The Payments Experts Podcast
Expert payments attorneys discuss the electronic payments industry from a legal perspective.
The Payments Experts Podcast
Merchants Versus The MATCH List: Why The Threat Of A Lawsuit May Now Be Your Best Approach | PEP083
Imagine being barred from accepting cards overnight—and no one will tell you why. That’s the reality for many merchants placed on MasterCard’s MATCH list, a risk registry that can sink a business while support teams stay silent. We brought managing partner James Huber and senior associate Bryce Vandemore into the studio to unpack what really moves the needle: skipping the endless email chains and going straight to a well-drafted complaint that forces banks and processors to respond.
We take apart the power dynamics behind the MasterCard MATCH list and explain why a litigation-first strategy now gets merchants faster answers than inquiry letters. We share case patterns, how banks and processors pass the buck, and what it takes to pressure real protocol change.
• why inquiry letters stall while complaints trigger action
• how banks, processors and ISOs split duties and avoid blame
• why MATCH listings cluster by category and tool-driven flags
• the costs, timelines and leverage of litigation versus waiting
• how fines and retroactive rule shifts punish compliant merchants
• the cardholder protection narrative versus merchant reality
• service gaps between cardholder support and merchant silence
• risks of cashless policies concentrating control in card rails
• practical steps to show compliance and push for removal
We walk through the turning points that led us to a sue-first strategy, why it accelerates dialogue, and how these cases are simpler than most people think. The aim isn’t courtroom theatrics; it’s a clear yes or no so a merchant can reopen accounts and stop the cash burn. Along the way, we map the responsibility maze—banks hold the authority, processors run the operations, and both often cite “internal policies” or “ongoing investigations” while providing no reason code. We also call out category-wide crackdowns and retroactive fines, from peptide vendors to weight-loss products, where compliant businesses are swept up in blanket MATCHing with little transparency.
You’ll hear how the “we protect cardholders” message can mask a deeper incentive to protect the networks themselves, creating a stark service gap: cardholders get fast remediation and live help, while merchants hire counsel just to learn what happened. We dive into the rise of cashless policies and what it means when the only way to transact funnels through private rails that can exclude you without a hearing. Our goal is practical and focused—push for protocol change, document compliance, pressure timely reviews, and establish a credible path off MATCH when errors occur.
If you’re a merchant, ISO, or in-house counsel navigating MATCH, this conversation gives you the current playbook: where to start, how to apply pressure, and what outcomes are realistic. Subscribe for more merchant-first insights, share this with a colleague who’s stuck on MATCH, and leave a review with your questions so we can tackle them next.
**Matters discussed are all opinions and do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincidence.**
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A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm
Well, the whole card brand system is rigged. They you know, they built the ecosystem and it works for them. And MasterCard and Visa have zero risk whatsoever because they're calling the shots, you know, it's their world. So yeah, the whole system is set up against the merchants. Now, the cardholders actually we're all pretty protected in that. And so that's the idea, is when we're talking to, you know, Visa and we're, you know, talking to them about you know what what's the purpose behind all of that, they get away with it because going, we're protecting the cardholder. Yeah. And so we saw a shift in COVID when all of a sudden merchants are going out of business, and merchants are people too. By law, businesses are people. So you're not protecting them. They're the victims.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Payments Experts Podcast, a podcast of global legal law firm. We hope you enjoyed this episode. We're really excited today. We've got a in-studio podcast joining us senior associate attorney Bryce Vandemore, who oversees our match list work, as well as managing partner of the law firm James Huber. And we do have Ryan Reynolds uh as a special guest. No relation. No relation. Exactly. Gentlemen, we're talking about matchless litigation, maybe why it's the best option to get off the match list these days. Go ahead and jump right in.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, like traditionally we send out the inquiry letter and uh ask for a response, and it's just total silence. And I know that is very frustrating for our match clients because you know they they need movement, they need to understand what's going on like as soon as as as fast as possible. And I have over time developed the impression or the supposition that they don't want to talk to us at all. We're not talking to lawyers, we're we're predominantly talking to analysts or you know, or whatever's below an analyst. Or in some cases, granted, like a compliance attorney, but we're not talking to litigators. And so I have had to adjust my strategy. Uh and we're just going straight to the litigation now. We're we're drafting, we're drafting the complaint, uh, emailing it to emailing it to them or sending it to them, you know, as a courtesy with like a one-week response deadline, letting them know that you know, this is real. We're not going away. I know your your mo is to just try to wait us out until you know until we burn out or or lose steam, but this is going to happen. And the the advantage of that is that now the bank has to go or the processor has to go and get their own litigation attorney who invariably calls me up, says, you know, hey, what's the deal? Why, you know, why are you finding this complaint? My response is the same. Uh, this is like the only play you guys are leaving me. But I I have found that that if I if I my goal is if I do this enough that maybe they'll say, okay, like maybe we don't have to spend the money to go out and hire a litigation attorney. Maybe we answer this yes or no question. Like the fact that it takes our our clients having to pay thousands of dollars to draft a complaint to get an uh get an answer to a yes or no question is absurd. But that is basically where we're at right now. But as we've said before on the on this show or this podcast, um the whole goal of this is regime change, right? Protocol change. If we someday don't have any match cases because MasterCard has changed its rules and brought some sanity to this process, no, I I'll feel like I've done my job. That's my goal.
