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Processor Rating No. 015 · The Anti-Brochure Series
Priority
Payment Systems
Payment Systems
A fraud and overbilling class action from the law firm that keeps beating this industry in court, and an exit process so layered that leaving can end at a collections agency with your credit report attached.
weAUDIT SCORE
51
OUT OF 100
Scored under the weAudit Rating Methodology · Last updated July 2026 · Every claim linked to its source
Regulatory & Legal Record23/25
Fee Practices & Contract Terms7/25
Complaints & Resolution6/20
Corporate Transparency11/15
Sales Channel Conduct4/15
Company Snapshot
Who you’re actually signing with
Company
Priority Payment Systems, the merchant acquiring business of Priority Technology Holdings (NASDAQ: PRTH), founded 2005, headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, now marketing under the Priority Commerce banner and claiming over $100 billion in annual processing volume. Company profile
What runs underneath
Priority is a reseller layer: its processing runs on TSYS and First Data (Fiserv) rails, and its accounts reach merchants through a network of ISOs and independent sales agents, meaning your terms depend heavily on who wrote your deal. Readers of this series will recognize both engines: see our TSYS and Fiserv ratings. Processing and channel structure
BBB status
Accredited with an A+ rating, alongside a 1 out of 5 star customer review average and a complaint file whose leading themes are held funds, cancellation difficulty, continued billing after cancellation, and hidden fees. BBB profile documentation
Credit where due
The MX Merchant platform draws genuine praise, particularly for B2B merchants: it automates the enhanced Level 2 and Level 3 transaction data that earns lower interchange on commercial cards, integrates cleanly with common gateways, and is resold widely across the ISO channel. The technology is not the problem this page documents. Platform capability review
The Headline Finding
Signing up takes minutes. The documented exit can end at a collections agency.
In November 2021, the law firm Webb, Klase & Lemond filed a class action against Priority Payment Systems and Priority Technology Holdings alleging fraud and overbilling, with a second 2022 class action merged into it, and excessive fees at account cancellation among the cited conduct. If that firm’s name sounds familiar, it should: it is the same firm behind the $40 million Wells Fargo Merchant Services settlement and the $14.5 million PNC Merchant Services settlement documented in this series. One plaintiffs’ shop, three of the companies on our board, the same species of allegation each time.
What makes Priority’s version distinctive is the exit machinery, documented in the company’s own BBB responses. Per those responses: sales representatives are not authorized to close merchant accounts, so the person who signed you cannot unsign you; closure requires the company’s formal process and may take up to 30 days from notification, a month that remains billable; fees billed to a closing account that fail as ACH rejects become an outstanding balance; and outstanding balances are referred to collections, with one documented thread showing the company discussing its update to the credit bureau on a former merchant’s collection account. Independent complaint records complete the arc: accounts drafted for fees after closure, and merchants reporting their checking accounts still being tapped after cancellation. Getting in takes a signature. Getting out, per the documented record, can take a formal process, a final month of fees, and in the worst cases, a mark on your credit.
SOURCES: Class action announcement (PRWeb) · Litigation history (2021 filing, 2022 merger) · BBB complaint records with company responses (closure process, collections, credit bureau) · Post-closure billing accounts
One reviewer’s verdict, from the documented record, in five words: “at least robbers wear ski masks.” We report it because it captures what the complaint file keeps describing: not concealment, but conduct carried out in the open, through processes the company itself explains in its responses.
SOURCE: Public merchant review record (Yelp).
Category 1 of 5
Regulatory & Legal Record23 / 25
No FTC actions, state attorney general enforcement, or card network fines against the merchant business were located. The deduction reflects the consolidated 2021-2022 class action alleging fraud and overbilling, which remains reported as allegation, not adjudicated fact. A 2024 shareholder derivative action against Priority Technology Holdings’ board, alleging a transaction that benefited insiders at public shareholders’ expense, is an investor matter and is displayed rather than scored.
SOURCES: Litigation review · 2024 derivative action documentation
Category 2 of 5
Fee Practices & Contract Terms7 / 25
The fee stack, including one that charges you for using less paper
The documented structure: a $129.99 annual fee, a $25 monthly fee, a PCI compliance fee reviewers describe as undisclosed, monthly minimums, and per-transaction authorization fees layered on the discount rate. The BBB record supplies the specimen finding: a merchant who discovered months of compliance fees charged without notice, totaling a demanded refund of $274.45, and who learned along the way they had also been paying $4.95 per month for paperless statements. A fee for receiving no paper is the junk fee perfected, and it belongs in a museum.
SOURCES: Fee structure documentation · BBB complaint record (compliance and paperless fees) · Contract terms review
The contract floor
Three-year terms with automatic renewal, early termination fees documented in the $200 to $600 range ($295 in the company’s own BBB responses, sometimes waived as a courtesy), long-term non-cancellable equipment leases per user reviews, and the 30-day closure timeline documented above. Merchant accounts also report charges arriving at multiples of quoted rates, including one describing deductions four times greater than stated.
