The Federal Trade Commission just handed small-business owners a practical reminder: recurring vendor bills are where quiet fees hide.
On Sept. 17, the FTC said FleetCor Technologies, now known as Corpay, and its CEO will pay $100 million to resolve an administrative action tied to fuel cards. The agency said FleetCor's customers were "overwhelmingly" small businesses, and that the company charged undisclosed and unauthorized fees while promising fuel-card savings that did not always materialize. FTC press release
The details matter because this is not only a fleet-card story.
According to the FTC, FleetCor charged a broad range of fees that customers did not know about and had not agreed to pay. The agency also said some late fees hit customers who paid on time or were prevented by FleetCor from paying on time. Invoices allegedly did not clearly disclose many of the charges, and some fees were buried in separate account-management reports.
That is the part every owner should recognize. The risk is not always one huge invoice. It is a $19.95 line item, a service fee that starts after a few billing cycles, or a rate change that only appears in a portal nobody checks.
What Owners Should Check This Week
Start with the vendors that bill automatically and touch operating essentials:
- fuel cards
- delivery and route software
- telecom and internet accounts
- payroll and HR platforms
- payment processors
- insurance add-ons
- point-of-sale subscriptions
For each one, pull the latest invoice and the original agreement. Then answer four questions:
- What fees did we explicitly approve?
- Which charges changed after onboarding?
- Are discounts shown as actual savings, or only as marketing claims?
- Could we cancel or dispute a charge without calling a salesperson?
If the person who approves the contract is not the person who reconciles the invoice, assign an owner for the review. Hidden fees survive when responsibility is split.
The FTC's Standard Is Worth Copying
The federal court order in the FleetCor case permanently bars the company from billing a customer for a charge unless it has obtained express informed consent and given clear, unavoidable information about the charge. It also bars the company from hiding material charge information behind a hyperlink. Court order PDF
Small businesses can turn that into a purchasing rule:
If a vendor cannot explain the fee in plain language before you sign, do not let it become an auto-pay charge.
That does not mean every surprise fee is illegal or every vendor is acting badly. It means the burden of proof should not sit with the owner after the money leaves the account.
The FTC said the proposed settlement money will be used to provide redress to harmed business customers. The consent agreement will be subject to a 30-day public comment period after it appears in the Federal Register.
The useful move is not waiting to see who gets a check. It is using the case as a reason to review your own recurring bills before the next renewal.
Owner takeaway: Treat vendor billing like cash control. Review recurring charges quarterly, save the original fee schedule, and make one person responsible for challenging anything that was not clearly approved.
Sources: FTC press release | FTC court order PDF | FTC settlement order PDF