Tech Support Merchant Accounts: The Telemarketing Sales Rule, Visa Disputes and the FTC's Processor Cases

Remote tech support is a straightforward business to describe: a customer has a problem with a computer, phone or piece of software, a technician fixes it over the phone or through a remote session, and the customer pays by card. It is also the business model behind one of the most persistent consumer scams the Federal Trade Commission pursues: consumers filed more than 90,000 tech support scam complaints with the FTC in 2023, up from about 40,000 in 2017, according to the Commission. The payment industry has paid for that too. In the last two years the FTC has settled with two payment processors over the tech support merchants they processed for, and both settlements ban the processor from taking tech support merchants that sell by telemarketing or pop-up messages.

This guide is for remote IT support firms, software vendors that sell support plans, and anyone else taking card payments for fixing devices they never physically touch. It covers how the card networks classify the business, the Visa dispute rule that names tech support, what the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule has required of inbound tech support calls since January 2025, and what the processor cases mean for your application. Rules are cited as they stood in early October 2026.

Where tech support sits in the card network rules

Visa's Merchant Data Standards Manual (April 2026) has no code for tech support as such. A remote support firm is likely to be coded MCC 7379, Computer Maintenance, Repair and Services (Not Elsewhere Classified), which the manual describes as computer-related services such as consulting, database development, maintenance and repair, conversion services and requirements analysis.

How you sell matters as much as what you sell. MCC 5966, Direct Marketing – Outbound Telemarketing Merchant, covers merchants that sell using outbound telemarketing, where the merchant initiates contact with buyers by telephone, or by mailing (other than a catalog) that tells the cardholder to contact the merchant. According to the FTC's description of the card network rules in its Nuvei complaint, acquirers must register telemarketing merchants, especially outbound ones, as high integrity risk and apply enhanced screening and monitoring. Our guide to Visa high-risk merchants covers that registration.

The FTC's September 2026 complaint against the processor Nuvei shows why the distinction is not academic. The FTC alleges that Reimage, a tech support operation that used deceptive pop-ups to drive consumers to its call centers, fell squarely within the card networks' meaning of outbound telemarketing (MCC 5966), and that Nuvei coded it as an e-commerce merchant (MCC 5964) and later as a computer software store (MCC 5734), avoiding the high integrity risk registration and the enhanced screening and monitoring that comes with it. If customers reach your phone line because something on their screen told them to call, expect an underwriter to ask whether you belong in 5966, not 7379.

Visa's misrepresentation dispute names tech support

Under dispute condition 13.5, Misrepresentation, in Visa's Core Rules and Product and Service Rules (18 April 2026), the issuer may dispute when the cardholder claims the merchant misrepresented the terms of sale, and the rules list categories of merchant where that dispute applies. One of them reads: technical services, technical support, or computer software that is sold using inaccurate online advertisements or that contains malicious software downloads. The same list includes any transaction at an outbound telemarketing merchant. The key terms:

• Time limit. The issuer has 120 calendar days from the transaction processing date or from the date the cardholder received the services. Alternatively, where the cardholder was negotiating with you within 120 days of the transaction, the issuer can file within 60 days of first hearing from the cardholder. No dispute may be processed more than 540 days after the transaction.
• Amount. The dispute is limited to the unused portion of the cancelled service, or the value of merchandise returned.
• Contact first. Before the issuer can file, the cardholder must try to resolve the dispute with the merchant.
• Issuer evidence. Among other things, the issuer must explain how the merchant's verbal or written representations do not match the terms of sale the cardholder agreed to.
• Quality complaints are excluded. A dispute related solely to the quality of the services provided is invalid under 13.5.

Your response has to prove the terms of sale were not misrepresented, so what wins is a record of what the customer was told: a call recording, the script, the ad the customer responded to, and the written terms they accepted before paying. Our guide to Visa chargeback reason codes covers the other conditions.

