Topic Wiki

https://www.dansdeals.com/more/dans-commentary/dark-side-earning-credit-card-points-psa-dont-swipe-others/

https://www.mixcloud.com/zev-brenner/talkline-with-zev-brenner-on-credit-card-scams-affecting-the-orthodox-jewish-community/

http://podcast.headlinesbook.com/e/31616-credit-card-miles-and-points-swiping-for-rewards-buying-and-selling-miles-is-it-assur-and-a-chillul-hashem-or-a-great-way-for-a-side-parnassah/



BEFORE SWIPING FOR SOMEONE READ THIS: (first hand story)

https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=36812.msg2062371#msg2062371
https://www.dansdeals.com/more/dans-commentary/dark-side-earning-credit-card-points-psa-dont-swipe-others/#comment-1399884


Dan's warning to DDF:
I hope people realize that any buying group or anyone else that gets merchandise in advance of payment can go south at any time. That's even if you get a check at the time of delivery.
X-posting as I don't want anyone to say that I never put a warning here.

A story that ended up in court - https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/DocumentList?docketId=iRcRHuyZUdOIx69D00a5XQ==&display=all&courtType=Kings%20County%20Supreme%20Court&resultsPageNum=1


I am one of the biggest buyers for buying groups, I have done millions in transactions and have sent to every group there is over the past 3 years. Most buying groups are okay, some scan in slower than others, some pay slower than others - most will lose a few packages over the year. You can research and find which are better for you.

However there is a bigger problem now with Amazon itself.  Amazon in the past has been great with any problems always ready with a refund for lost packages even if it was thousands of dollars. Lately Amazon has clamped down and has tagged these buying groups addresses  in their systems as "freight forwarder" and now no longer will fix any problem you have whatsoever. Doesn't matter what the problem is, even if it shows the package was never delivered, amazon will not help you in any way. Their copy and paste response will always be "this item was sent to a freight forwarder and we're unable to replace or refund the item. We recommend contacting your freight forwarder for more details, as we don't have any more insight or information regarding this matter, For more information about sending items via freight forwarders, please visit our Help Pages: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201117950." As well the amazon drivers either must know this or have been increasingly bad at delivering packages because the numbers of packages missing has gone up astronomically. Previously you would have very few packages missing, now the past 3 months I have had 59 "lost" packages. I now have over $15,000 of loses and some guy in Delaware is probably living the life with all the stuff he stole from me. I will survive, I have made a lot more than $15,000 over the years however just a warning to others here that things are not as they used to be and it really is no longer worth doing buring groups with all the loses piling up

« Last edited by Yo ssi on July 24, 2023, 06:47:26 PM »

Author Topic: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others  (Read 1182967 times)

Offline Drago

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #60 on: January 02, 2014, 05:28:57 PM »
Sorry, I did not get your point, pun intended. But can you relate?
He could re-explain, but it still won't come out in English  ;)

Offline rots5

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #61 on: January 02, 2014, 05:30:03 PM »
Sorry, I did not get your point, pun intended. But can you relate?
basically when ur swiping your cc that is unrelated to the loan you are giving this so called friend. the loan your giving to your friend is more like a gemach loan where you dont plan on collecting any interest. if there is anything added that you are collecting bec of the loan you gave then the ganav wouldnt have to pay you back, bec its part of the investment.

points on the other hand is not a direct additive due to the loan you gave him.  from what i understood from the rav. since the points come along as swiping your card, its not really considered part of the loan. 
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Online skyguy918

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #62 on: January 02, 2014, 07:23:49 PM »
basically when ur swiping your cc that is unrelated to the loan you are giving this so called friend. the loan your giving to your friend is more like a gemach loan where you dont plan on collecting any interest. if there is anything added that you are collecting bec of the loan you gave then the ganav wouldnt have to pay you back, bec its part of the investment.

points on the other hand is not a direct additive due to the loan you gave him.  from what i understood from the rav. since the points come along as swiping your card, its not really considered part of the loan.
Don't know if all poskim agree to the actual psak, but if you're paskening that the points aren't a problem, I like Ergel's answer (Lo asrah Torah ela ribbis hbaah miloveh lamalveh) much better - unless you're trying to say the same thing in a more lengthy and confusing way.

Offline txtmax4

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #63 on: January 03, 2014, 12:18:01 AM »
+100

But it'll be really difficult to moderate w/o smearing people's names.

You want to smear their names if they're ruining other people's lives..
If You See Something, Say Something!!

Offline txtmax4

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #64 on: January 03, 2014, 12:24:23 AM »
Charging the interest would be clear Ribbis IINM
Not if a heter iska is signed.
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Offline SamKey

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #65 on: January 03, 2014, 01:25:25 AM »
+Not A Number Big Enough For Speaking Out.
knowing you it would be near impossible to get a phone number out of you, heck I saw you trying to block my view so I shouldn't get your license plate number ::)

Offline Drago

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #66 on: January 03, 2014, 06:04:06 AM »
You want to smear their names if they're ruining other people's lives..
Of course.
I intended to write w/o smearing non-guilty ppl.
For example, if I had a beef w/ s/o, I'd make up a story so his name would go on the list. The stories would have to be vetted. Otherwise, you'd have slander legal issues.

Offline MosheP

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #67 on: January 03, 2014, 06:59:55 AM »
Wouldn't you be able to dispute say a $10,000 charge made to your "friends" vendor/supplier if he didnt come up with the money?

