The Green Sheet Online Edition

August 8, 2026 • 26:08:01

Raising the standard of merchant sales - Part 2

In Part 1 of this two-part Q&A, payments executives discussed where the industry should draw the line between legitimate business protections and practices that leave merchants feeling trapped or misled. In Part 2, additional industry leaders weigh in on those same questions, offering perspectives on merchant responsibility, contract transparency, professional standards and what it will take to strengthen trust in the payments industry. We continue our discussion with the same two questions posed in Part 1:

1. Stories about merchants feeling trapped by long-term contracts, equipment leases and cancellation penalties continue to surface in the payments industry. Where should the industry draw the line between legitimate business protections and predatory behavior, and how much responsibility falls on ISOs, agents and their upstream partners to ensure merchants truly understand the terms they are signing?
2. Has the industry done enough to professionalize merchant sales — through CPP accreditation, for example — or do ongoing concerns about hidden fees, confusing contracts and aggressive tactics point to a need for better training, oversight and accountability? If so, what measures would you recommend?

Dee Karawadra, CEO, ImpactPays

1. The fact that this became such a hot topic actually gives me hope. It tells me our industry cares and that we're willing to have the difficult conversations. Thankfully, we've come a long way from the days of the infamous $99 leases. Yet we still hear stories about confusing contracts, hidden fees and sales tactics that don't put the merchant first.

   Protecting merchants is the responsibility of all of us: SOs, agents, ISVs, payfacs and processors. Every organization in the payments ecosystem has a role in making sure merchants understand exactly what they're signing and what their long-term obligations are.

   Good business is built on trust, not surprises. If a merchant doesn't fully understand the agreement, we've already failed. As an industry, we should be calling out the bad actors, promoting transparency and holding ourselves to a higher standard.

2. I don't believe the answer is more government regulation. I think we can prevent that if we do a better job of governing ourselves. Programs like CPP are a step in the right direction, but training alone isn't enough. We need stronger accountability, better oversight and a culture that rewards doing what's right for the merchant instead of simply closing the deal.

   We should be sharing best practices, mentoring the next generation of agents and calling out behavior that hurts the reputation of our industry. If we don't hold ourselves accountable, someone else eventually will.

Allen Kopelman, CEO, Nationwide Payment Systems Inc.

1. Let's be honest about ONE thing: people do not read contracts. Merchants should read contracts, and today it is easy to evaluate a contract, upload to AI and ask it a few questions: how long is the contract, is there a cancellation fee, is there anything in the contract that should concern me?

   Next, when you are signing up for a POS system and it is FREE is it really FREE? The only free lunch is in the mouse trap. When a POS is installed, I hope you read the contract and understand the fees!

   Understand this: the days where the POS provider is processor agnostic are over. I wrote about this, did a webinar and did a session two years ago at the SEAA. Today the software provider is also processing your payments, and if you cancel your contract or violate the terms business owners are going to get sued.

   Example: You buy XYZ POS. You think you are being over charged on fees and install side terminals. Next you get a legal letter stating you are violating the terms of the agreement, and XYZ POS is suing you for the profit times the remaining months.

   There are sales reps who know merchants are in a contract and sell them a new POS. Then the merchant gets sued by POS #1. Nothing is free. Free POS means you will be paying high monthly fees for the SaaS 

   I get calls from local attorneys all the time with variations on this scenario: My client, Mr. X, has a restaurant. He had an ABC POS System. He didn't like it. So he went out and got XYZ POS System. Now ABC is suing Mr. X and his restaurant. He got free hardware, was on dual pricing, and the lawsuit wants to collect 24 months of SaaS fees. And, based on the previous three years he was processing, the lost profits for the next 24 months left on the contract was $50,000.   Mr X never complained to company ABC about the PoS missing any features, etc. There were no customer service calls, tickets opened etc. In the end, they settled the issue out of court. We never see these cases go to court because the legal fees would exceed the money they owe.

   In this case, the merchant did not do their homework before switching. I read the contract. He was locked in, and he didn't complain, or explore whether they would have let them leave. Instead, he got a new POS and now is paying for two POS systems and processing fees times two. Costly mistake.

   Do I feel bad for the restaurant owner in this case? Not really. 

   We had a customer buy a POS from us. The POS was programmed and installed. They used the POS, and bam someone came in, gave them a free POS. They made us come over to pick up all the equipment, and then we had to fight with them because they threw out the boxes, and the machines had been used for two months. And it got ugly. We returned some of the money and we took a loss. The only solace in it was that they went out of business. 

   I had a rep tell me he gave a merchant five free Clovers, kitchen KDS, printers, etc. He drove two hours each way, stayed there for three days, costing him thousands of dollars in equipment and expenses. A few months later, the merchant tells him to come pick up the POS or he will throw in the dumpster. The rep made some money, but in the end he lost thousands of dollars. 

