FTC and Washington Settle With Riverside Payments Over Telemarketed Savings Pitch and Hard-to-Cancel Contracts

The complaint is attached: FTC and Washington complaint against Riverside Payments.

Here is what happened

Riverside, based in Vancouver, Washington, sells credit card payment processing services to merchants across the country. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (No. 2:26-cv-04228).

According to the complaint, the defendants solicit small business clients primarily through telemarketing and door-to-door sales conducted by hundreds of sales agents, many of them independent contractors working on commission. The defendants allegedly recruit and train the agents, provide sales leads, and require them to follow approved scripts. The complaint says agents practice writing the script verbatim to memorize it, and that the defendants monitor compliance by observing telemarketing calls in real time and reviewing recordings of sales manager calls.

The FTC and Washington allege that the pitch did not hold up:

• Agents used a quote sheet comparing a business's current processing costs with Riverside's. Riverside at times claimed businesses could save 40% to 60% by switching.
• Businesses that switched typically ended up paying more than they did with their previous provider, according to the complaint.
• The quote sheet left out fees such as activation fees, batch fees and fees for supposed non-compliance with data security standards or inactive processing.
• A 26-page electronic contract buried terms the agents did not clearly disclose: automatic renewal after the initial three-year term, a $695 early termination fee, and an equipment lease with Cascade that auto-renewed and ran one year longer than the processing contract.

Cancellation was the other problem. The agencies allege Riverside falsely promised businesses they could cancel anytime without penalty, and also falsely claimed it would switch unhappy customers back to their original processor and pay them $500 for their "time and hassle." Instead, businesses that tried to cancel were often stuck in a loop of fruitless phone calls and deflection. Even businesses willing to pay the $695 fee were told there was no direct line to call to cancel and that they had to wait for a callback. The complaint alleges those callbacks often never came.

The agencies also allege false and unsubstantiated earnings claims to recruit sales agents. Ads claimed agents could earn $75,000 to $95,000 a year. According to the complaint, agents actually made an average of $3,787 per year.

The law

The FTC alleged violations of the FTC Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, by obtaining consumers' financial information through false or fraudulent statements. Washington alleged violations of the Washington State Consumer Protection Act. The Commission vote authorizing staff to file the complaint and stipulated final order was 2-0.

This is not a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) case, but it started with a script delivered by phone or at the door.

The settlement

Under the proposed order, the defendants must:

1. Notify customers that, for a 60-day period, Riverside will waive the early termination fee or any penalty for rescinding merchant processing agreements.
2. Stop misrepresenting costs, savings, cancellation conditions, or any other material fact.
3. Stop making unsubstantiated savings claims and unsubstantiated earnings claims.
4. Clearly disclose all material terms before obtaining billing information, get express informed consent for any negative option plan, and provide a simple way to cancel.

The full $32,083,921 judgment becomes due if the defendants are found to have lied about their finances. Washington says more than 300 small businesses in the state will be eligible for compensation, based on each business's processing volume over the past six months.

Here is why it matters

Business-to-business sellers sometimes assume consumer protection rules are someone else's problem. This case says otherwise. The customers were small businesses, and the agencies still treated a scripted sales pitch and a hard cancellation process as deceptive.

The complaint also ties the company to its commissioned agents. The defendants trained them, supplied the leads, required approved scripts, and listened to the calls. When a company controls the pitch that closely, it owns what the pitch says.

What this means for you

1. Audit your scripts. Every savings claim should be one you can prove with real customer data.
2. Disclose before you collect. Fees, renewal terms and termination costs belong in the pitch, not buried deep in the contract.
3. Make cancellation easy. A "no-risk" promise means nothing if no one answers the phone.
4. Watch your recruiting ads. Earnings claims to agents face the same scrutiny as claims to customers.
5. Supervise your sales force. Monitoring calls only helps if you act on what you hear.

That is an expensive way to learn the rule.

Sources: Federal Trade Commission, FTC, Washington Take Action Against Payment Processor for Deceiving Small Businesses About Costs and Cancellation Terms (Nov. 2, 2026); Washington Attorney General, WA, FTC reach $600K settlement with payment processing company for deceptive practices (Nov. 2, 2026).