The $23.8 million the Federal Trade Commission is distributing to Grubhub drivers and diners doesn’t stay valid indefinitely once it arrives. Paper checks are only good for 90 days after they’re mailed, and the smaller group of recipients getting paid through PayPal have just 30 days to redeem that payment before it lapses.
Two Payment Methods, Two Different Clocks
Most of the 640,038 people receiving money in this round are getting a paper check, which needs to be cashed or deposited within 90 days of its mailing date, according to the FTC’s August 12, 2026 announcement. Recipients getting a PayPal payment instead have a much shorter window: 30 days to accept and redeem the funds before that payment expires.
The FTC says it sometimes uses PayPal for these programs, and when it does, it sends an email from an address ending in “.gov” before the payment goes out, followed by a notice from PayPal itself once the money has been sent, according to the agency’s Refund Programs FAQ. A recipient only needs a name and email address to open a PayPal account to accept the payment, which is why the agency treats requests for more information than that as a red flag.
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What Happens If a Check Isn’t Cashed in Time
An expired check isn’t necessarily a lost payment. The FTC’s FAQ page says that if money is still available in a settlement fund after a check lapses, the agency may be able to reissue the payment, and recipients should call the number listed on the original check or notice to ask about it. Switching from an expired PayPal payment back to a mailed check takes longer: the agency says it must wait at least 45 days after the original payment date, because PayPal has to return the funds before a new check can be processed.
Reissues are not automatic and are not guaranteed forever — they depend on whether money remains in the specific settlement fund tied to the case, which is one more reason the FTC recommends acting inside the original 90-day or 30-day window rather than assuming a replacement will always be available later. A recipient dealing with a name change, a spelling error on the check, or the death of the person named on it is directed to the same process: contact the administrator in writing rather than simply depositing or discarding a check that doesn’t match current records.
Where the Money Goes If It’s Never Claimed
Money that ultimately can’t be delivered to an eligible recipient doesn’t stay with the FTC or the company that paid it. Under the agency’s standard process, any funds left over after distribution attempts are sent to the U.S. Treasury rather than returned to Grubhub or kept by the commission. The FTC has also said that over the past five years, more than 95% of the money it collects for consumer refunds nationwide has actually reached consumers, with the remainder covering administrative costs like printing and mailing checks — not commission salaries, which come from a separate congressional budget.
Spotting a Fake Version of This Payment
Because this program involves hundreds of thousands of real payments landing in mailboxes and PayPal accounts at once, it also creates an opening for scammers to imitate it. The FTC’s guidance is specific: it never asks recipients to pay an upfront fee or provide a Social Security number or bank account number to get money it owes them, and every legitimate case is listed with a phone number on the commission’s own refunds page. The agency contracts with five approved firms to handle these mailings and payments, and Analytics Consulting LLC is the one named as administrator for the Grubhub program specifically.
Recipients who want to double-check a payment’s legitimacy are told to type the commission’s web address directly into a browser rather than clicking a link in an unexpected email or text, since that habit alone blocks most of the copycat messages built to look like a real government refund notice. The same caution applies to any message that arrives faster than expected or asks for information beyond a name and email, since that mismatch with the agency’s own stated process is often the clearest sign something isn’t right.
For a payout of this size, spread across hundreds of thousands of drivers and diners nationwide, the practical takeaway is simple: treat the arrival of a check or PayPal notice as the finish line of a case that started with a federal complaint, not the start of a process that requires more personal information to unlock. The FTC’s own numbers suggest the system mostly works as designed, since the vast majority of money collected in these cases in recent years has ended up back in consumers’ hands rather than lost to expired payments or administrative costs.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire editorial team.
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David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