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's not going away. I mean, there's the match list, if working perfectly, is protecting the industry from bad players. You know, you're having an alert right now, but yeah, we see so many people on match. It's, you know, everybody's, you know, everybody's a problem. You know, it's uh like becoming the exception. I mean, not there's you know, millions and millions of merchants not on match, but there are so many, and then there's so many that are certain types that are on there. And I agree with the litigation tactic, you know, I always have. It's we're a law firm, but um, for years, yeah, we would it would be months and months and months of what you know, can I get off match? I'm losing money every day. And we always would say, look, the way to get these people to respond is sue them. You know, everyone's like, Can't you do something? You're an attorney. I can do two things. I can sue somebody and I can subpoena them. Baseball bat guy, you know, Bryce probably knows a guy, but the uh other than that, that's really all we can do. You know, the other thing is I guess go lobby Congress for change, but I got a feeling that MasterCard and Visa actually don't have a feeling. I actually know that they spend so much on lobbying, you're not gonna get them to do anything.
SPEAKER_01:As was said in the previous podcast, they spend more than God in lobbying.
SPEAKER_03:I doubt that. The church probably spends a lot. I guess it depends which God, yeah, maybe some of them.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, it's um, you know, you you can ignore a letter. You can't ignore a complaint. You have 30 days to respond, you have 30 days to respond, and it's basically like putting them on the clock. You know, you you can you can try to spin this as long as you, you know, bury this as long as you can, but you cannot ignore a complaint. And that is basically what's we've had a lot of success with that lately. So that that's you know, if I my goal is never to drag anybody into litigation. It really, it really isn't. I understand I understand like what it what the toll it takes on our clients. They're already you know in trouble financially, and now I'm hitting them up for you know legal fees, which when you're when you are fighting or somebody or or dealing with somebody who has unlimited resources, it can get out of control really fast. I just want to get a dialogue. And so this is really the only play that they've left to us, and it seems to be working.
SPEAKER_03:And it's a tricky situation. You know, we say we learned early on, you know, don't file a lawsuit unless you're willing to go the whole way. You know, early on in my career as I take take on cases and be, oh, you know, let's just sue them and see how it goes, and hopefully that changes their mind, and then it doesn't, and then they're in it and then they're going, well, I can't pay for this. And I'm like, well, then it was all for naught. Yeah, you know, the the rule of thumb in litigation typically is whoever has more money is gonna win. Um, but you just need enough. So it's a it's a tricky tactic here of, you know, are you willing to go the whole way? But the good news is these cases, they're not that complex. I'm not having to go depose a hundred people. You know, as far as our litigation, we have taken, we've never, no one's ever gone to trial ever in the history of match. And I know that almost for a fact. I know we were, I think, the third to take one to like a week before arbitration. And all the ones before that, they settle right before because the outcome is potentially regime change. So if you have an arbitrator or anyone going, you abuse the match process, you need to change the whole way that you're doing business. That's way more expensive. We've had we had a bunch where we're going, look, we just want to get off match. And they're like, we'll give you X amount of dollars. We're like, wow, that's a lot of money. How about you save your money, just take us off match? And they'll say no, really stubbornly. But that's really changed over the last few five, even five. I mean, ever since COVID, all of a sudden now they're going, fine, we'll take you off. Because I think that the card brands have eased up on, you know, because it used to be like, oh, if you made a mistake doing match, what else are you doing wrong? Now they're going, yeah, you know, I get it. You guys are shoot, shoot first, you know, check their skin color later.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, that that that's a uh that's that's a very valid accusation. We're gonna get demonetized, guys. Well, you know, but also like uh so the whole goal for for me with with our clients is just trying to find out what happened as as quickly as possible. And and the complaint, waving the complaint in their face, I felt as we've really made strides there. But unfortunately, what we've also, or fortunately, what we found out is how many of these match placements, like they don't even know what the merchant did. They don't, you know, they they don't know, they don't know. Or or it's it's based on some ridiculous misunderstanding, and then we have to spend like five, six months just getting them to respond, you know, to accept the fact that they made a mistake. So, guys, explain that.
