Corpay, the fuel-card company formerly known as FleetCor Technologies, and its chief executive Ronald Clarke will pay $100 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission action over hidden and unauthorized fees, the agency said September 17, 2026. The money will be used for redress to the company’s business customers, most of them small businesses, who were charged fees they never agreed to. The deal follows federal court rulings that FleetCor violated the FTC Act.
How the fees worked
According to the FTC’s September 17 announcement, the Atlanta-based company imposed a broad array of fees that customers never knew about and did not agree to pay. The FTC said those fees totaled hundreds of millions of dollars and harmed tens of thousands of customers.
FleetCor sold fuel cards under its own Fuelman brand and through co-branded cards, which businesses handed to employees to fill up company vehicles. In its original 2019 complaint, the FTC said the company promised customers they would save money, be protected from unauthorized charges and pay no set-up, transaction or membership fees.
Instead, the FTC said, FleetCor often waited several billing cycles before starting many fees so they would blend into normal monthly fluctuations. Its invoices did not disclose that fees were being charged, so customers had to dig through separate account management reports, where many fees were still obscured or missing. The company also charged late fees to customers who had paid on time or who were prevented by FleetCor from paying on time, and it failed to post payments when they arrived, which triggered more late fees and “high credit risk” fees. The FTC also said the company charged some trucking and transportation customers “high risk” fees for being in the trucking business, even though those industries made up much of its customer base.
The promised savings largely did not appear. The 2019 complaint said an analysis requested by Clarke showed customers saved, on average, a fraction of a cent per gallon, far less than the 5 to 10 cents per gallon the company often advertised, and that fees exceeded any savings. Cards marketed as “fuel only” could also be used to buy snacks, beer and other items at fueling stations.
For former Fuelman and FleetCor card customers: Redress will depend on account history, so old fuel-card invoices, account reports and any FTC or administrator letter are worth gathering now. A claim log and payment tracker, plus a step-by-step filing walkthrough, come with The Settlement & Refund Recovery System.
A case that began in 2019
The FTC first sued FleetCor and Clarke in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia in December 2019, when the publicly traded company reported $2.4 billion in annual revenue for 2018. The commission voted 4-1 to authorize that complaint. In 2023, the district court granted summary judgment for the FTC on all counts, finding that FleetCor charged hidden or otherwise unauthorized fees and misrepresented gas savings and fees.
In 2026, a federal appeals court upheld that ruling against the company on all counts and affirmed a permanent injunction. The appeals court affirmed the judgment against Clarke on all but one count but vacated the injunction as to him. Under 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. He said that in addition to the relief obtained in federal court, the order “will help return money to the customers the company took advantage of.”
What the court order bars going forward
The court-imposed order permanently prohibits FleetCor from billing a customer for any charge unless it has obtained the customer’s express informed consent and provided clear, unavoidable information about the charge. It also bars the company from hiding material information about a charge behind a hyperlink and from making deceptive claims about its fuel cards.
Once the FTC’s consent order is final, each violation can bring a civil penalty of up to $53,088, according to the agency.
When redress could reach customers
The settlement is not yet final. The commission voted 1-0-1 to accept the consent agreement, with Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson recused. The FTC will publish a description in the Federal Register, followed by a 30-day public comment period, after which the commission will decide whether to make the order final. Comments will be posted on Regulations.gov.
The FTC has not announced a claims process, eligibility formula, payment amounts or a timeline for sending money. In many FTC redress programs, the agency or its administrator contacts eligible customers directly, and the FTC lists active programs on its refunds page. A company that has changed its name, as FleetCor did when it became Corpay, can make old notices and statements harder to match, so keeping both names in mind helps when searching email or paper files.
Small businesses carry particular weight for older Americans. Many owners of landscaping companies, contracting firms, delivery services and family trucking operations are at or near retirement age, and fees buried in a fuel-card bill can quietly eat into income meant for retirement. Owners who have since sold or closed a business may still hold the old statements that identify the account. Former customers can prepare by keeping fuel-card invoices, account reports and correspondence that show which card they used and when.
Anyone contacted about a FleetCor or Corpay refund should be cautious. The FTC says it will never demand money, make threats or ask for a money transfer, and no legitimate refund requires an upfront fee. Suspicious contacts and deceptive practices can be reported at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Old fuel-card statements may matter again
The Corpay redress process has not opened yet, and when it does, the business accounts and billing periods involved will drive who is paid. The gap for many small-business owners is that those statements are scattered across old email, paper files and closed accounts.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice, the scam-proof rules and a 5-tab Excel tracker pre-filled with all 51 state unclaimed-property offices, for sorting genuine notices from fakes and logging each one.
Get ready for a future notice with The Settlement & Refund Recovery System.
This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed against the linked official sources.