   So while merchants can complain about what ISOs and agents are doing, merchants are not being good customers either. 

   Many years ago, we had a business take $3,000 worth of equipment we gave them for free to get the processing. The business then had the equipment reprogrammed for another processor, because you could do that back in the early 2000s. We had to take them to small claims court to get our money.

2. Has the industry done enough? NOT AT ALL! CPP is just a bunch of companies who belong to the ETA. They get all the employees to take the test and pat each other on the back.

   The ETA does nothing to promote CPP. If they really wanted to promote it, it would be on the front page of the ETA website, and they could act like the BBB for the payments industry and have a website just like BBB—this company gets an A; this company gets an F and has 29 complaints—and promote the site. ETA will never do that, and ISOs will not like that type of program. That is the only way to clean up this industry.

   There are agents who do bad things and merchants who do bad things. This business was the wild wild west in 2001. In 2026, it's wilder. There are all kinds of players who are faceless companies with no phone numbers, and agents who are cloaking websites and doing underhanded things, and even companies that get large fines from the FTC.

   Yet those people somehow can stay in business, bad agents burn ISOs, the large fines get paid, and they go on doing the same dirty business. I did not name any names, so I do not have to enroll in the witness protection program.

   In the end we want to make a living and be fair but, in this business, sometimes that is not easy. You sign up with company A. Company A sells to Company B. Company B has a whole different business plan and style than A. And now your clients are being treated poorly, rates go up, etc. As an agent you are put in a pickle, as you have a contract to abide by. READ any business agreement before you sign. 

   There will never be transparency until there is an organization that will be the BBB for payment processing. Then there is hope that everyone will behave. Today, it is complicated as there are so many people, agents, ISOs, ISVs, VARs, payfacs, etc. selling processing. 

Justin Volrath, Founder & CEO, PayCompass

1. While I firmly believe the vast majority of ISOs and agents operate with strong moral integrity, the presence of greed is a tale as old as time. The fast-paced nature of our business, combined with the fact that most agents are financially incentivized to push margins as high as possible, leads to far too many agents purposefully hiding the full costs behind their proposals to switch processors.

   That being said, I feel the vastly more sinister behavior in this regard lies with the processors or ISOs who continually raise rates and add arbitrary fees with absolutely no additional value. No matter how much effort is placed on the initial disclosure and education of merchants at the time of contract signing, rate creep and new fee additions, which are usually levied with little to no advance notification, will continue to be the driving factors in merchants' diminishing trust in our industry.

2. While the CPP is a great start, I strongly believe there is an immense opportunity in our industry to go further with accreditation and continuing education efforts. Similar to what the National Association of Realtors did by coining the "Realtor" designation and further marketing its importance, the payments industry would greatly benefit from a comparable effort.

   However, even with a robust agent accreditation and ongoing validation process in place, I believe that merchants' dissatisfaction with our industry is largely due to the actions of ISOs and processors well after the agents have sold the deal. No matter how well-trained, scrutinized and monitored the agents of our industry become, it's massively difficult to overcome the effects that lackluster support, rate creep and the onslaught of junk fees have on the satisfaction of merchants

A merchant advocate's perspective

Rob, founder of SMBCompare, asked that his last name not be used. He noted that because he operates an independent comparison platform rather than an ISO or agent, he views these issues primarily from the merchant's perspective.

1. Legitimate protection versus predatory behavior. There is nothing wrong with contracts or exit fees. The problem is a deal built so a merchant cannot answer two simple questions before they sign: what am I actually paying, and what does it cost to get out. We see it in our own data.

   One popular processor advertises a headline 2.49 percent, among the lowest rates going, then layers on an auto-enrolled monthly PCI fee, a setup charge, and a multi-year contract with a four-figure penalty to leave. The merchant sees 2.49 percent and a free plan; the real cost shows up later. The confusion is the product, not an accident, and it sits with whoever designed the pricing and pays the sales team to push it, not with the owner handed a contract nobody could follow.

2. Professionalizing merchant sales. Accreditation like the CPP helps, and a trained agent beats an untrained one. But most of these complaints are not because agents do not know the rules. They are because agents get paid to lock people into confusing, expensive deals, and no certificate changes that.

Training the salesperson does not fix the thing they are paid to do. What fixes it is making pricing simple enough to compare, so the honest operator wins the deal. Clear pricing does more for merchants than any badge.

The Green Sheet thanks all who participated in this Q&A for sharing their perspectives and contributing thoughtfully to an important industry discussion.

Notice to readers: These are archived articles. Contact information, links and other details may be out of date. We regret any inconvenience.

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