SPEAKER_01:How can they not know? For the listener, this entity put them on match list. They're supposed to have a reason. Yep. How do they not know? What are they telling you guys?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I've also just given up for the most part on dealing with the processors. The processors can't get me, can't I get me what I what I need from for my my clients, you know? Only the bank can do it. So I'm just tired of being stonewalled by the processor. So now I just leapfrog over to the banks, and they don't really have any idea as to what their processors are doing or seemingly doing. It's like after the fact, they're they're only looking into it after a complaint hits their desk. Until then, it's just like, see no evil, hear no evil.
SPEAKER_03:So it could be, I mean, it could like look, this could this at this point, it could be an underwriter or you know, compliance person. They could be using AI. And that they are. I mean, it's they've always have been. They're looking at numbers, they're looking at metrics, and they're saying, whoops, he went a little outside, match them. Because the reason the match list matters to the processors, if you don't match somebody and that merchant gets in trouble later, they can come back at you for liability for not matching them. Which never happens. Which I'm not aware of a single instance of that ever happening. But what the happens is the banks, they're the ones supposed to be doing the match matching, putting it on the list. They have the keys to the castle. But most of the banks don't really do anything and they just turn the keys over to the ISO or the processor or the FSP. And then the ISO is just going, look, we don't want to get in trouble, just match them, match them, match them. We don't care. You know, round them up. You're standing in front of Home Depot, get in the back of the van. Figure it out later.
SPEAKER_00:I'm I'm sensing an underlying theme to this entire podcast. Exactly. But also, what's also what's happening, like more often than not, is that MasterCard is ordering the bank or the processor to just match them, but is not explaining to the bank or or the processor why.
SPEAKER_03:Like they just send a notice that says, look, recommended you got fined because of this activity. You got to put everyone on match, and they won't even say the merchants. And so sometimes the processor, they don't even know. So they're like, All right, I'll match him, him, him, him. You happy, dad?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but we and we have a we like, for instance, I have a ton of peptide litigation, you know, like we're going right now, like the the the Wagovis and the Ozempics of the world. And MasterCard just seems to be just blanket matching them all. And and I'm going, I'm coming back to these banks and these these processors and showing them, like, here's how my guy is in compliance. I I just have to believe that MasterCard just really doesn't have a under a real understanding of the difference between a research vendor or or a therapeutic vendor.
SPEAKER_03:I think they just don't want people to lose weight.
SPEAKER_00:And they don't, yeah. I mean the fatter the better.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah, so spending more, you're eating less, you're not spending enough money.
SPEAKER_00:Never spending enough money.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, it's uh healthcare system, no doubt.
SPEAKER_03:I I'm trying to get the people are too healthy, they're not gonna pay medical bills. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_00:But I I'm trying to show the banks that they're in compliance. And and usually we can come to an agreement that will satisfy the banks that the you know the placement is wrongful because MasterCard explicitly says if you have a problem with this placement, you got to go back to the bank. But you know, and this has been going on for the better part of this year, and you know, in all these negotiations, I have yet to have anybody tell me, oh, well, we took this back to MasterCard, and they said like all this, that nobody ever says that. And so that leads me to believe that MasterCard is just you know, like making the call, match them. Here's a big fat fine for you because that, you know, because you missed your underwriting was bad, even though you thought that you were underwriting this merchant within the terms of MasterCard until MasterCard changed the game. And then retroactively they hit you up with a fine. Like, you didn't know that we changed the rules, like on the fly? Like, how could you do that? Here's like$100,000. Like, we got one guy who got hit for$425,000. No explanation as to why. And and we're not even sure that the match placement is valid, but the money's already gone. And how easy do you think it'll be to get MasterCard to return that assessment if we're actually able to prove that the match case was was was invalid, and so it's almost kind of like rigged. It's a really on really only way to look at it's like a just a cash grab.
