Some real money is going out in the mail this month, and it is not a scam. The Federal Trade Commission is sending payments totaling more than $23.8 million to people harmed by the food delivery company Grubhub, splitting the money among drivers the company misled about their pay and diners it treated unfairly. More than 640,000 people are getting a piece of it. If you drove for Grubhub or ordered through it and got locked out of your account, it is worth knowing how the payments work and how to be sure the one you receive is genuine.
Who is getting paid, and how much
According to the FTC’s Grubhub refunds page, the agency is sending 640,038 payments totaling more than $23.8 million. The money comes out of a larger settlement the FTC and the Illinois Attorney General reached with Grubhub over conduct they said included deceiving delivery drivers about the earnings they could expect and blocking diners from their accounts, which prevented some from redeeming gift cards. The refunds are being distributed now, in August 2026.
The amount any one person receives depends on the harm they experienced, so there is no single flat check figure. Drivers who were misled about pay and diners who lost access to accounts or funds are the two groups the money is meant to make whole. You do not need to have kept old receipts or emails to be included; the FTC and its administrator work from records of who was affected.
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Cash the check quickly, or lose it
The single most important detail is the clock. If you get a check, the FTC says to cash it within 90 days. If you receive your payment through PayPal, you need to accept it within 30 days. Miss those windows and the payment can expire, so this is not mail to set aside and forget. Checks that go stale sometimes cannot be reissued, which means a real payment can be lost simply by leaving it on the kitchen counter too long.
If you think you should be included but have not received anything, or your address has changed, you can call the refund administrator, Analytics Consulting LLC, at 1-888-446-4992. The FTC lists that number on its official refunds page, which is the safest place to confirm it.
How to know it is real and not a scam
Refund programs like this one are a favorite disguise for scammers, so a few rules keep you safe. The FTC never asks you to pay money or hand over a bank account or credit card number to collect a refund. Anyone who calls, texts, or emails demanding a “processing fee,” “taxes,” or your account login to release a Grubhub payment is running a scam, full stop. A legitimate FTC refund check simply arrives, or a PayPal payment appears for you to accept. The agency explains what to expect on its refund programs page.
If you want to double-check a call or message, do not use the contact information it gives you. Go to the FTC’s own website, find the Grubhub refunds page, and use the phone number listed there. That habit, verifying through the source rather than the message, defeats most refund scams before they start.
Why the payments are happening at all
The refunds trace back to a case the FTC and Illinois brought in December 2024, which accused Grubhub of a range of practices that hurt the people who used and worked for the platform: overstating how much drivers could earn, listing restaurants without their permission, and blocking diners from their own accounts and funds. Grubhub agreed to a settlement that set aside most of a $25 million payment for consumer refunds and required the company to change how it advertises driver pay, how it handles blocked accounts, and how it lists restaurants.
For a gig worker, the driver piece is the part that stings most. Delivery apps often advertise potential earnings that assume ideal conditions, and this case is a concrete example of a regulator saying those claims crossed the line. The lesson for anyone weighing gig work is to treat advertised pay as a ceiling, not a promise, and to track your own real hourly take after gas and wear.
What to do if you are affected
Watch your mail and your PayPal account over the coming weeks. If a Grubhub payment arrives, handle it inside the 90-day check window or the 30-day PayPal window. If you believe you qualify and nothing shows up, call the administrator at the number on the FTC’s page. And if anyone contacts you asking for money or account details to “release” your payment, hang up, because the real thing never works that way. Found money is only found if you actually collect it, and here that means acting before the deadline and steering clear of the scams that follow every big refund.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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