People who let a Federal Trade Commission refund check sit in a drawer, or never tapped the PayPal payment, are getting a second chance by Zelle. The FTC is now paying some older refund rounds that way, putting the money straight into a bank account.
The new method appears on several refund programs, including AT&T data throttling, Ring and Amazon Flex tips. Nobody files a new claim to get it, because these are payments to people the agency already found eligible.
Which refund programs now pay by Zelle?
On its AT&T Data Throttling Refunds page, the FTC says it is sending Zelle payments to eligible former AT&T customers who were sent a payment and did not cash their check or accept their PayPal payment. The first AT&T payments went out in April 2024 and produced more than $5.6 million in refunds, and the page is dated August 2026.
The Ring refunds page describes a third round. Checks first went out in April 2024, a second round in August 2025 brought more than $5.4 million in refunds, and the current Zelle round is for people who did not cash a check or accept a PayPal payment. The FTC says the Ring money is for eligible people who had a Ring account.
The same language appears on the page for Amazon Flex drivers, who had tips withheld by Amazon between 2016 and 2019. Payments there began in November 2021, a second round followed in May 2025, and together they returned more than $60.6 million in tips.
The question for most households is simple: did a check from a settlement administrator arrive in the last few years, and was it ever cashed? Anyone who remembers an envelope from AT&T, Ring or Amazon Flex refunds can start with the matching program page above. The FTC’s refunds index lists every active program, with the month, the administrator and a phone number for each.
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The money behind each program has a different story. The AT&T refunds trace back to an FTC lawsuit over the company unfairly reducing data speeds for customers with unlimited data plans, a practice known as data throttling. The Ring case involved an order requiring Ring to pay money, delete videos it should not possess and set up a privacy and security program, after the FTC said employees could access customer videos.
How does a Zelle refund reach a bank account?
According to the FTC, a Zelle payment is deposited directly into the recipient’s bank account with a note about the settlement. The payment does not need a separate form, and the agency’s pages do not describe a claim step for the Zelle rounds.
A person who is owed a share of one of these programs may see an unfamiliar deposit that mentions a settlement. The administrator phone lines on each page are the place to ask about it. The AT&T administrator is at 1-877-654-1982, the Ring administrator is at 1-833-637-4884 and the Amazon Flex administrator is at 1-800-654-8874.
The FTC pages for AT&T and Amazon Flex say nothing about whether a claim is needed or whether payment is automatic. They also list no deadline for the Zelle round. Anyone who gets a message about a payment and is unsure about it can check the program page first and use the phone number printed there.
The pages do not give a per-person amount, a count of Zelle payments or a cut-off date for the new round. Those details are not published, so the amount of any one payment depends on the program and the original award.
Who gets a second try, and who does not?
The Zelle rounds are limited to people who were already sent a payment and did not use it. That means a person who never received an original check or PayPal notice is not covered by this method, and nothing on the FTC pages describes a way to join late.
Why the cash-by window matters on newer rounds
Not every program works the same way. The FTC’s Grubhub refunds page says the agency is sending 640,038 payments totaling more than $23.8 million to Grubhub drivers and diners. It asks people with a check to cash it within 90 days and people with a PayPal payment to accept it within 30 days.
The Grubhub page does not mention Zelle. The contrast is useful, because the Zelle rounds above go to people who missed that kind of window the first time.
A second round is not promised for every program, so a payment that arrives should be cashed or accepted quickly. The pages above do not say how many more attempts any program will make.
Staying safe when a refund shows up
The FTC warns on its refunds index that it will never threaten anyone, say a person must transfer money to get a refund, or promise a prize. That is a scam. Its program pages add that the agency never asks anyone to pay money to get a refund.
The FTC’s own pages describe a Zelle refund as a deposit into a bank account. A text or call that says a Zelle refund is waiting, then asks for a fee, a gift card, a bank login or a code, is not from the FTC.
Is there an uncashed refund check in the drawer?
A refund check that sits too long can expire, and a person who assumed the money was gone may never learn that it was paid again. Zelle helps only the programs listed above, which leaves plenty of older checks from other settlements still unaccounted for.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System covers that gap, with the steps for how to get an expired or uncashed settlement check reissued. It also includes a claim log and payment tracker, so each refund, its administrator and its status stay in one place.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
