Consumer complaint received 2021-08-11
Company: FISERV INC.
State: CT
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Other banking product or service
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Fee problem

Complaint:
XXXX  XXXX XXXX is my primary financial institution. My e-commerce transactions are handled through XXXX XXXX  XXXX. XXXX has contracted the company Fiserv to process those transactions. Through my agreement with XXXX, Fiserv debits my XXXX account monthly for the cost of processing those transactions. 

On XX/XX/XXXX of 2021, there was a BOT attack which sent over 16,000 requests for authorization through our account. We generally do 1-2 transactions per day and have been for nearly 10 years. ( see attached documentation samples showing over 300 pages of transactions in a short few hour time slot ) From these documents I would like to point out that each and every one of these transactions used the same name, address, zip code and dollar amount. These transactions took place within a few hours. With no action from XXXX, or Fiserv, I fortunately identified the event in house and immediately alerted XXXX XXXX  XXXX. XXXX/Fiserv Merchant services made no attempt to identify or reduce the flow of transactions going through our account. 
Consequently, Fiserv billed me for each transaction. Our XXXX XXXX company XXXX refunded their portion of the charges, Fiserv refused stating that they could not recoup the money from Visa, so consequently the fees were not recoverable. 
See attachment for full text. 

It is clear that Fiserv puts forth a policy that exposes its customers to blatant and obvious fraud while taking the position that they have no responsibility to either a ) Protect and mitigate those fraudulent actions or b ) Absorb the costs of the successfully perpetrated fraud as a direct result of their failure to implement proper safeguards. 
Instead Fiserv, by its own admission, benefits monetarily from the processing of fraudulent transactions and because of that has no financial incentive to prevent them. 
The idea that a single person using the same name, address and zip code could posses 16,000 different credit cards is beyond any realm of possibility. The idea that in a few hours such a person could select a specific card, enter the numbers and re key an entire online transaction 16,000 times is also absurd. 
The installation filters recognizing these forms of computer generated fraud is a simple implementation and should be mandatory for any and all financial service processors. Any reasonable person would come to that conclusion ... unless of course that person profited from the fraud. 

Current card processing technology has more than enough safeguards to protect Visa, Fiserv, XXXX  XXXX XXXX and of course, the customer. The failure to implement that technology is a choice made by Fiserv. Taking the position they have with our company of passing on the costs of that failure is unacceptable. 
Forwarding the blame to Visa for not assuming financial responsibility, while simultaneously making no efforts to request ( demand ) Visa refund those fees, stands on its own as a diversion of responsibility to a unaffiliated third party.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation