Fee Fighters: Kicking Credit Card Processing Butt

Sean Harper and Josh Krall are the cofounders of Fee Fighters, an online comparison service for credit card processing that claims to save businesses an average of 40% on their credit card processing fees. Many entrepreneurs have found out the hard way that the credit card processing industry is rife with hidden fees, poor customer service and, at times, outright scam artists which is what drove Sean Harper to come up with the business idea. “Sean was building another business of his, TSS Radio,” said marketing manager Stella Fayman, “and he needed credit card processing. After his first year in business he realized he was overpaying $40,000 in fees to credit card processors and knew there had to be a better way.” Fee Fighters was born. Sean teamed up with Josh Krall and since launch in April 2009 Fee Fighters has been growing fast and winning accolades from businesses across different industries. Fee Fighters started as a company in Excelerate Labs Chicago and has raised a seed round from Hyde Park Angels. Fee Fighter’s UI is dead simple by design, said Fayman, and doesn’t charge business owners for the service. “We are paid by the processing companies.” A business owner goes to Fee Fighters and enters their relevant info and Fee Fighters returns a list of all the credit card processors available for the entrepreneur’s business. “It’s an apples to apples comparison,” said Fayman. “It’s completely transparent.” Once a business owner signs up, Fee Fighters is paid a commission from the processors while holding them accountable at the same time. “We don’t allow the processors in our system to charge cancellation fees to business owners and we audit our customers’ bills every month. If we see anything that doesn’t follow our rules, the credit card processor is banned,” explained Fayman.

If Fee Fighters is doing away with the processing industry secret fees, I asked why any credit card processor would bother to be in their system. “Some of the processors do not like what we are doing and think we are ruining their industry,” replied Fayman. “On the other hand, there are honest companies that appreciate what we are doing because we present their company to entrepreneurs and they have a new way to earn business.”

Fayman went to say how Fee Fighters wants to be a one-stop shop for small business financial services like loans, payroll, contracts and business insurance. “We’ll get there eventually,” said Fayman, “but right now we are laser focused on credit card processing so we are the best we can absolutely be.”