The Federal Trade Commission has reopened a refund case that most people assumed was closed two years ago. Former AT&T customers who were mailed a check or offered a PayPal payment in 2024 and never completed either one are now getting that money delivered by Zelle instead. The switch is clearing out a pocket of unclaimed refunds tied to a data-throttling case that first drew FTC scrutiny more than a decade ago, and it comes with no new application and no deadline attached.
The Data Speeds That Started the Case
The underlying complaint accused AT&T of selling “unlimited” data plans and then reducing, or throttling, the connection speeds of customers who used more than a set amount of data in a given billing cycle. The slowdown was severe enough, the agency said, that ordinary tasks like loading a webpage or streaming a video became difficult once a customer crossed the threshold, even though the plans were marketed without a disclosed speed cap.
The commission first raised the allegation in a 2014 complaint accusing AT&T of misleading millions of customers about their unlimited plans. AT&T eventually agreed to pay $60 million to resolve the case in 2019, with the money earmarked for refunds to affected customers rather than sent to the U.S. Treasury. Every check, PayPal payment, and now Zelle transfer connected to this case traces back to that settlement fund.
The case took an unusual detour on its way to that settlement. AT&T initially argued the FTC had no authority to sue it at all, since federal law generally exempts regulated “common carriers” from FTC oversight. The dispute reached the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled for the FTC in 2018 and allowed the underlying case to move forward — a decision the commission’s then-acting chairman welcomed at the time as “good news for consumers.” Without that ruling, the settlement, and the refunds still reaching bank accounts by Zelle eight years later, would not exist.
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Zelle Replaces the Uncashed Check
The first wave of payments under the settlement went out in April 2024, and the FTC says that round resulted in more than $5.6 million returned to former AT&T customers by check or PayPal. Not everyone who was approved for money in that round completed the transaction. Some checks sat uncashed in a drawer; some PayPal offers expired before anyone accepted them.
Rather than let that approved money go unclaimed, the commission is now routing it through Zelle. According to the FTC’s page for the case, a payment sent this way is deposited directly into the recipient’s bank account along with a note identifying it as tied to the AT&T settlement. There is no new application, no second eligibility review, and no form to fill out — the Zelle transfer is simply a different delivery method for money that was already approved back in the 2024 round.
No Second Application, and No Fee to Collect It
People who remember the case from when it first opened may recall applying for a payment through the FTC’s claims process in early 2023. That step does not need to happen again. The Zelle payments now going out are aimed specifically at people who already went through that process, were approved, and simply never collected the money they were owed by check or PayPal.
The commission’s page for this case repeats a rule that applies across every refund program it runs: the agency does not charge a fee, ask for a deposit, or request banking credentials in order to release money it has already approved. Its frequently-asked-questions page on refund programs spells out the same rule for the dozens of other settlements the agency currently administers, including this one. Anyone with questions about a specific payment can call the refund administrator’s number listed directly on the FTC’s case page, 1-877-654-1982, rather than responding to an unsolicited call, text, or email claiming to represent the case.
What the FTC Still Hasn’t Published
The commission has not released a total dollar figure for the Zelle round specifically, separate from the $5.6 million already reported for the 2024 round. It has also never published a per-person payment amount for this case at any stage. The original settlement fund was divided based on individual usage and billing records, not split evenly across every eligible customer, so there is no single number that describes what any given recipient is owed.
That gap is worth stating plainly rather than filling in with an estimate. The FTC’s refund page for the AT&T case remains the only current authority on who qualifies and how the money is moving, and as of its most recent update it stops short of giving either figure. Anyone trying to guess what a Zelle payment from this case is worth is working from information the agency itself has not made public.
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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