Electronic Payment Systems LLC, a Denver-based independent sales organization, says a federal judge has ruled that it owns a toll-free number now used by approximately 515,000 merchants processing with TSYS Acquiring Solutions.
The dedicated number would enable EPS to move its merchants to another processor, should it decide to do that. EPS has approximately 56,000 merchants.
The dispute between EPS and TSYS, a unit of Columbus, Ga.-based Total System Services Inc., dates to 2005, when EPS migrated to the TSYS processing platform following the 2005 breach of CardSystems Solutions.
During that migration, EPS asked for a dedicated toll-free number for its merchants. But when the deal with TSYS went sour because of a pricing dispute (
A TSYS spokesperson says the company does not comment on litigation.
EPS, however, is wasting no time in trying to get the number back.
Tom McCann, an EPS partner, sent a letter to TSYS Nov. 10 giving the company 90 days to revert the number to solely EPS’s use.
“I sent them a demand for payment until they move the number,” McCann tells PaymentsSource. “We will ask the court for the names and addresses of their merchants and start billing them for using our number until TSYS converts them.”
The CardSystems experience taught EPS that it needed a telephone number that could be shifted to a different processor, McCann says. “They have to clean this up.”
TSYS could face a large expense in communicating to merchants not in the EPS portfolio that they would have to use a new number to call TSYS.
Most EPS merchants continue to process with TSYS, something McCann says will continue at least until the toll-free number issue is resolved.
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