Riverside Payments to Pay $600K Over Small Business Fee Deception
The FTC and Washington state allege Riverside Payments misled small businesses with false savings promises and hidden auto-renewal traps.
Payment processor Riverside Payments Inc. and its affiliate Cascade Equipment Leasing LLC have agreed to pay $600,000 to settle federal and state charges that they systematically deceived small businesses about the true cost of their services, according to a joint action by the Federal Trade Commission and Washington state regulators.
Authorities allege the companies lured small business customers with promises of lower payment-processing costs while concealing undisclosed fees and automatically renewing contracts that locked merchants into agreements they believed were risk-free. Despite marketing that emphasized easy, penalty-free cancellation, the firms allegedly made exiting those contracts nearly impossible in practice.
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The complaint names Riverside Payments, Cascade Equipment Leasing, and the operators behind both entities. The settlement resolves allegations without an admission of wrongdoing, a common outcome in FTC enforcement actions of this type, though the monetary penalty signals regulators' intent to hold payment processors accountable for deceptive sales tactics targeting vulnerable small business owners.
The action reflects a broader regulatory focus on hidden fees and opaque contract terms in the merchant services industry, where small businesses often lack the legal resources to scrutinize multi-year agreements. Regulators have increasingly targeted auto-renewal provisions that trap customers who believed they had flexible exit options.
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