Refund checks that sat uncashed for months are getting a second delivery route. On its refund pages, the Federal Trade Commission says it is now sending Zelle payments to people who did not cash a check or accept a PayPal payment in four separate cases: AT&T, Ring, Amazon Flex and the University of Phoenix. The money is deposited directly into a bank account, with no claim form attached.

One fallback, four case pages

The FTC’s refund index lists the cases with administrator phone numbers and the month each page was last posted: AT&T in August 2026, Amazon Flex in August 2026, and Ring and the University of Phoenix in July 2026. The index itself does not describe the payment method. That detail is on each case page, and each one says the same thing in nearly the same words.

The clearest statement is on the AT&T data throttling refunds page: “The FTC is sending Zelle payments to eligible former AT&T customers who were sent a payment and didn’t cash their check or accept their PayPal payment.” The Ring page carries the matching sentence, “Now, the FTC is sending Zelle payments to people who didn’t cash their check or accept their PayPal payment.” The University of Phoenix page says the FTC is sending Zelle payments to eligible people who paid the school, and describes this round as aimed at people who did not cash checks or accept PayPal offers. The Amazon Flex page describes the current round, dated August 2026, as going to drivers who did not cash their checks.

All four pages say how the money arrives: “The payment will be deposited directly into your bank account with a note about the settlement.” All four also repeat the FTC’s standing warning that it never asks anyone to pay money to get a refund.

For anyone who remembers an unopened envelope or a PayPal notice from one of these four companies, the practical question is what will arrive, and when. The pages do not give a per-person amount or a delivery date for the Zelle round. What they give is a method, a note on the deposit, and a refund administrator for each case.

For a refund check that went uncashed, The Settlement & Refund Recovery System explains how to get an expired or uncashed settlement check reissued.

See the reissue steps for a refund check that went uncashed →

What each program has already paid out

The amounts attached to these pages belong to earlier rounds, not to the Zelle round. The FTC pages for the current rounds do not state a total, so the figures below describe the history of each case.

• AT&T: the FTC first sent payments in April 2024, which resulted in more than $5.6 million in refunds, from a settlement that required AT&T to pay $60 million over its handling of unlimited data plans.
• Ring: a first round in April 2024 and a second in August 2025, with more than $5.4 million in refunds across the rounds the page describes.
• Amazon Flex: more than $60.6 million in returned tips to drivers whose tips Amazon withheld between 2016 and 2019, in rounds from November 2021 and May 2025.
• University of Phoenix: more than $49 million in refunds, in rounds from March 2021, July 2023 and September 2025.

Those totals show how many dollars have moved. They do not tell any individual what a Zelle payment will be, and the pages do not say that either. Whether someone gets a payment depends on being an eligible person from the original case, and the pages describe the recipient group in those words rather than as an open invitation.

A deposit with a note, and why the wording matters

The Zelle payments come with a note about the settlement. That is the detail a recipient can match against the FTC pages. Because the agency says the payment is deposited directly into the bank account, a deposit that cites a settlement is the thing to compare with the case page. A message that asks for a fee, a login, or a card number is not what the FTC describes, and the FTC says outright that it never asks anyone to pay money to get a refund.

The pages describe the refund as automatic for eligible people, so there is nothing in them to fill in, and the FTC records the case as an automatic distribution. Each case lists a different administrator: JND Legal Administration for AT&T at 1-877-654-1982, and Rust Consulting, Inc. for Ring at 1-833-637-4884, Amazon Flex at 1-800-654-8874 and the University of Phoenix at 1-877-310-0487.

Anyone who is unsure which case an old check belonged to can start with the name on the check or the notice, because the administrators are case-specific and a call to the wrong one will not settle anything.

Matching an old refund check to the right FTC administrator

The official route runs through the FTC’s own site. Open the FTC refund index, find the case that matches the old check, and read its page; each one names the refund administrator and the number to call. The AT&T, Ring, Amazon Flex and University of Phoenix pages are linked above, and each repeats that the payment lands in a bank account with a settlement note.

Before calling, it helps to have the old check or PayPal notice in hand, along with the name the refund was addressed to and the bank account the payment would reach. A recipient who no longer uses that account should say so when calling the administrator, because the pages describe a direct deposit and give no other method.

The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes how to get an expired or uncashed settlement check reissued, plus a claim log and payment tracker for keeping the case, administrator and call date together.

Get The Settlement & Refund Recovery System for an uncashed FTC refund →

This piece was drafted with AI assistance; the figures and dates were checked against the FTC refund index and the FTC case pages for AT&T, Ring, Amazon Flex and the University of Phoenix linked above.