The Federal Trade Commission has started sending more than $23.8 million to 640,038 people who were harmed by Grubhub’s business practices, and nobody on that list has to file a form or click a link to get their share. Most of the money is going out as paper checks mailed directly to affected drivers and diners, with a smaller group receiving PayPal payments instead.
Inflated Pay Promises and Hidden Delivery Fees
The payments trace back to a case the FTC and the Illinois Attorney General brought against Grubhub in December 2024, which accused the food-delivery company of an array of unlawful practices. The joint filing put a state enforcer alongside the federal agency, and the resulting order covered conduct aimed at three separate groups at once: the couriers who delivered the orders, the diners who placed them, and the restaurants whose names appeared on the platform. According to the FTC’s original complaint, Grubhub advertised inflated driver pay in cities like New York and Chicago, promising up to $40 an hour in New York when the actual median driver pay there was closer to $10 an hour, with only about one in 1,000 drivers actually reaching the advertised rate. A separate Chicago campaign advertised up to $26 an hour against a real median of roughly $11.
The same complaint accused Grubhub of tacking hidden “service fees” onto orders that were, by the company’s own internal accounting, simply delivery fees in disguise, and of adding more than 325,000 restaurants to its platform without their permission, according to the FTC. Diners were also affected directly: the agency said Grubhub blocked some diners’ accounts over gift-card balances without warning, and in one month alone, 97% of those locked accounts were never unlocked. As part of the settlement, Grubhub agreed to advertise driver pay honestly, stop listing restaurants without consent, and give diners a real way to appeal a blocked account, according to the FTC’s August 12, 2026 announcement of the refund program.
Free retirement updates: A quiet rule change can shrink a Social Security or Medicare check, and no one sends a warning. The free Retirement Shield newsletter catches these early and explains what to do. Get it free.
Who Is Actually Getting Paid
The 640,038 recipients split into two groups: drivers who the FTC says were misled about their potential earnings, and diners affected by blocked accounts or the platform’s unauthorized restaurant listings. The underlying court order carried a $140 million judgment against Grubhub, largely suspended based on the company’s finances, with $25 million actually required and, in the FTC’s words, nearly all of it earmarked for refunding people harmed by the conduct. The Grubhub payout is one piece of a much larger enforcement effort — the agency notes that its actions produced more than $435 million in total consumer redress across all cases in 2025 alone.
Because the program is automatic, no one on the eligible list needs to submit documentation, prove a purchase, or register on a website to receive a payment. The FTC’s refund program page lists Grubhub among its active refund cases, where consumers can confirm the program is legitimate before acting on anything that references it.
Subscription Cancellations and a “No Exemption” Warning
Beyond driver pay and restaurant listings, the original complaint also targeted Grubhub’s paid subscription service, which advertised “free” or “$0” delivery while still charging subscribers fees and, according to the FTC, making the service difficult to cancel. The settlement required Grubhub to build a simple cancellation process and remind subscribers at least once a year that they are enrolled and how to get out of it.
Announcing the original case in December 2024, then-FTC Chair Lina Khan said the agency’s investigation found that Grubhub “tricked its customers, deceived its drivers, and unfairly damaged the reputation and revenues of restaurants,” adding that “there is no ‘gig platform’ exemption to the laws on the books.” That framing matters for the August 2026 payout because it signals the agency intends to treat food-delivery and other gig-economy platforms under the same advertising and consumer-protection rules that apply to any other business.
What Recipients Should Watch For
Anyone contacted about a Grubhub refund who is asked to pay a fee, confirm a bank account number, or click a link to “activate” the payment is not dealing with the FTC. The agency has been explicit that it never requires people to pay money or hand over account information to receive money it is distributing, and it does not call, text or email recipients asking for that kind of verification before a check or PayPal payment arrives.
Consumers with questions about a specific payment can contact the refund administrator, Analytics Consulting LLC, rather than respond to unsolicited outreach claiming to represent Grubhub or the commission. The FTC has published frequently asked questions covering how its redress payments typically work, a resource the agency points recipients to instead of a phone line staffed by commission employees. That same caution applies broadly across the agency’s refund programs, not just this one: the commission’s public dashboard tracking redress by case shows dozens of active distributions running at any given time, and scammers regularly borrow the names of real settlements to make a fake outreach attempt look legitimate.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire editorial team.
More Financial Reading
- How many CDs can you park at 1 bank? FDIC rules you must know
- The ideal retirement withdrawal rate so your savings actually last
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