SPEAKER_03:Well, the whole card brand system is rigged, they you know, they built the ecosystem and it works for them. And MasterCard and Visa have zero risk whatsoever because they're calling the shots, you know, it's their world. So yeah, the whole system is set up against the merchants. Now, the cardholders actually we're all pretty protected in that. And so that's the idea, is when we're talking to, you know, Visa and we're you know talking to them about you know what what's the purpose behind all of that, they get away with it because going, we're protecting the cardholder. Yeah. And so we saw a shift in COVID when all of a sudden merchants are going out of business and merchants are people too. By law, businesses are people, so you're not protecting them, they're the victims. And most of these, a lot of this matchwork is because it's people defrauding merchants, it's the cardholders. The merchant's not doing anything wrong, except for maybe they don't have enough systems to root out these people that are getting free, you know, whatever on the internet and charging it back, or just running straight scams with stolen cards and stuff. So, you know, the the merchant, it's the whole system is set up against the person that's it's supposed to be protecting, which is the merchant. And I get it, the cardholder needs protected too, but like merchants they're better off just taking cash. Yeah, so many.
SPEAKER_00:I I and I think that protecting the card holder is kind of a red herring. I mean, I on a hundred percent. They're protecting themselves. That's exactly my point. Like, so you know, my my wife's mother had like a suspicious charge on her card. She called, called in the credit card company and the bank. They're like, oh, you gotta cancel the card right now, right now. Ultimately, we she did. Ultimately, we determined that the charge was actually valid. They just forgot that she made the charge. But I I was like, you know, why were you in such a rush to cancel that card? Because you're not gonna be held responsible for that. Because any any fraud is going is going to be covered by the bank. Like it the if the charge is invalid, it'll be corrected by the bank. They're the ones who are exposed. Yeah, you're not gonna be, you're not going to have to pay for that fraudulent charge. And I understand that we're down the road here a little bit, but ultimately you're right. It's about the banks protecting themselves, which of course they have a right to do, but they're risk averse to almost the point of ridiculousness at point at times. You know, it's just like you're not willing to like give any ground whatsoever.
SPEAKER_03:And we're so we're seeing a C change. Like I said it, I don't think you'll see a big change from a legislative standpoint, but it is a m matter of time of the more vocal that we are about these things, we should start to see some things moving because yeah, they're protecting the cardholder. Because if we all start getting ripped off and we can't, you know, reverse our charges, I'm gonna go complain to you know whoever our senator is. I actually don't even know. I don't even know. I don't even know.
SPEAKER_00:And now we're editing the party keep run through it's gonna change anything. Yeah, it doesn't even matter. Or no, that that's the house. That's the house, right? Whatever.
SPEAKER_03:So we're gonna go complain to the president, and he's gonna say, you know, yep, okay, we're gonna go make some changes, but we need the merchants complaining about this. And, you know, they complained via, you know, you're overcharging us for interchange, and it looks like they're gonna get a little reprieve there over the years. But I mean, it's nothing like what they did in Europe, and even Canada's was way better. But um, the merchants need to get vocal here, and that that's what we feel we're the speaker box. So yeah, we we're having a lot of success with this. And the more we do it, the better it is for the merchants because yeah, judges are seeing this, they're seeing it over and over. They're I think Bryce has like three dedicated attorneys at the big processors and bank. They have a Bryce line that he calls in. He gets a direct line straight straight to the desk now. So with your red phone anytime.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, oh that guy again. Anytime we can like get an email or contact, uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna just pine to the ground. But again, the point is I'm trying to make these banks or or their attorneys, their compliance attorneys realize that this is an entirely, this is just a huge waste of money. Like, why do we have to get to the point where you have to go and hire a lawyer, have them draft pleadings, like drop 10 grand just to get a yes or no question answered. It does not have to be that way. We're we're reasonable people. We're you know, I mean, I it's crazy to hear an attorney say that, but we're reasonable people. And if if we're wrong, tell us we're wrong, tell her wrong, tell them we're not, but like you've done this, like stand behind what you've done. Like, there's a bank that it's just mind-numbingly uh irritating where I read these letters that they send to their merchants and they're like, yeah, we're gonna, we have to push you on match, you know, we won't tell you what the violation was. And you know, because of our internal policies, we can't tell you what we did. You remember that one? You remember that one? It was just like, I'm not even gonna name them, but it's just like our internal, we're our internal policies can't, we're not allowed to tell you why we we shut you down.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's ridiculous. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Or or what they'll run to is they'll say, well, we're investigating potential fraud. They use that as right, investigating potential fraud, so they close their mouths and they don't tell us anything.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and but we can't tell you anything about the investigation or and and the investigation never involves the merchant at all. Don't you want to talk to the dude or the gal that is like at the center of this? Like, don't you want to find out whether or not they're you're completely off base or just some misunderstanding? Because like the you know, the the identity theft ones, like at least 50% are just complete misunderstandings. Right. Like they like, you know, with QuickBooks, they they did not, they they applied for a a merchant account, but through QuickBooks didn't into it, but they just for whatever reason they didn't have the the required the requested paperwork, so they halted the application process. You'll get matched immediately. Because they're like, oh, you couldn't complete the process because you know you're you're obviously you know a a fraudster. No, my my kid was crying in the background. I had to go, I had to go deal with them and like this process had to stop. But do they ever ask the applicant? No, they never do. They just they just they just shoot first and never ask any questions.
