Payment processor Nuvei will pay $4.85 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it opened and maintained payment processing accounts for merchants it knew or should have known were engaged in deception, the agency said on September 4, 2026.
The FTC’s complaint alleges that Canada-based Nuvei Corporation and its subsidiaries — Nuvei International Group Limited, Nuvei Limited, SafeCharge Digital Limited and Nuvei Technologies Inc. — processed payments for scammers, including tech support scams targeting U.S. consumers.
According to the complaint, Nuvei processed more than $30 million in consumer payments between 2017 and 2023 for Reimage, which the FTC describes as an offshore tech support scam.
What the complaint alleges
The FTC alleges that Nuvei, through a merchant acquiring bank registered in Cyprus, furnished Reimage and other overseas deceptive tech support schemes with payment processing accounts that enabled them to take credit card payments from cardholders in the United States and elsewhere. A merchant acquiring bank is the institution that contracts with a business to accept card payments and route them through the card networks.
The agency further alleges that Nuvei’s U.S.-based subsidiary, Nuvei Technologies Inc., opened and maintained merchant accounts for businesses selling business opportunities with what the FTC calls false or baseless earnings claims, such as DK Automation; merchants impersonating government tax authorities, such as American Tax Service; and merchants that other payment processors or acquiring banks had previously terminated for excessive chargebacks or fraud.
The complaint charges Nuvei and its operators with unfair practices in connection with payment processing in violation of the FTC Act, and with assisting and facilitating deceptive telemarketers in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule.
Terms of the proposed order
Under the proposed order, the $4.85 million payment will be used to provide consumer redress. The defendants are also prohibited from engaging in unfair or deceptive payment processing practices like those alleged in the complaint.
The order, as described by the FTC, bans Nuvei from providing payment services to any person selling tech support products or services by telemarketing or by pop-up messages relating to security or performance issues on a computer or other device.
It also prohibits Nuvei from making false or misleading statements to obtain merchant accounts and other payment processing services for itself or others, and from engaging in tactics to avoid fraud or risk monitoring programs established by banks or credit card networks, including load balancing — the practice of spreading transaction volume across multiple merchant accounts.
The order requires Nuvei to screen and monitor existing and prospective clients, including clients in certain merchant categories such as outbound telemarketing, and to conduct enhanced screening and investigation of any existing client whose chargeback rates exceed limits set in the order.
Related actions
The FTC said it took action against the operators of Reimage in 2024 and, last year, sued Paddle, a Europe-based payment processor that the agency alleged used its “merchant of record” platform to facilitate Reimage’s deceptive tech support scheme. The commission brought enforcement actions against DK Automation and its founder in November 2022, and against American Tax Service and its owners in October 2025.
“Today’s action underscores the Commission’s commitment to ensuring that our payments system operates free of fraud,” said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Our enforcement work reinforces the transparency and trust in the payments system that consumers and businesses depend on. Consumers deserve a payment system that is competitive, transparent and fortified against fraud—and we will take action anytime those standards are threatened.”
Procedural posture
The commission vote authorizing staff to file the complaint and stipulated order was 2-0. The complaint and final order were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson issued a joint statement with Commissioner Mark Meador.
The lead attorneys are Russell Deitch and Sung W. Kim of the Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Source: Federal Trade Commission, “Payment Processor Nuvei Must Implement Robust Merchant Screening Practices and Pay $4.85 Million to Settle FTC Charges that the Firm Facilitated Merchant Fraud,” released September 4, 2026. The FTC notes that it files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the named defendants are violating or are about to violate the law and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest, and that the case will be decided by the court.