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Payment processor and CEO pay $1.5M for consumer fraud

The Federal Trade Commission has announced that Complete Merchant Solutions, LLC (CMS) and its former CEO, Jack Wilson, have settled charges that they illegally processed millions of dollars in consumer credit card payments for fraudulent schemes when they knew or should have known that the schemes were defrauding consumers. Those schemes include Apply Knowledge and Tarr, which were ultimately shut down by an FTC enforcement action, and USFIA, which was shut down following an enforcement action by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The FTC alleges that CMS and Wilson ignored clear red flags of illegal conduct by those schemes, such as high rates of consumer chargebacks, use of multiple merchant accounts to artificially reduce chargeback rates so as to evade detection by banks and the credit card associations, submission of sham chargeback reduction plans, and the use of merchant accounts to process payments for products and services for which the merchant did not get approval from the bank holding the accounts.

The proposed order requires CMS and Wilson to pay $1.5 million to the FTC for use in providing refunds to harmed consumers. In addition, among other restrictions, CMS and Wilson are banned from acting as a payment processor for any companies that offer “free trials” for nutraceutical products, and prohibited from engaging in credit card laundering and helping clients evade fraud monitoring programs established by financial institutions.

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