delivery drivers about how much they could realistically earn, blocking diners from their own accounts and funds, and listing thousands of restaurants on its platform without their consent. The case resolved without Grubhub conceding the allegations, but it produced a pool of money the agency is now returning to the people it says were harmed.
Not every recipient is receiving the same amount, because the payments reflect differing degrees of harm across the group of 640,038 consumers. Most are being sent a check in the mail, while a smaller share are receiving the money through PayPal. The distribution is automatic: the FTC identified eligible drivers and diners from Grubhub’s own records, so there is no application step and no fee, and anyone asked to pay to receive the money is dealing with a scam rather than the agency.
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The 90-day clock on an FTC refund check
The timing rules are strict and easy to miss. According to the agency’s Grubhub refund notice, recipients who get a paper check should cash it within 90 days, while those paid through PayPal need to accept the transfer within 30 days. A check that sits on a kitchen counter past the deadline stops being negotiable, and the value it represented does not automatically convert into a replacement payment. Questions about a specific payment go to the refund administrator the FTC named for the case, reachable at 1-888-446-4992.
That short fuse is a particular risk for older recipients, who are more likely to set aside an unexpected envelope as junk mail or a possible con and deal with it later. In this instance the delay itself is the danger, because the legitimate money is the thing that quietly disappears. Cashing the check promptly, and confirming through the agency rather than a number printed in a suspicious message, is the way the payment actually reaches the person owed it.
The underlying case was not the FTC acting alone. The Illinois attorney general joined the December 2024 complaint, and the settlement that funded these payments resolved claims on behalf of both drivers and diners in a single action. That joint posture is part of why the recovery reaches two very different groups at once, the workers who were misled about earnings and the customers who lost access to prepaid balances, with the money apportioned to reflect the distinct ways each was said to have been harmed.
How to tell a real FTC refund from a look-alike scam
Government refund programs are a favorite disguise for fraud, and the surest tell is a request for money or information. The FTC’s refund guidance is blunt that the agency never asks people to pay a fee, hand over a bank account number, or share a Social Security number to release a refund. A caller or text demanding any of those in exchange for a Grubhub payment is attempting theft, not delivering a settlement.
A genuine payment in this case looks mundane by comparison: a check or a PayPal transfer that arrives on its own, tied to a case the agency has publicly documented, from an administrator the FTC has named. Recipients who are unsure can verify the payment directly through the commission’s refund pages before depositing anything, which costs nothing and forecloses the most common way these windfalls are turned against the people receiving them.
Automatic refunds of this size are rare, and their design rewards speed over patience in a way most consumers are not conditioned to expect. The unresolved question is how much of the $23.8 million will actually reach the drivers and diners it was set aside for, since every check that lapses after 90 days pulls money back out of the pool the case was meant to return.
For a household living on a fixed income, even a modest check is worth protecting, and the protection here is simply acting before the deadline and confirming the payment is real. The agency’s own materials remain the authoritative record of who qualifies, how the money is being sent, and what a legitimate refund will and will not ask for.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed against primary sources by The Money Overview editorial team.
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