The Telemarketing Sales Rule now covers inbound tech support calls

The FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule (16 CFR Part 310) has long generally exempted calls that a customer makes in response to an advertisement. Since January 9, 2025, that exemption no longer applies to tech support. A final rule published on December 10, 2024 (89 FR 99069) added technical support services to the categories, alongside investment opportunities and debt relief, where inbound calls responding to an advertisement in any medium, or to a direct mail solicitation including email, are covered by the rule. The provision was still in the Code of Federal Regulations as of October 1, 2026.

The rule defines a technical support service as any plan, program, software, or service that is marketed to repair, maintain, or improve the performance or security of any device on which code can be downloaded, installed, run, or otherwise used, such as a computer, smartphone, tablet or smart home product, including any software or application run on such a device. Three limits on its reach:

• Physical repair is excluded. A service in which the person doing the repair obtains physical possession of the device is not a technical support service under the definition. The FTC said in the rule that remote access does not count as physical possession.
• Unsolicited calls stay exempt, but upsells do not. A customer who calls their device maker for help without being solicited is not covered, unless the company also upsells during the call.
• Interstate calls. The rule applies to telemarketing, which it defines as a plan, program or campaign to induce purchases by telephone involving more than one interstate telephone call.

The FTC also said in the rule that it does not believe pop-up messages are exempt. A business whose calls come from search ads, display ads, emails or on-screen messages should assume the rule applies.

What the rule requires when you take payment

For a covered business, the rule sets concrete payment requirements:

• Disclose before the customer agrees to pay: the total cost, all material restrictions or conditions, your refund and cancellation policy (or that you do not give refunds), and, for any plan that renews automatically, that the account will be charged unless the customer acts, the dates of the charges and the steps to avoid them (16 CFR 310.3(a)(1)).
• Do not misrepresent the cost, the terms or any material aspect of the performance, nature or central characteristics of the service (310.3(a)(2)).
• Get the customer's express informed consent to be charged, and to be charged on the identified account (310.4(a)(7)).
• For any payment method other than a credit card or a debit card covered by federal consumer protection law, get express verifiable authorization: a signed written authorization, or an audio-recorded oral authorization that captures the required details, including a description of the service, the number of charges and their dates (310.3(a)(3)).
• Do not take payment by remotely created check or other remotely created payment order (310.4(a)(9)). The rule's definition covers payment orders cleared through the check clearing system and excludes those cleared through the ACH network, so an ACH debit with proper authorization is treated differently from a demand draft.
• Do not accept cash-to-cash money transfers or cash reload mechanisms as payment (310.4(a)(10)).
• Keep records for five years, including each substantially different advertisement and script, a record of each telemarketing call, customer records showing what was sold, when and for how much, and complete records of every consent (310.5).

Those are the same records that answer a Visa 13.5 dispute.

What the FTC's processor cases tell an underwriter

Three FTC cases, all tied to the same operation, show what is at stake for a processor that takes on a tech support merchant. What follows summarizes the FTC's allegations and the settlement terms. The allegations were resolved by settlement, not proven at trial.

Restoro and Reimage, March 2024

Restoro Cyprus Limited and Reimage Cyprus Limited agreed to pay $26 million to settle FTC charges under the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule. According to the FTC, fake Microsoft Windows pop-ups told consumers their computers were infected, a scan typically reported serious problems regardless of the computer's condition, and consumers bought software that typically cost $27 to $58. When they called to activate it, telemarketers called routine errors signs of malware and sold technician services costing hundreds of dollars more.

Paddle, June 2025

Paddle.com Market Limited and its subsidiary Paddle.com, Inc. agreed to pay $5 million. The FTC alleged that Paddle opened merchant accounts claiming to be a merchant of record or software reseller, then used them to process card payments for numerous unrelated merchants, including Restoro-Reimage, giving overseas schemes access to the card system while evading detection by merchant banks and card networks. Under the proposed order, Paddle is permanently barred from processing payments for tech support merchants that engage in telemarketing or use pop-up messages about computer security or performance, and must screen and monitor its clients.

