Walmart has agreed to a $100 million judgment to settle allegations from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 11 states that the company deceived delivery drivers in its Spark Driver service about base pay, incentive pay and tips, costing them tens of millions of dollars in earnings. Spark Driver uses gig workers who decide whether to accept deliveries based on Walmart’s statements about the base pay and tips they can expect to receive.
In its complaint, the FTC alleged that Walmart misled drivers about the amount of tips they would receive from an order, as well as deceiving them about base pay and tip amounts when Walmart modified “batch” orders — reducing drivers’ base pay and tips, without informing the drivers, when an order was removed from a multi-stop trip. Walmart also was accused of misrepresenting conditions for receiving incentive pay, for example by not clarifying that bonuses for referring new drivers would only be paid if the new driver performed deliveries in a particular zone or for a particular store.
The complaint also alleged that Walmart deceived customers when it said that “100% of tips go to the driver,” saying the retailer failed to provide collected tips on multiple occasions, and did not refund the tip to customers either.
Walmart Ordered to Set Up Earnings Verification Program
A proposed order for providing remedies to these practices includes requiring Walmart to:
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- Implement an earnings verification program to ensure drivers are paid promised earnings and tips;
- Not modify offers for base and incentive pay or tips after the initial offer is made, except under limited circumstances such as the driver’s failing to provide the required services; and
- Not misrepresent the earnings and other information included in the delivery offers made to Spark 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 in a statement.
The states that joined the FTC in the complaint are Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin.
This is not the first time Walmart has faced pushback over its treatment of Spark Drivers. In January 2025 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sued Walmart for payment practices that allegedly cost Walmart’s Spark Drivers more than $10 million in fees, by forcing them to use “costly deposit accounts” to access their earnings.
Walmart competitor Amazon also has faced regulatory and legal scrutiny over its treatment of drivers; in August 2024 the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that Amazon is a joint employer of the third-party drivers it contracts with for deliveries in California and that Amazon engaged in unfair labor practices in its dealings with workers and refusing to recognize the drivers’ decision to unionize with the Teamsters.
