Walmart has agreed to pay $100 million to settle allegations brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 11 states. The complaint accused Walmart of misleading delivery drivers in its Spark Driver program about their potential earnings, including base pay, incentive pay, and tips.
The FTC was joined by Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin in filing the complaint. According to the agencies, Walmart displayed inflated figures for base pay and tips to drivers and misled customers by claiming that all tips would go directly to drivers.
“Labor markets cannot function efficiently without truthful and non-misleading information about earnings and other material terms,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Today’s settlement reflects the Trump-Vance FTC’s focus on ensuring a healthy labor market for American workers, which is critical to the nation’s success.”
This settlement follows the creation of the FTC’s Joint Labor Task Force in February 2025 under Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. The task force brings together staff from multiple FTC bureaus to address deceptive or unfair labor-market practices affecting workers.
Walmart uses gig workers through its Spark Driver app to deliver goods. Drivers choose whether to accept delivery offers based on Walmart's stated compensation details.
The complaint detailed several alleged deceptive practices:
- Drivers were not always notified that tip payments had not been preauthorized and might not be paid if a customer could not cover them or if payment failed.
- When deliveries were split among multiple drivers or when orders were removed from batched deliveries (multiple orders in one trip), drivers often did not receive clear notification that their base pay or tips would be reduced.
- Incentive pay conditions were sometimes undisclosed or changed after tasks were completed; some promised incentives were withheld even when requirements appeared met.
- Walmart sometimes failed to provide collected tips as promised or refund them to customers.
The FTC alleges these actions violated both federal law—including the FTC Act and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act—and state laws.
Under the proposed order filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Walmart must implement an earnings verification program for drivers. The company is also prohibited from changing compensation terms after an offer is made except under specific circumstances such as service failure or order cancellation. Additionally, Walmart is banned from misrepresenting driver earnings in future offers.
The Commission voted 2-0 to file both the complaint and proposed final order. The order will take effect once approved by a judge.
Lead staff on this case included Aaron M. Schue, Jordan Navarrette, Miles Freeman, David Hankin and Barbara Chun from the FTC’s Western Region Los Angeles office.
The FTC encourages consumers to learn more about their rights at consumer.ftc.gov and report fraud at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
