Small businesses that signed card-processing contracts with Riverside Payments Inc. of Vancouver, Wash., or leased machines from its affiliate Cascade Equipment Leasing would receive refunds from a $600,000 fund and get 60 days to leave without an early termination fee under a proposed order announced Nov. 2, 2026. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and the Federal Trade Commission brought the case together.
The order is proposed. It carries the force of law once the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington approves and signs it. Brown’s office says more than 300 Washington small businesses are eligible, and it describes the payments as compensation based on each business’s processing volume over the past six months.
There is no claim form in the announcement. The money moves through a plan the company itself must write and the FTC can accept or change, which makes record-keeping the main task for any owner who dealt with Riverside. Retirees who run a shop, a side business or a rental office are the ones most likely to hold old statements and a contract they rarely look at.
The question for those owners is plain. Did a Riverside or Cascade rep promise savings on card fees, and did the contract roll into a lease for terminals? Anyone who can answer yes should pull the contract, the monthly statements and any cancellation correspondence now, because the refund formula runs on processing volume and the exit window runs on a notice that has not gone out yet.
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How the $600,000 redress fund would pay out
Under the proposed stipulated order, the defendants must fund $600,000 into a Merchant Redress Fund. Within 60 days of the order, they must propose a distribution that splits the money pro rata by each merchant’s processing volume in the six months before the order. The FTC may accept or modify it.
Within 14 days of FTC approval, Riverside must pay the refunds to merchants by ACH credit, a direct bank deposit. If the defendants cannot pay from the fund, they must pay the $600,000 to the Commission within 80 days instead. Any leftover money can go to other consumer relief or the U.S. Treasury.
Merchants get refunds whether or not they cancel, according to the notice attached to the order. A bigger processing volume means a bigger share, so an owner with higher monthly card sales would see more than a neighbor with a quiet counter. The order does not state a per-business dollar figure.
The 60-day exit and what it does not cover
The order requires Riverside to email every merchant within 30 days of entry with the subject line “Notice Regarding Termination Right, Waiver of Early Termination Fee, and Refund.” The notice reminds merchants they can rescind their processing agreements and says the early termination fee is waived for 60 days. Both agencies’ releases put that fee at $695.
The waiver covers the processing agreement, not the equipment lease. The order defines rescission as ending the remaining duties under the merchant processing agreement and related side agreements, but not lease agreements. An owner who rents terminals from Cascade may still face lease terms after leaving the processing deal.
Defendants must file a sworn compliance declaration within 10 days of sending the email, mail the notice to any merchant whose email bounced within 14 days, and report response numbers within 45 days. Merchants who respond and ask to rescind inside the 60-day window cannot be charged the fee.
What the attorney general and FTC say Riverside did
The Washington attorney general’s release says Riverside falsely promised savings on payment processing and did not clearly disclose automatically renewing contracts and equipment leases. Brown said the companies “failed to serve their small business customers in an honest, transparent way.”
According to the FTC announcement, Riverside claimed savings of 40% to 60%, but businesses that switched often paid more. The quote sheet allegedly left out activation and batch fees, and a 26-page contract allegedly buried the auto-renewal terms, the $695 termination fee and the leasing costs.
The agencies also say a “no-risk” guarantee was hard to use. The Washington complaint describes customers stuck in a loop of deflection and fruitless phone calls. Separately, ads told sales agents they could earn $75,000 to $95,000 a year, while agents averaged about $3,787 a year, the FTC says.
Why the $32 million judgment is mostly on paper
The proposed order carries a $32,083,921 judgment against Riverside, Cascade and their operators. Most of it is suspended because the defendants told the agencies they cannot pay it. The suspension depends on the accuracy of their financial disclosures; if they are found to have lied about their finances, the full amount becomes due.
The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection director, Christopher Mufarrige, said the agency “will hold accountable companies that deceive small businesses, whose hard work powers our economy.” The Commission voted 2-0 to file the case. Brown said he was gratified that the state can now deliver relief to affected Washington businesses.
The order also bars misrepresenting costs, savings or cancellation terms, requires clear disclosure of material terms before billing information is taken, requires express informed consent for automatic renewals, and requires a simple way to cancel. Businesses with a new complaint can use the attorney general’s complaint page or report to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Did a Riverside or Cascade contract land in the filing cabinet?
The detail most owners miss is that the refund formula runs on processing volume from a six-month window and the fee waiver runs on a 60-day notice. An owner who cannot find the monthly statements, or who lets an emailed notice sit in a spam folder, can lose the exit date without ever hearing a deadline announced.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes a claim log and payment tracker for dates, notices and refund amounts, plus the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice. It does not file anything or decide who is paid; the order and the FTC do that.
Get the claim log and payment tracker for merchant-contract refunds →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
