Payment processor Nuvei Corp. and four subsidiaries will pay $4.85 million and adopt merchant screening and monitoring requirements to resolve Federal Trade Commission allegations that they processed payments for merchants engaged in fraud, the agency announced last week.
The FTC filed the complaint and a stipulated order in federal court in Arizona. The complaint alleges that Canada-based Nuvei and subsidiaries Nuvei International Group Limited, Nuvei Limited, SafeCharge Digital Limited and Nuvei Technologies Inc. opened and maintained accounts for merchants they knew or should have known were deceptive. Nuvei processed more than $30 million in consumer payments from 2017 to 2023 for Reimage, an offshore tech support operation the FTC sued in 2024, according to the complaint.
The agency also alleges that Nuvei Technologies Inc. provided accounts to merchants selling business opportunities with false earnings claims, merchants impersonating tax authorities, and merchants other processors had terminated for excessive chargebacks or fraud. The complaint charges violations of the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule’s assisting and facilitating provision.
Under the order, judgment of $4.85 million is entered jointly and severally against the defendants, with payment due within seven days of entry from funds held in escrow by defense counsel. The money will be used for consumer redress. The defendants neither admit nor deny the allegations.
The order bans Nuvei from processing for any merchant selling technical support products through telemarketing or device pop-up messages, and for any merchant it knows is on Mastercard’s MATCH list for chargebacks, fraud or laundering. It prohibits tactics to evade fraud monitoring, including load balancing across multiple merchant accounts and the use of shell companies.
Nuvei must screen prospective “Covered Clients,” a category that includes outbound telemarketers and sellers of tech support, computer software, business opportunities, negative option products, healthcare products and debt relief services, as well as any client named in a public fraud complaint within the past decade. Nuvei must review all current clients within 60 days. The order requires monthly chargeback rate calculations for every client and an investigation of any client whose rate exceeds 1.0% with more than 75 chargebacks in two of any six months. Nuvei must close such accounts within 60 days of opening an investigation unless it documents, by clear and convincing evidence, that the client’s practices are lawful.
