Tech and AI
A payment processor pays 4.85 million dollars over the tech support scams it banked
By Staff Writer | 5 September 2026
The complaint is not about the scam. It is about who opened the merchant account, kept it open, and took the chargebacks that should have closed it.
The Federal Trade Commission announced on Friday 4 September 2026 that the global payment processor Nuvei will pay 4.85 million United States dollars to settle charges that it opened and maintained payment processing accounts for merchants it knew or should have known were engaged in deception. The money is to be used for consumer redress.
The complaint names Nuvei Corporation, which is based in Canada, together with Nuvei International Group Limited, Nuvei Limited, SafeCharge Digital Limited and Nuvei Technologies Inc. It alleges that between 2017 and 2023 the group processed more than 30 million dollars in consumer payments for an offshore tech support scheme, and that through an acquiring bank registered in Cyprus it supplied that scheme and others with the accounts they needed to take card payments from holders in the United States and elsewhere.
Today's action underscores the Commission's commitment to ensuring that our payments system operates free of fraud. Our enforcement work reinforces the transparency and trust in the payments system that consumers and businesses depend on.
Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission
What the order requires
The proposed order goes further than the payment. It bans the company from providing payment services to anyone selling tech support products or services by telemarketing, or by pop up messages about security or performance problems on a computer or other device. It prohibits false or misleading statements made to obtain merchant accounts, and it prohibits tactics used to stay clear of the fraud and risk monitoring programmes run by banks and card networks, load balancing among them. It also requires the company to screen and monitor existing and prospective clients, with further screening and investigation of any existing client whose chargeback rate goes above the limits the order sets.
The charges are unfair practices in connection with payment processing, contrary to the Federal Trade Commission Act, and assisting deceptive telemarketers, contrary to the Telemarketing Sales Rule.
The pattern behind it
The regulator has been working along the payment chain rather than at the end of it. It took action against the operators of the same offshore tech support scheme in 2024, and last year sued a Europe based processor said to have used a merchant of record platform to serve it. The complaint here also alleges that the group's United States subsidiary opened and kept accounts for merchants selling business opportunities on false or baseless earnings claims, for merchants impersonating government tax authorities, and for merchants that other processors or acquiring banks had already terminated for excessive chargebacks or fraud.
The Commission voted two to nil to authorise the filing, which was made in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. The chairman and one commissioner issued a joint statement. A complaint is filed where the Commission has reason to believe the law is being broken or is about to be, and the case will be decided by the court.
There is a point in this for anyone who takes card payments through an intermediary, and it is about the evidence trail rather than the fine. The order treats the chargeback rate as the thing that should have prompted an investigation, and treats load balancing across accounts as an attempt to keep that number quiet. Both are ordinary operational data that a processor already holds. The allegation is that the group had what it needed to know and carried on.
Screening a merchant is a cost. On the Commission's account of it, not screening one turned out to be the more expensive option.