FleetCor Technologies, now known as Corpay, and its chief executive Ronald Clarke will pay $100 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission administrative action, the agency announced September 17. The money will go toward refunds for business customers, most of them small businesses, after a federal court found the company charged hidden or otherwise unauthorized fees on its fuel cards and misrepresented the savings they offered. The settlement is not yet final: it faces a 30-day public comment period before the Commission decides whether to make the order final.
What the court found
According to the FTC’s September 17 announcement, a federal district court granted summary judgment to the agency on all counts in 2023, finding that FleetCor had charged customers hidden or unauthorized fees and misrepresented the gas savings and fees associated with its fuel cards. In 2026, a federal appeals court upheld that judgment against the company on all counts and affirmed a permanent injunction against it. The appeals court affirmed the judgment against Clarke on all but one count and vacated the injunction as to him personally.
The court-imposed order bars FleetCor from billing a customer for any charge without the customer’s express informed consent and clear, unavoidable information about the charge. It also prohibits hiding material information about a charge behind a hyperlink and making deceptive claims about its fuel cards. As part of the new settlement, FleetCor and Clarke agreed not to oppose reimposing a federal court injunction against Clarke.
“FleetCor deceived its small business customers by promising fuel savings that never materialized, while unfairly charging them hidden and unauthorized fees,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “In addition to the relief the FTC has obtained in federal court, this order will help return money to the customers the company took advantage of.”
Fees that creep in after a few billing cycles are the hardest to catch. Owners who want a running record of charges they question, and what happened when they disputed them, can keep one with the protected-funds and dispute log in The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit.
How the fees were hidden
The FTC first sued FleetCor in December 2019 in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia. The Atlanta-based company, which reported $2.4 billion in revenue in 2018, sold fuel cards under its own Fuelman brand and through co-branded cards. Businesses handed the cards to employees to buy fuel for company vehicles.
According to the agency’s 2019 complaint announcement, FleetCor told prospective customers they would save money, be protected from unauthorized charges and pay no set-up, transaction or membership fees. The FTC alleged the fees ultimately totaled hundreds of millions of dollars and harmed tens of thousands of customers.
The agency said FleetCor often waited several billing cycles before starting many fees, making them harder to notice amid normal month-to-month swings. Its invoices did not disclose that fees were being charged at all, so customers had to dig into separate account management reports, where many fees were buried or not listed. The FTC also alleged that FleetCor did not post customer payments when it received them, which triggered late fees on payments made on time and “high credit risk” fees. Some trucking and transportation customers were charged “high risk” fees for being in those industries, even though they made up FleetCor’s core customer base. And although the cards were advertised as “fuel only,” the complaint said cardholders could buy anything sold at fueling locations, including beer and snacks, while FleetCor’s terms required customers to pay even for purchases outside the limits they had set.
The savings pitch did not hold up either. FleetCor frequently advertised savings of 5 to 10 cents per gallon, but the complaint cited an analysis requested by Clarke showing customers saved, on average, a fraction of a cent per gallon, and the fees exceeded any savings.
Who may get money back, and when
The $100 million will be used to provide redress to the company’s business customers harmed by its practices. The FTC has not yet announced how refunds will be distributed or who will qualify. Its practice in past cases has been to identify eligible customers from company records and send payments or claim notices directly, and it lists active programs on its refunds page.
First, the consent agreement must clear its procedural steps. The Commission voted 1-0-1 to accept it, with Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson recused. A description will be published in the Federal Register, followed by 30 days of public comment, after which the Commission will decide whether to make the order final. Once final, each violation of the order may bring a civil penalty of up to $53,088.
Older owners of delivery, contracting, landscaping or transportation businesses that relied on fuel cards have particular reason to pay attention, since many of the fees date back years. For them, the practical step now is to hold on to old FleetCor or Fuelman statements, account reports and payment confirmations. Those documents can show when fees first appeared and whether late fees were charged on payments made on time.
Watching for fake refund offers
Large enforcement settlements tend to attract impostors. The FTC says it will never demand money, make threats, ask someone to transfer money or promise a prize. A legitimate FTC refund does not require a fee, a gift card purchase or bank login credentials. Any message about a FleetCor refund that asks for payment up front should be reported at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
The case also carries a broader lesson for anyone who pays bills through a business or personal card account. Fees that start small, appear only on secondary reports or show up months after an account is opened can go unnoticed for years. Reviewing the full statement, not only the invoice total, and comparing charges against the original agreement is the most direct way to catch them.
Unexplained charges deserve a paper trail
The FleetCor fees went unnoticed partly because they were small, delayed and buried in secondary reports. The same pattern can show up on any account, and a disputed charge is much easier to resolve when the dates and responses are written down.
The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit includes a protected-funds and dispute log for tracking questioned charges, the debt-validation steps for challenging a balance that looks wrong, and the frozen-account response for when a dispute escalates to a bank account.
Document questionable fees before they pile up with The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit.
This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed against the linked official sources.
