The year is 2020. You're doing pandemic home cooking, buying things online like everyone else, and you pick up a set of Pyrex glass measuring cups on Amazon. The listing says "Made in USA." Pyrex is a classic American brand — glass bakeware that's been in American kitchens since the 1910s. Made in USA checks out. You don't think twice.

You probably should have. The FTC eventually did.

What actually happened with the Pyrex measuring cups?

Instant Brands, the company that manufactures Pyrex glassware, advertised certain glass measuring cups on Amazon as made in the United States. The FTC's investigation found that some of those measuring cups were, in fact, imported from China.

As the FTC's own consumer blog put it: the Pyrex "Made in USA" claims simply didn't measure up. (A government agency landing a cooking pun in an enforcement action is not something you see every day. Credit where it's due.)

The FTC's Made in USA standard is specific: a product claiming American manufacture must have all or virtually all of its components made domestically. "Some of them are American" doesn't clear the bar. Instant Brands agreed to a settlement that banned the company from making further false origin claims and required it to pay into a consumer refund fund.

Who is getting a PayPal payment — and why PayPal this time?

The FTC sent its first round of Pyrex refunds in October 2024 as paper checks, resulting in more than $43,700 returned to eligible customers. For context: that's a relatively modest fund spread across what was likely a large number of Amazon purchasers, so individual payouts are small. But yours is still yours.

This round consists of PayPal payments going to everyone who received a check in 2024 and never cashed it. The FTC regularly converts uncashed checks to PayPal payments as a follow-up — it's a more direct way to reach people who may have set a check aside and forgotten about it, lost it, or assumed it was junk mail.

The 30-day window matters here. Unlike paper checks — which give you 90 days — PayPal payments from the FTC must be accepted within 30 days of the notification email. If you miss it, the funds return to the settlement. Check your inbox, including your spam folder, for an email about this payment.

How will I know if I'm getting a payment?

The FTC sends an email notification before issuing a PayPal payment — watch for it from an address ending in .gov. After that notification, PayPal itself will send a separate email when the payment arrives. You'll need to accept it through the PayPal interface within 30 days.

  • Look for a pre-payment notification email from an @ftc.gov address
  • Then a PayPal email telling you funds are available
  • Accept within 30 days of the PayPal notification
  • You don't need a full PayPal account — only a name and email address are required to accept the payment

How to verify the PayPal payment is legitimate

A PayPal payment from a government agency about a measuring cup class action is — admittedly — not the first thing you'd expect in your inbox. Here's how to confirm this one is real before you click anything:

✓The FTC pre-notifies by email from an @ftc.gov address. Any legitimate FTC PayPal refund is preceded by an official email from a .gov domain. If you only got a PayPal email with no prior FTC notice, verify it before accepting.
✓Simpluris is the FTC-contracted administrator. Their name and phone number (1-833-244-7320) appear on the official FTC refund page for this case.
✓The case is publicly documented. Search "Pyrex FTC settlement" or "Instant Brands Made in USA" — you'll find the original 2023 enforcement action and the 2024 refund announcement on ftc.gov.
✓Nobody is asking you to pay anything. Real FTC refunds never require a fee, your SSN, or banking details to release a payment. Go directly to PayPal.com — never through a link in an email — to verify any payment in your account.

The bigger picture on "Made in USA" claims

The Pyrex case is a useful reminder that "Made in USA" is a regulated claim, not a marketing suggestion. The FTC has specific rules about what qualifies — and enforces them. It's one of the more straightforward consumer protection areas: either your product meets the standard or it doesn't, and "made in USA" on a Chinese import doesn't.

The pandemic made origin labeling unusually loaded. Supply chains were disrupted, "buy American" sentiment was high, and "Made in USA" carried real weight with consumers making purchasing decisions. Labeling imported goods as domestic during that period was a particularly poorly timed move.

The settlement permanently bans Instant Brands from repeating the claim without substantiation. The measuring cups in your cabinet are still perfectly good measuring cups, wherever they were made. They just weren't quite what the label said.

Source: This article is based on the FTC's official refund page and press releases. Primary source: ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/pyrex-refunds. Administrator: Simpluris, 1-833-244-7320.