The Federal Trade Commission has started sending a new round of payments to Amazon Flex drivers whose tips the company secretly withheld nearly a decade ago, this time depositing the money directly through Zelle instead of mailing a check. The Zelle payments are going to drivers who never cashed the checks sent during two earlier rounds, in November 2021 and May 2025. Together, those distributions have returned more than $60.6 million in withheld tips to drivers who once delivered packages and groceries through the Amazon Flex program.
The refunds trace back to a 2021 settlement in which the FTC accused Amazon of quietly diverting customer tips to cover its own payroll costs instead of passing the full amount through to drivers as advertised. A driver who receives one of the new Zelle payments will see it land directly in a bank account, arriving with a note referencing the settlement rather than a request for information.
How Amazon Diverted Driver Tips From 2016 to 2019
According to the FTC’s administrative complaint, Amazon advertised that Flex drivers would earn $18 to $25 an hour plus 100 percent of any tips customers left, and told both drivers and customers that tips would be passed through in full. In late 2016, the company began quietly paying drivers a lower hourly rate while using their tip money to make up the difference, without disclosing the change to drivers. Amazon continued telling drivers they were receiving all of their tips, and internal emails cited in the FTC’s settlement announcement describe employees calling the situation an “Amazon reputation tinderbox.”
The company kept the lower-pay model in place even after hundreds of driver complaints and negative media coverage, according to the agency, and only reversed course in August 2019, after learning about the FTC’s investigation. The FTC ultimately determined that the arrangement had shorted drivers more than $61.7 million in tips over roughly two and a half years.
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A $61.7 Million Order Has Returned $60.6 Million So Far
Amazon settled the FTC’s administrative complaint in 2021, agreeing to pay $61,710,583 to compensate Flex drivers and accepting restrictions on how it handles driver pay and tips going forward. Under the order, the company cannot misrepresent a driver’s likely income or the share of tips being passed through, and it cannot change how tips are used as compensation without a driver’s informed consent.
The FTC sent the bulk of that money out in two earlier waves. In the first round, in November 2021, the agency mailed 139,507 checks and issued 1,621 PayPal payments, with the highest single payment topping $28,000 and the average landing around $422, according to the FTC’s November 2021 announcement. A second round followed in May 2025. Combined with the current Zelle cleanup, the distributions have returned more than $60.6 million of the $61.7 million ordered, according to the FTC’s Amazon Flex refund page, last updated in August 2026.
Roughly 19,980 of the drivers paid in that first round had payments large enough — more than $600 — to trigger an IRS Form 1099 along with their check, meaning that portion of the refund counted as reportable income on a tax return, per the FTC’s own account of the November 2021 distribution.
Why the Payments Are Now Arriving by Zelle
The current wave is not a new settlement or a newly discovered pool of withheld tips. It is a cleanup effort aimed at drivers who received a check in 2021 or 2025 but never deposited it, whether it went to an old address, sat forgotten in a drawer, or expired before it could be cashed. Rather than mailing another paper check, the FTC is now depositing that money directly into a driver’s bank account through Zelle, with a note identifying the payment as part of the Amazon Flex settlement.
The refund program routinely uses more than one payment method. According to the FTC’s refund program FAQ, the agency currently distributes settlement money by check, prepaid debit card, PayPal, and Zelle depending on the case, and relies on a small group of contracted claims administrators rather than sending money itself; Rust Consulting is the administrator handling the Amazon Flex payments. Money that ultimately cannot be delivered to a driver does not stay with the FTC or return to Amazon — any amount still sitting in a settlement fund after distribution is sent to the U.S. Treasury, which is part of why the agency keeps switching payment methods to close the gap before that happens.
Spotting a Legitimate FTC Payment Versus a Scam
Because the Amazon Flex case has surfaced in waves since 2021, it has also become a template scammers borrow from. The FTC’s guidance is specific about how a genuine payment behaves: the agency never requires anyone to pay a fee, provide a Social Security number, or hand over bank account information to receive a refund, and every active refund case, along with the name of the company issuing payments and a phone number for questions, is listed on the agency’s refunds page.
A driver with questions about a Zelle deposit or an old, uncashed check can call the refund administrator directly at 1-800-654-8874, rather than responding to an unsolicited email or text message claiming to be from the FTC.
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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