The Great American Heist – How Credit Card Processors Steal Businesses’ Profits

The Great American Heist! I am sure many will say, wow, that might just be a little overkill, don’t you think? Do you really think this is the biggest scam America has ever seen? Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? Actually, I don’t think I am. Since I left the “dark side” (aka, the bank), I have had two very strong groups of followers. Those who hate me (and I do mean hate me) and those who love me and they, too, are very passionate. After all, many of them have saved millions a year.

I know that I am a lone fish swimming upstream. I have been asked to speak at some trade shows and conferences only to find out, just days before my flight, that the processors and banks (who happened to be large sponsors of the event) said they would pull their sponsorship if I were allowed to speak. I’ve also been interviewed more times than I can remember by reporters asking me my thoughts on different topics about merchant processing. More specifically, around the practice of business loans backed by merchant processing which I am not going to get into in this book. Suffice it to say, I would prefer to do business with a loan shark, who is way more ethical, in my opinion. I would tell the reporter there is a much bigger story that needs to get out.

But I would also tell them that this is not anything your editor will ever approve. I have said this to many reporters, and it always ends the same way. The editor would tell the reporter to just stick to the other story. (One might just get the feeling that the people upstairs don’t want to upset the people paying for millions of dollars worth of advertising). It’s too bad for those reporters because this story could make one famous. To my knowledge, no one has ever written or exposed the massive corruption that is taking place in this industry.

I use the word “corruption” because that’s also my opinion. You must read the rest of this book and decide for yourself. Is it just business, and the banks and processors are not doing anything wrong, or are they stealing businesses’ hard-earned profits?

According to the SBA, as of March 2023, there are over 33.1 million small businesses and 20,516 large businesses. If every company in the US is being overbilled at the same rate as the thousands of audits we have performed over the past 14 years, then this would mean American businesses are being overbilled by well over 100 billion dollars each year!

As my teacher would always say, show your math: 

According to today’s government records, there are 20,516 large businesses and 33.1 million small businesses. If small businesses were overbilled only $2,500 a year, this would equate to just under $83 billion in overbillings. Now, add in the 20,516 large businesses, and if they were overbilled $1 million, that would equate to approximately $21 billion a year. Combined, that is over $100 billion in overbillings. However, our audit findings show much larger amounts than the numbers I’ve used above. Companies in the small category can easily save $5,000 or more per year, and large companies save well over $10 million. Therefore, I feel $100 billion is a very conservative yearly estimate.

Now you can see why I named this book The Great American Heist. Not to be confused with the 2022 movie of the same title about a 1978 robbery where nearly $6 million in cash & jewels were stolen. This was equivalent to a mere $28 million today. The largest bank heist in recorded history was actually in 2003 at the Central Bank of Iraq, where $920 million was taken by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as the mastermind. The two of these “great” heists COMBINED don’t even compare to the over billing of merchants to the tune of over $100 BILLION every year.

Why do I use the word overbilled? Merriam-Webster definition:

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