A South Florida restaurant uses a company to process customers’ credit card payments. Then the owners discovered a costly payment problem. Hoping to cook up a solution, they called Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.
Ten years ago, Lisa and her partner retired from their jobs. But then the two Lisas decided to open a restaurant.
Lisa Cusanelli: “Now I work harder than I’ve ever worked in my whole entire life. And I get paid way less than I ever got paid before.”
Their Fresh Box Cafe is in Fort Lauderdale, where they are the cooks, the managers, the owners, and they love it.
Lisa Cusanelli: “We do breakfast and lunch primarily.”
Hard work in the daytime, and lately frustration in the evenings as Lisa fights a company that’s vital to their business.
Lisa Cusanelli: “So when I looked at it, I just thought, ‘that seems like an awful lot of money.'”
Lisa was digging into First Data, the company that supplies the machine and a merchant ID number for Lisa to process her customers’ credit card payments. They then charge Lisa for doing that.
Lisa Cusanelli: “First Data, they pull it right out of my bank account.”
First Data installed the machine and provided the merchant ID number in 2015 when the cafe opened.
In 2022, First Data put in a new machine with a new ID number; did the same in 2025; and that’s when Lisa discovered the problem.
Lisa Cusanelli: “They were still charging me on the old MID numbers, merchant ID numbers, since 2022.”
Now paying for three machines and three ID numbers, even though they only have one machine and should have only had one merchant ID number.
Lisa Cusanelli: “They’re killing us with all these charges.”
If you look at Lisa’s bank statement, you would have to really dig to find the correct charges from the incorrect ones.
Lisa Cusanelli: “Because the bank statements all say the same thing. They just say first at a merchant, and then it says an ACH withdrawal.”
Lisa contacted First Data and got nowhere.
Lisa Cusanelli: “Nobody could give me an answer about what this charge was for, what this charge was for.”
The Lisa’s believe she has been overbilled thousands of dollars, but can’t get a dime back.
Lisa Cusanelli: “This is a multi-billion dollar company, and I’m just a small fish.”
Well, Lisa and Lisa have too much on their plates to let this drive them crazy. But what do you do in a case like this, Howard?
Howard: “Of course, legally you don’t have to pay two or three times, but here is the problem: the billing process is extremely complicated, hard to follow, and it’s hard to figure out how much Lisa has overpaid. It would take a lawsuit and a forensic accountant to get to the bottom of it. For Lisa, it’s not worth doing that because you don’t know how much you will get back.”
So I contacted First Data and their parent company, Fiserv.
A spokesperson wrote: “They will be happy to assist this merchant with the issues.”
Lisa Cusanelli: “I tried for months, five or six months, to get any kind of response from them. Once I spoke with Patrick, I got a phone call, and they said they were going to make me whole again.”
The company returned $2,000 to Lisa. She suspects she is owed more, but there is no simple way to prove it, and she is now only being charged for one account instead of three.
Lisa Cusanelli: “I am so glad it’s over, I am gonna miss you guys though.”
But we will stop by Fresh Box Cafe once in a while, to eat and see the Lisas.
Lisa Cusanelli: “So glad I called Patrick, he is one in a million, seriously, and I really appreciate everything he’s done for us.”
Thank you, Lisa. We get to meet such nice people; we are lucky.
You may be thinking, Why doesn’t Lisa fire the processing company? She has a contract with them and can’t. But she vows that when the contract expires, they are cooked.
A problem got you boiling over? Tired of it simmering in your life? Sandwich a call to us in your busy day, and hopefully we won’t have a half-baked solution for you.
With this Help Me Howard, I’m Patrick Fraser, 7News.
CONTACT HELP ME HOWARD:
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Reporter: Patrick Fraser at pfraser@wsvn.com
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