SOURCES: ETF range documentation · Lease and renewal terms · Rate multiple account
Category 3 of 5
Complaints & Resolution6 / 20
Complaint volume is genuinely modest for the company’s size, and the score credits it. The severity of the themes costs the points:
1
Held funds, the number one themeIndependent review identifies held funds as the leading complaint across platforms, with documented accounts including a 2025 merchant reporting $70,000 processed and not delivered for over a month, and a business whose funds were withheld for weeks based on what it describes as incorrect information recorded about its company.
2
The $886 breach billA documented account from a customer of more than a decade: after a compromise the merchant attributes to Priority’s own MX Merchant security, $886 was taken from the merchant to cover the fraud, with no explanation of the contractual basis and, per the merchant, no avenue of appeal.
3
SOURCES: $70,000 delivery account · Breach charge and support call accounts · BBB records
Resolution, both facesThe company responds on the BBB, has waived termination fees as documented courtesies, and engages with complaint detail. The same record includes a documented support call in which a merchant asking about an unidentified ACH withdrawal was told there was no way to find out who got the money, then hung up on.
Category 4 of 5
Corporate Transparency11 / 15
Full public-company disclosure through Priority Technology Holdings, with stable leadership. The merchant-facing deductions: no published pricing, terms that vary by which ISO or agent wrote the account, and a statement experience whose documented record includes fees merchants only discovered by calling, under descriptors their own bank could not decode for them. A company whose platform exists to organize transaction data owes its own merchants line items they can read.
SOURCES: Pricing disclosure review · Statement descriptor account
Category 5 of 5
Sales Channel Conduct4 / 15
An agent network the record calls untrained and unregulated
Priority distributes through ISOs and independent sales agents, a channel independent review describes as often untrained and unregulated, with documented complaints of deceptive sales tactics, nondisclosure of fees, and misrepresentation of rates. Two aggravators are distinctive here. First, the documented employee record: complaints from the company’s own current and former workers describing unethical policies, an unusual convergence in which the people selling the product and the people buying it file the same species of complaint. Second, the structural trap documented in the company’s own BBB responses: the agents empowered to open your account are not authorized to close it, which means the channel’s accountability ends at the signature.
SOURCES: Channel conduct and employee complaint review · Closure authorization documentation
The Bottom Line
If you process with Priority today
Is Priority Payment Systems a good processor? Based on the documented record, Priority Payment Systems scored 51 out of 100 under the published weAudit Rating Methodology, a band reserved for companies whose documented record warrants extreme caution: a pending fraud and overbilling class action, an exit process documented in the company’s own responses that can end at a collections agency, and a fee stack that includes a monthly charge for paperless statements. The MX platform is capable; the documented conduct is what the score measures.
A 51 lands in a band our methodology reserves for companies whose documented record warrants extreme caution. Good technology, sold through a channel and wrapped in an exit process that the documented record says merchants should navigate with their eyes open and their paperwork ready. Three things to do this week:
1
Inventory every recurring fee, including the ones for nothingPull twelve months of statements and list each recurring charge: annual, monthly, PCI, minimums, statement fees in both paper and paperless flavors. Match each to a sentence in your agreement. The documented $274.45 was discovered exactly this way, months late.
2
If you ever leave, run the exit like a legal processWritten cancellation through the formal channel, not your sales rep, who cannot close the account. Confirmation of the closure date in writing. Then watch your bank account for the full 30-day window and beyond, and dispute the first post-closure draft immediately, because the documented path runs from ACH reject to collections to your credit file.
3
Identify who actually wrote your dealYour pricing and terms came from an ISO or agent, not from Alpharetta. Pull your agreement, identify the writing entity, and price your account against a transparent interchange-plus benchmark, because the same MX platform is documented selling at wildly different terms depending on the door you came through.
A $4.95 monthly fee for paperless statements. Ask us what else is on yours.
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Right of response: Priority Payment Systems, Priority Commerce, and Priority Technology Holdings are invited to respond to any item in this profile. Responses received will be published unedited. Contact: [email protected]
How this rating works: This profile reports documented information from court records, the Better Business Bureau, including the company’s own published responses, and independent published analysis, with sources linked throughout. Scores are calculated under weAudit’s published Rating Methodology, applied consistently to every company we rate. Allegations from lawsuits, including the consolidated class action described above, are reported as allegations and are not adjudicated facts. Complaint data is reported as complaint data and reflects the accounts of the merchants who filed it.
Independence: weAudit accepts no compensation, referral fees, or advertising from any payment processor. Our only clients are merchants.
Corrections: Documented errors are corrected within 48 hours of verification. Last updated July 2026.