Right before we switched to our own merchant account in November, we processed a payment through a third party merchant that turned out to be fraudulent.

They just hit us with the total plus a $25 charge.

Maybe I'm naive, but I'm a bit puzzled. I don't get the info and I don't get the opportunity to accept or deny a payment. I assume that part of the 9% (that's right folks, NINE percent) fee includes some effort on their part to screen the payments we receive. And another part of that 9% goes to cover their butts when they do mess up.

Furthermore, the $25 seems, well, a TAD excessive, dont' you think?

So, is this standard to be charged for someone else's mistake, and should I just shut up, smile, and pay? Or do you think I have any recourse for this scam and should object?

The processor is iFulfill, and unfortunately we still use them to process our domain registrations since our merchant account is dragging their feet on telling me if I can charge them (ECHO says "monthly payments only").

Well, eveidently the $25 fee isn't part of the 9% fee (which is a tad on the high side, though not as high as some I've seen).

As for the ECHO domain processing, I'd just use ECHO to process the domain registrations one-time, with re-newals also being one-time. I think that's pretty much standard across the board.