FTC Hits Nuvei with $4.85 Million Settlement Over Merchant Fraud

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a $4.85 million settlement with Canadian payment processor Nuvei Corporation on September 4, 2026. The action targets the company for facilitating merchant fraud, signaling a tightening of regulatory oversight on the financial conduits that enable online scams.

According to the FTC, Nuvei knowingly maintained accounts for deceptive businesses between 2017 and 2023. Most notably, the company processed more than $30 million for Reimage, an offshore tech support scam. The commission further alleged that Nuvei onboarded merchants that had already been terminated by other payment processors due to fraud or excessive chargebacks, specifically naming DK Automation and American Tax Service.

As part of the agreement filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, Nuvei will pay $4.85 million in consumer redress and must implement strict new merchant screening and monitoring protocols. Additionally, the settlement imposes a permanent ban on Nuvei providing payment services for tech support telemarketing.

A Pattern of Enforcement

This settlement is part of a broader campaign by the FTC to dismantle the infrastructure supporting consumer fraud. The agency has increasingly shifted its focus toward the financial intermediaries that allow scammers to collect payments. This follows a $26 million victory against the operators of Reimage in 2024 and a $5 million settlement with the payment processor Paddle in 2025. By targeting the processors, the FTC is attempting to cut off the financial lifelines that allow deceptive operations to scale.

Industry Implications

This case marks a strategic shift in liability, moving the burden of fraud prevention more heavily onto the payment processors themselves. By holding "conduits" accountable for the activities of their merchants, the FTC aims to raise the operational cost for processors that ignore clear fraud indicators. Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, emphasized the agency's stance, stating, "Consumers deserve a payment system that is competitive, transparent and fortified against fraud—and we will take action anytime those standards are threatened."

What to Watch

Industry analysts, including those at Forkast, suggest this may be part of a larger, tiered enforcement strategy targeting the infrastructure and algorithmic layers of fraud. While the FTC has not officially designated a "three-tiered architecture," the Nuvei case demonstrates a clear intent to squeeze the financial pipes of the scam economy. Market observers will now be watching to see if other mid-tier processors face similar scrutiny for their onboarding practices regarding high-risk merchants.