Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Heartland Payment Systems Lawsuit -Dirty Secret?

Well it seems some interesting information has been put out by a former employee about exactly what Heartland Payment Systems (bought out by Global Payments) was doing, some of which may not have been public knowledge.

I will paste it here in case the link is taken down:







Heartland Payment Systems Customers have filed a class action suit in New Jersey Courts against the processor for consumer fraud possibly 2.6 billion in unjust enrichment!

Heartland Payment Systems merchant's filed a class action suit claiming that in 2014 Heartland implemented a scheme committing consumer fraud resulting in unjust enrichment. The class action complaint was filed in the United States District Court District of New Jersey, 
the Plaintiff Rudel Corporation Civil No: 3:16.cv-02229 Squitieri & Fearon, LLP NY, NY

The 29 paged suit exposes Heartland's plot in detail of how they used an American Express Program called OptBlue to bait and switch customers into thinking Heartland was acting in the customers best interest with transparency. According to the documents it appears at first Heartland was indeed giving the New American Express Opt Blue savings to the customers as they claimed they were. However, the merchants claim this was smoke and mirrors. Instead of passing on the savings to the customer Heartland kept the savings for themselves. 

American Express lowered their fees. Heartland decided not to pass those savings onto their customer as they claimed. Instead they added a new American Express Discount fee for their customers to pay. So the customer paid less to American Express but more to Heartland for the exact same services Heartland had already been providing for the lower fee the month before. The customer was saving money, as I am sure we will hear Heartland rebuttal, but not what they should have been saving apparently. Here is where it gets sticky. Four months after the initial supposed scheme was implemented they increased their fee again. 

The suit states the increase was fifteen times the initial amount. It also states that Heartland sent a notice on their statement to the customer's stating they miscalculated their rate they needed to charge. But the fees were just part of the issue, apparently this notice Heartland sent was a breach of the customer's contract as it violated a 15 days notice which Heartland did not honor. Heartland better be prepared to explain to these customers how they miscalculated pure profit. That would be my question. Especially profit that needed increased in 4 months and back billed as well which apparently Heartland billed to customers on their October 2014 statements. 

According to the suit there is approximately 2.6 billion dollars over the last two years in question. This will be an interesting one to follow. What will this mean for Global? 

What I can't believe is how I saw this on the docket and think this is bigger news than the stockholders class action suit when Heartland announced the sell to Global, yet you haven't reported this yet at all. Heartland has built its reputation on honesty and transparency. If they are found guilty, this means not only do we have a lying Ted, we have a lying Bob who pulled a fast one on the consumer, then knowingly sold his sour lemon off. Time will tell but its worth investigating further in my opinion.

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