Uh, Isn’t This Fee Tactic by Global Payments Legally Considered Fraud?

If you’ve read any of our Statement Obfuscation Series you’d know that Global Payments is the king of made-up fees (maybe they deserve an acronym like KOFF?). We bet somewhere in their executive offices sits a spin wheel of random fees that they use to decide the gratuitous charges for the week. But hey, gotta “revenue synergize”, right?

But this next fee is a real doozie. In fact, it’s probably as close to fraud as we’ve ever seen. We’re not claiming to be lawyers, so someone should really look into this, but when a company charges you for an inaction then again claims to be selling you insurance against such an inaction, it seems highly, highly, highly illegal.

For example, let’s say you buy a car and the dealership charges you monthly for car insurance. Then a few weeks after you drive off the lot the dealer sends you a bill for NOT having the car insurance they’re already charging for!

Uh, what?

Precisely. Follow this closely.

The below Heartland (ie Global Payments) merchant is being charged two fees here, in red. The first is a Monthly PCI Non-Compliance Fee. The second is a Service & Regulatory Mandate Fee. Ooh, that sounds important – better pay it!

But here is where things get interesting. The merchant reached out to their Heartland sales rep to inquire about these super valuable fees, and here’s what came back (rep’s name redacted to protect the innocent complicit).

The sales rep lists PCI compliance as included in the critically-valuable-dont-even-question-it-how-could-you-have-lived-without-it Service & Regulatory Mandate Fee. WTF is going on here?

Now, there’s a cute little asterisk on some of these items that complicates matters even further, but we suspect a law firm needs to look into this: this smells like a class action lawsuit to us. Amazing how these acquirers continue to get away with this.