FTC Fines Payment Processor Nuvei $4.85 Million Over Fraud Ties

Global payment processor Nuvei will pay $4.85 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it opened and maintained payment accounts for merchants the agency says it knew or should have known were running deceptive schemes, including tech support scams that took money from consumers.

The FTC’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, names Canada-based Nuvei Corporation along with subsidiaries Nuvei International Group Limited, Nuvei Limited, SafeCharge Digital Limited and Nuvei Technologies Inc. The Commission voted 2-0 to authorize the complaint and stipulated order.

What the FTC says happened

According to the complaint, Nuvei processed more than $30 million in consumer payments between 2017 and 2023 for Reimage, described by the FTC as an offshore tech support scam. The agency alleges Nuvei’s merchant acquiring bank, registered in Cyprus, gave Reimage and other overseas tech support schemes payment processing accounts that let them take credit card payments from cardholders in the United States and elsewhere.

The FTC also alleges that Nuvei’s U.S.-based subsidiary, Nuvei Technologies Inc., opened and maintained merchant accounts for other companies it names, including DK Automation, described as a business-opportunity merchant making false or baseless earnings claims, and American Tax Service, described as impersonating a government tax authority. The complaint further alleges Nuvei took on merchants that other payment processors or acquiring banks had already terminated for excessive chargebacks or fraud.

The FTC previously took action against Reimage’s operators in 2024, against DK Automation and its founder in November 2022, and against American Tax Service and its owners in October 2025. Last year the agency also sued Paddle, a Europe-based payment processor, over its alleged role in facilitating the Reimage scheme.

Why this matters if you’ve ever paid a tech support pop-up

Payment processors sit between merchants and the banking system, deciding which businesses get access to card networks. The FTC’s complaint charges Nuvei with unfair practices in payment processing under the FTC Act and with assisting and facilitating deceptive telemarketers under the Telemarketing Sales Rule. In effect, the agency is arguing that a processor’s screening decisions can determine whether a scam operation can even accept a consumer’s credit card payment in the first place.

Consumers who paid Reimage or the other named merchants for tech support, business-opportunity products, or tax-related services during the periods described in the complaint may be relevant to the case, since the settlement money is designated for consumer redress.

What changes under the settlement

The proposed order imposes several restrictions on Nuvei going forward:

• Nuvei is banned from providing payment services to anyone selling tech support products or services through telemarketing or through pop-up messages about security or performance issues on a computer or device.
• Nuvei is prohibited from making false or misleading statements to obtain merchant accounts or other payment processing services, and from using tactics to avoid fraud or risk monitoring programs set up by banks or credit card networks, including a practice known as load balancing.
• Nuvei must screen and monitor existing and prospective clients, including those in categories such as outbound telemarketing, and must conduct enhanced screening of any existing client whose chargeback rates exceed limits set in the order.

Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the action “underscores the Commission’s commitment to ensuring that our payments system operates free of fraud” and that “consumers deserve a payment system that is competitive, transparent and fortified against fraud.”

What a reader can check

Anyone who paid for tech support after a pop-up warning, signed up for a business-opportunity program promising specific earnings, or dealt with a company claiming to be a tax authority such as American Tax Service, can look at old statements to see whether a payment went through Nuvei or its subsidiaries, including SafeCharge. The FTC notes it will never demand money, make threats, or promise a prize, which distinguishes legitimate agency contact from scam calls impersonating regulators.

The case is not yet resolved by a court, and the FTC’s own notice states that filing a complaint means the agency has “reason to believe” a violation occurred or is about to occur — the underlying facts will be decided by the court. The full press release, including the proposed order details, is available from the Federal Trade Commission.

Next step

Anyone who believes they paid Reimage, DK Automation, American Tax Service, or a similar telemarketed tech-support or business-opportunity offer can file a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, which the agency uses to track patterns and inform redress in cases like this one.

This is a News-lane report. It was drafted automatically from the linked primary source and published after automated checks that every figure appears in that source. It is summarised regulatory news, not evergreen guidance and not financial advice. See our AI content disclosure and disclaimer.