Nuvei, September 2026

Nuvei agreed to pay $4.85 million. The FTC alleges Nuvei processed more than $30 million in consumer payments for Reimage between 2017 and 2023. According to the complaint, Nuvei's own records showed Reimage's monthly chargeback rate exceeded 1% in 57 of the 60 months from January 2018 to December 2022, in many of those months between 4% and 9%, and that Reimage's transactions and chargebacks were spread across several merchant accounts and processors so that its counts stayed under the card networks' monitoring thresholds. The complaint also alleges Nuvei advised Reimage to refund unhappy customers before their disputes became chargebacks, to bring its counts down.

The proposed order, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, bans Nuvei from processing for anyone selling tech support by telemarketing or by pop-ups about a device's security or performance. For other tech support merchants and several other categories, it requires screening before onboarding and continued monitoring, and a reasonable investigation of any client whose chargeback rate exceeds 1.0% with more than 75 chargebacks in a month in any two of the past six months. The order also requires Nuvei to stop processing for a tech support or other covered client it knows or should know is evading fraud and risk monitoring, and names the tactics: spreading volume across multiple merchant accounts or billing descriptors, using shell companies to open more accounts, and cutting chargeback rates with pre-chargeback refunds without assessing why customers are disputing.

The orders bind Paddle and Nuvei, not every processor, but they show in detail what the FTC expects of a processor that takes on tech support merchants.

What an underwriter will ask a tech support business

The Nuvei order lists what Nuvei must collect from a prospective tech support client before processing. Expect a careful acquirer to ask for much the same:

• A description of what you sell and how you sell it: inbound calls, outbound calls, chat, remote sessions, software downloads, one-off fixes or subscription plans.
• Your call scripts, your websites and a representative sample of your marketing from the past two years, including search and display ads.
• The names of your principals, controlling persons and majority owners.
• Every business name, DBA and website you have used or will use.
• Every processor and acquirer you have used in the past two years, with merchant ID numbers where available, and six months of processing statements.
• Your chargeback rate for the preceding five months, and your ACH return rate if you want ACH.
• Whether you or your principals have been placed in a card network monitoring program, terminated for excessive chargebacks, or named in an FTC or other law enforcement complaint.

Nuvei must also check that information by reviewing the client's websites, marketing, scripts and search results before onboarding. If a client's chargebacks later cross the order's threshold, the investigation it requires includes reviewing the client's websites from an IP address not associated with Nuvei and making test calls to hear what consumers are being told. Assume an underwriter may listen to your sales line.

Keeping a tech support account

1. Never use pop-up warnings, fake scan results or ads that imply you are the device maker or software publisher. The FTC's cases are built on them, and both processor orders ban processing for tech support sold through pop-ups or telemarketing.
2. Give every customer the total price, what the plan covers, how renewal works and how to cancel before you take payment, and record that they agreed.
3. Record sales calls, or keep at least the script, the ad and the written terms for each sale, for five years. They answer both the FTC's recordkeeping rule and a Visa 13.5 dispute.
4. Keep all of your volume on the accounts your acquirer knows about. Spreading volume across merchant accounts or descriptors to stay under monitoring thresholds is a tactic the FTC has called out by name in the Nuvei case.
5. Use refunds and dispute alerts to resolve legitimate complaints, but track why customers are complaining and fix the cause. A falling chargeback count that hides a rising complaint rate will not survive a test call.
6. Take ACH payments through the ACH network with proper authorization, not remotely created checks.
7. Use a billing descriptor and phone number customers will recognize.

Tech support is high risk because the worst operators in the business use the same channels, the same words and the same payment methods as the best. An application that shows clean advertising, disclosed pricing, recorded consent and a chargeback history that holds up without help gives an acquirer a reason to tell the two apart. PayKings works with tech support and IT services businesses and can help you present that file to an acquiring bank. We do not give legal advice. Whether the Telemarketing Sales Rule applies to your calls is a question for your counsel. If you are just starting out, our guide to starting a tech support business covers the business setup.