The FTC is mailing more than $9.8 million to 65,022 people scammed through Walmart money transfers

Checks totaling more than $9.8 million are going out in the mail to 65,022 people who lost money to scammers that used Walmart’s money transfer services. The Federal Trade Commission announced the payments on Oct. 15, 2026, and recipients are told to cash the paper checks within 90 days.

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The refunds trace back to schemes that took hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. consumers through transfers sent at Walmart locations. Anyone expecting a check should know what a legitimate refund process looks like, because the agency’s own guidance is that real refunds never come with a bill attached.

The FTC’s Walmart refund program

The FTC’s announcement says the Commission is sending payments totaling more than $9.8 million to 65,022 affected consumers. The money goes out as paper checks, and the refund administrator is Rust Consulting Inc., which handles questions at 1-833-472-1990. The agency’s Walmart refunds page says the program covers people who completed eligible money transfers at Walmart between January 2015 and December 2024, and that recipients should cash their checks within 90 days of receiving them.

The FTC said its actions in 2025 led to more than $435 million in redress to consumers nationwide, and the agency maintains interactive dashboards showing state-by-state redress data for its cases. The Walmart distribution is one entry in that larger flow of money from enforcement actions back to people who were harmed, a process that can run long after a case is resolved.

How Walmart’s wire transfers fed the scams

The payments come from a case the FTC brought over Walmart’s handling of fraud on its money transfer services. In June 2025, Walmart agreed to pay a $10 million judgment to resolve FTC charges, in a stipulated final order filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that the Commission approved 3-0. According to the agency, scammers used Walmart’s in-store money transfer services from 2013 to 2018, including as an agent for MoneyGram, Western Union and Ria, to defraud consumers of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The FTC alleged that Walmart lacked effective anti-fraud policies and procedures, failed to train employees properly, and did not warn customers about transfer-related fraud. Those claims are allegations, and the October release does not report an admission of liability. The case moved slowly: the FTC filed its complaint in June 2022 and an amended complaint in June 2023 that added telemarketing violation claims, and in July 2024 the district court dismissed the Telemarketing Sales Rule claim for the second time.

Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said at the time of the settlement that electronic money transfers are one of the most common ways scammers tell consumers to send them money, and that companies offering such services must train their employees to comply with the law and work to protect consumers. The order bars Walmart from offering the services without timely, effective fraud detection and prevention measures and from sending or paying out transfers it knows, or consciously avoids knowing, are fraud-induced. The proceeding is posted as FTC v. Walmart on the agency’s case page.

The order reaches beyond Walmart’s own counters. It also bars the company from substantially assisting sellers or telemarketers it knows, or consciously avoids knowing, accept cash-to-cash transfers for goods, services or charitable contributions sought through telemarketing, and from assisting telemarketers who ask consumers to pay in advance for a loan or credit extension. Stipulated final orders carry the force of law once the district court judge approves and signs them, so the refunds now arriving in mailboxes are the monetary side of a case that also imposes continuing conduct rules on one of the largest retailers in the country.

Spotting a real check and avoiding a fake one

Refund programs attract imitators, since a mailed check is exactly the kind of event a scammer can piggyback on with a convincing call or text. The FTC’s release addresses the risk in one sentence: “The Commission never requires people to pay money or provide account information to get a payment.” Its refund page adds that the agency will never threaten anyone, ask for a transfer of money to get a refund, or promise a prize, and that anyone doing so is a scammer.

Recipients with doubts can use the administrator’s number listed on the agency’s own pages rather than any number in an unexpected message. Anyone who receives a suspicious message that claims to be about a refund, or who lost money to a transfer scam and wants to report it, can file a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Because the checks carry a 90-day window, recipients who set the envelope aside risk missing it, which is another reason to open the mail promptly and confirm details through official channels before cashing anything.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.