Payment Processing Giant That Terminated Conference Hosts for Being Conservative Faces $18M Lawsuit

Navy veteran John Sabal is the founder and President of The Patriot Voice which hosts events county that brings together dynamic speakers and grassroots activists who love God and this country.

The organization shares that their goal is, “To ensure that all who attend will leave the events with new hope for this country and its future, and with a new vigor and passion to go home and get involved in their respective communities.”

Prior featured speakers have included James O’Keefe, General Michael Flynn, Senator Wendy Rogers, Jim Caviezel and more.

In the lead-up to their 2023 Dallas event,  For God & Country Victory Roundup, payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) agreed and accepted payments for event tickets.

The Patriot Voice alleges that, after the organization invested almost $400,000 in the conference and it was too late to get another payment processor for ticket sales,  TSYS suddenly terminated its payment processing services, forcing the cancellation of the conference.

Now, The Patriot Voice has filed a lawsuit against TSYS for $18M.

According to the lawsuit, TSYS’s reason for the cancelation is that The Patriot Voice is an “exclusionary business”–the implication being that The Patriot Voice is somehow racist merely because it hosts conservative political conferences.

Further, the lawsuit alleges that TSYS engaged in deceptive trade practices when it agreed to be the payment processor for a conservative conference but did not disclose that it discriminates on the basis of political viewpoint.

TSYS is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia, and is the largest third-party payment processor for issuing banks in North America.  The publicly traded company has more than 24,000 employees worldwide and in 2019 merged with Global Payments for $21.5B.

The complaint was filed on August 30 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division.

The lawsuit alleges in part:

TSYS fraudulently induced TPV to accept and use TSYS as a payment processor by misrepresenting and concealing that there were “risk parameters” associated with the account and that TSYS could put a hold on TPV’s account if it concluded that TPV was an “exclusionary business”. TSYS knew that TPV and its agents were acting on the assumption that there were no “risk parameters” associated with the account, and that TSYS could not simply seize TPV’s funds and deprive TPV of its property on a whim.

TSYS knew how important it was for TPV to have a payment processor, given the proximity of the Dallas event. TPV reasonably and justifiably relied upon TSYS’s misrepresentations and omissions by selling tickets using TSYS’s payment processing system.

TSYS’s representations were false at the time they were made. TSYS concealed the material fact that it discriminates against conservatives and/or on the basis of ideology or political viewpoint, and that it intended to terminate merchant services to organizations like TPV. TSYS’s intentional misrepresentations, concealment and non-disclosures were material to TPV’s decision whether to transact business with TSYS.

TSYS acted under false and deceitful pretenses and with the intent to injure TPV by inducing TPV to enter into a business transaction that TSYS knew it intended to terminate.

TSYS’s representations, actions, omissions and nondisclosure, and concealment constitutes fraud in the inducement.

A full copy of the complaint can be found here.

Deplatforming from ticketing and payment systems is nothing new to conservatives.

PayPal partnered with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to determine who can use their services and without warning, The Gateway Pundit and Jim Hoft were banned from Paypal on the last day of 2021.

British BREXIT leader Nigel Farage announced that UK banks shut down his accounts without explanation.

Bank of America canceled popular conservative Twitter user Catturd’s podcast account. No reason was given.

Chase Bank informed Retired US General Michael Flynn they would close his personal accounts and credit cards. Chase also kicked out Laura Loomer and US Army Combat Veteran Joe “Rambo” Biggs in the name of “social justice.”

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