Zelle has joined checks, prepaid cards and PayPal as a way the Federal Trade Commission returns money, and two older cases are now using it. The agency’s pages show AT&T data-throttling refunds going out by Zelle in August 2026 and Ring refunds in July 2026. In both cases the transfers are aimed at people who let an earlier payment lapse.
Two refund pages, two Zelle dates
The FTC’s AT&T refund page says the agency is sending Zelle payments to former AT&T customers who were mailed a payment and did not cash the check or accept the PayPal payment. The page was last updated on August 20, 2026. The case behind it dates to the FTC’s complaint that AT&T slowed the data speeds of unlimited-plan customers after they passed a monthly usage threshold, which made ordinary web browsing and video streaming hard or impossible.
The Ring refund page, updated on July 21, 2026, describes the same arrangement for a different company. A current Zelle round goes to Ring account holders who did not cash a check or accept PayPal in an earlier round. That case grew out of the FTC’s allegation that Ring failed to protect customer accounts, allowing employees excessive access to customers’ videos and leaving systems open to hackers.
Why a lapsed check is the entry ticket
Neither page describes a way to apply. The eligibility rule on both is built on an earlier payment that went unused, so the Zelle round is tied to a payment the FTC already tried to send. For a family that did receive one and let it sit in a drawer or an old email inbox, the Zelle round is a second delivery attempt rather than a new program.
The pages read for this article do not explain how the FTC and its administrators find the bank connection for a Zelle transfer, and they do not say how many people are in either round. The agency publishes no total for the current rounds, no count of recipients and no per-person amount, so none is stated here.
The earlier rounds that set the pattern
The dollar figures on the two pages belong to earlier rounds. The AT&T page reports more than $5.6 million in refunds in the first round, sent in April 2024. The Ring page reports more than $5.4 million in a second round in August 2025, after first payments in April 2024. These are the sizes of payments already made. The pages attach no figure to the Zelle rounds, and the earlier totals are not a guide to what the current transfers add up to.
The Ring history runs checks in April 2024, then PayPal in August 2025, then Zelle in July 2026. Each round reaches back to the people the previous one missed. A household that has moved, changed banks or closed an email address since 2024 is the likeliest to have missed more than one.
No claim form and no fee
The agency’s refund FAQ states that “most FTC cases do not require you to file a claim,” because the agency obtains customer information from the defendants. Both program pages read here describe nothing to file. The Ring page says no action is needed beyond accepting the direct deposit, and the Zelle deposit arrives with a settlement note.
The same FAQ lists the current payment methods as check, prepaid debit card, PayPal and Zelle, and says an expired check may be reissued if money remains in the fund. Reissues are described as processed monthly. The agency’s stated goal is to send payments within six months of receiving the data and the money needed for distribution.
The warning on the Ring page is blunt: “the FTC never asks you to pay money to get a refund.” A refund notice that asks for a fee, a Social Security number or bank account details to release a payment is therefore the pattern the FTC says it does not use. The FAQ names five administration companies it works with, and a genuine notice carries case details and appears on the agency’s refund site.
Who answers the phone for each program
The FTC’s refund programs list shows both cases as active and names the administrators. JND Legal Administration handles AT&T at 1-877-654-1982. Rust Consulting, Inc. handles Ring at 1-833-637-4884. A person who received a check or PayPal offer and cannot say what became of it has a specific number to call for each case, and the FTC states that it never asks for money to release a refund.
The same list carries a section headed “Recognize an FTC Impersonator,” which states that “the FTC will never threaten you, say you must transfer money to ‘get a refund,’ or promise you a prize.” A Zelle request that arrives unprompted from an unfamiliar sender, with a demand for money in return, does not match any program described on the three FTC pages.
The controlling record for the headline is the FTC’s own AT&T page, with the Ring page supplying the July 2026 Zelle round and both administrator numbers. Both were read on October 1, 2026.
When an old refund check is still in the drawer
The AT&T and Ring re-sends exist because earlier checks and PayPal offers went unused. Households that let such a payment lapse often have no record of which program sent it, from which date, or whether anything came in afterward.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes a claim log and payment tracker and a section on how to get an expired or uncashed settlement check reissued, for keeping each refund’s status in one place.
Get The Settlement & Refund Recovery System here →
This article was written with AI assistance and checked against the FTC’s refund pages before publication.