SPEAKER_03:Well, think of the difference between that experience and the cardholder experience. At this point, I think everybody's gone through the process of looking at their bank statement and saying, oh, geez, Apple's charging me seven times a day. And you call you stop the card. What's going on? I've been defrauded, and you're on the phone with them, and they're going, oh, actually, your kid has your password and is buying Robux over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01:Been there. This sounds like a real story, James.
SPEAKER_03:Been there. Where's the camera in case my kids watching?
SPEAKER_01:Fortnite's a drag tube.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. So, anyways, but they're on the phone and they they they are able to go, oh, look, it was from one of my child's iPads. And they're cranking on it, and they're going, whoops, didn't know. Wink wink or whatever. So that level of service, and then you know, I can handle it. The merchant who never doesn't get that. They have to hire price to come in and get all frothy at these guys to get them to even take a s a look at it. It's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00:And you know, I'm I'm I just want to segue something that that I've noticed lately out in the world, and it is really kind of bothering me because I can see where where all this is going. So like this whole thing where with cashless merchants, like you you go into stores and they say, you know, we're we're we're cashless. You have have to use a card. So we just we just seem to be moving, you know, and actually further toward like putting MasterCard and Visa as the only game in town, no regulations at all. Like, like, like I can't like if you don't have if you don't have a card, you can't transact business, you can't make a purchase at this point.
SPEAKER_03:You gotta think of on the airplane. I had one where you had to like log on to, you had to have their app and you had to have your card entered before, otherwise you would starve to death on that phone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I and I don't know what is in it for the merchant go having to go cashless. There has to be some incentive by the credit cards, and that's something that I'm I'm trying to determine because well, no, that's not. It's having cash, there's an expense to that. You have to have enough cash, you have to go to the bank. Yeah, but but credit cards, don't they always add like they're always like if you pay me cash, you know, we won't have to add however percent, you know, that gives the credit card, you know, their cut. Right. But so why why would they not want to keep the ability to take cash? Why would they automatically have to raise their prices like however many, however many percent?
SPEAKER_03:Because they have an employee that's probably stealing from them.
SPEAKER_00:It's not at all unlikely that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03:No, there's a problem. You have to go. I remember working in restaurants and stuff, it was a pain. You had to count all the money, I always got it wrong, and you know, then someone has to go to the bank and you have to deposit, and now people can't like people can't give change because there's no pennies anymore. So yeah, it's a pain. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I worked at uh In and Out through high school, they were cashless for years. Excuse me, they were cash only for years and years and years. Yeah, even when debit was and credit was fully established. I think because it's a lot easier, that's the other side of it. It's a lot easier to hide cash, like maybe what you were saying, James. Who is your manager?
SPEAKER_03:His name was Jeremy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right. But there's just some places like even with kids, like basically you're you're barring your kid from your a kid from your establishment because he's not old enough to have a credit card. So he can't, he cannot do, he cannot do business in your store. So I have to believe that that is against a merchant's best interest, probably against their will. There has to be something going on where the credit cards are mandating, you know, you gotta go cashless. So that that is that is an angle that I'm trying to do some more detectively.
SPEAKER_03:Writing down, Googling conspiracy theories.
SPEAKER_00:You know, you know, in this day and age, like all these conspiracies that I thought there were, nah, there's no way. There's just no way they could have it. Now I'm kind of like, especially with what's happening lately, I'm like, I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Payments Experts Podcast, a podcast of Global Legal Law Firm. Visit us online today at Global Legal Law Firm dot com. Matters discussed are all opinions that do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people, and events is a coincidence.