Threat if this alone should make him paying you a priority... relationships are everything. If I had a payment disputed I would never deal with that customer again.

Offline how

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #68 on: January 03, 2014, 07:04:51 AM »
Wouldn't you be able to dispute say a $10,000 charge made to your "friends" vendor/supplier if he didnt come up with the money?

Threat if this alone should make him paying you a priority... relationships are everything. If I had a payment disputed I would never deal with that customer again.
See the ethics thread

Online skyguy918

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #69 on: January 03, 2014, 08:26:27 AM »
Not if a heter iska is signed.
Something tells me neither you're not going to find too many of the 'borrowers' interested in that arrangement. Better off staying away entirely as a borrower than getting into heter iska. Remember, the people getting scammed are having the principle repayment withheld from them. You think they're going to be able to extract interest from the borrower?

Offline Dr Moose

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #70 on: January 03, 2014, 08:31:57 AM »
I'm assuming we're talking about a case that he just doesn't have the money. Not that he intentionally scammed you.
Hey there! I am using DansDeals Forums.

Offline Ergel

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #71 on: January 03, 2014, 08:45:13 AM »
Not if a heter iska is signed.
-1 you're charging him in a heter iska has nothing to do if he made or didn't make money or you were charged interest or not. The way a heter iska is structured is that you are setting up a chatzi milveh chatzi pikadon which would mean you split profits and losses equally. However you don't want exposure to losses so you agree that he must swear (or some other formulation which he's unlikely to fulfill) how much was gained loss. If he is unable to do that then you come up with an expected amount to be gained, agree to split the profits (say expected gain is 20%, and you take 10%).
Will make no difference if you were charged interest. Even if you sign a heter iska you can't charge the interest
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Offline MosheP

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #72 on: January 03, 2014, 08:45:26 AM »
-1

As soon as your "friend" decided not to repay you, it's a stolen credit card. The vendor will refund you and your "friend" will figure out how to repay them, or risk ruining the relationship and/or get sued.

Offline Ergel

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #73 on: January 03, 2014, 08:46:34 AM »
-1

As soon as your "friend" decided not to repay you, it's a stolen credit card. The vendor will refund you and your "friend" will figure out how to repay them, or risk ruining the relationship and/or get sued.
-1 you agreed to the charge. He didn't steal your card
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Online skyguy918

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #74 on: January 03, 2014, 09:16:18 AM »
-1 you're charging him in a heter iska has nothing to do if he made or didn't make money or you were charged interest or not. The way a heter iska is structured is that you are setting up a chatzi milveh chatzi pikadon which would mean you split profits and losses equally. However you don't want exposure to losses so you agree that he must swear (or some other formulation which he's unlikely to fulfill) how much was gained loss. If he is unable to do that then you come up with an expected amount to be gained, agree to split the profits (say expected gain is 20%, and you take 10%).
Will make no difference if you were charged interest. Even if you sign a heter iska you can't charge the interest
If you were to set up a heter iska in this situation, it would be logical to structure it such that the agreement to replicate an interest bearing loan via the iska and its attendant details follows the same rules as the credit card does. Again, it seems to me that a complex heter iska setup is well beyond the scope of complexity in any of these swipe borrowing schemes, so it's not really relevant. But if for some reason you wanted to, you could definitely set up a heter iska to cover yourself from the potential charges, fees, etc. that you might incur on the cc.

Offline meshugener

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #75 on: January 03, 2014, 09:21:27 AM »
I would call up the bank notifying them that someone stole my credit card and charged $100k
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Offline Ergel

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #76 on: January 03, 2014, 09:22:10 AM »
If you were to set up a heter iska in this situation, it would be logical to structure it such that the agreement to replicate an interest bearing loan via the iska and its attendant details follows the same rules as the credit card does. Again, it seems to me that a complex heter iska setup is well beyond the scope of complexity in any of these swipe borrowing schemes, so it's not really relevant. But if for some reason you wanted to, you could definitely set up a heter iska to cover yourself from the potential charges, fees, etc. that you might incur on the cc.
-1. You cannot set it up so that he covers your entire loss only if you lose money
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Offline Ergel

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #77 on: January 03, 2014, 09:24:26 AM »
I would call up the bank notifying them that someone stole my credit card and charged $100k
And what if they had called you to verify the charge and you agreed.
What if they ask you if you authorized him to make the charge? What happens if you lie and say no and then they deal with him directly and he proves you agreed to the charge? Losing 100k is bad. Facing criminal charges is worse
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Offline meshugener

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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #78 on: January 03, 2014, 09:33:26 AM »
of course I would only do it if he doesn't have any email to prove that I authorized him to use the card.
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Re: PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others
« Reply #79 on: January 03, 2014, 09:36:41 AM »
-1. You cannot set it up so that he covers your entire loss only if you lose money
First of all, I never wrote anything about covering yourself from losing the principle. Heter iska was introduced to the conversation as a way to pass on any interest charges on the cc to the final borrower, which would certainly be asur without a heter iska. In fact, I pointed out that if you can't get the guy to pay you the principle, you're not likely going to get him to pay interest charges.

Second of all, while you can't set up a guarantee of your original loan, you can make it very difficult for the 'borrower' to halachically (very important caveat) not have to pay you the principle. This would only be necessary in the first place because of the investment structure that the heter iska creates. Without it the borrower would be 100% liable to you for the principle only in beis din (assuming you can prove that the charge was for him).