PSA: Don't swipe recklessly for others

[ExGingi]

It's been going on for at least 7-8 years. Could be even longer
 Still not 100% sure what the best course of action is. Disputing can potentially cause legal issues down the road if one doesn't say the full truth. Defaulting is the safest option but obviously involves screwing up your credit, dealing with some type of a settlement or even worse if it ends up in court.

If default involves only one side of a household, it's not that terrible. I personally know someone who got through quite OK when he needed to default, because he always kept accounts separate, and his wife's credit remained clean.

[Chief Rabbi of New York]

It's been going on for at least 7-8 years. Could be even longer
 Still not 100% sure what the best course of action is. Disputing can potentially cause legal issues down the road if one doesn't say the full truth. Defaulting is the safest option but obviously involves screwing up your credit, dealing with some type of a settlement or even worse if it ends up in court.

What did you think you were swiping for ?

[JACKBLUE]

What did you think you were swiping for ?

To make points and rewards, people I know swiped their ink card at Toners.com and got 5p per dollar, they gave $200K made 1M points and sold for $15K every 6 weeks.... so they didn’t ask for what they’re swiping.... making $15K every 6 weeks makes you addicted to swipe more.

[AJK]

To make points and rewards, people I know swiped their ink card at Toners.com and got 5p per dollar, they gave $200K made 1M points and sold for $15K every 6 weeks.... so they didn’t ask for what they’re swiping.... making $15K every 6 weeks makes you addicted to swipe more.

On what card do you earn 5X for 200K+?

[JACKBLUE]

On what card do you earn 5X for 200K+?

they had 4 INK cards $50K on each

[knowitall]

they had 4 INK cards $50K on each

Still not 15k every 6 weeks, it’s once per year

[cmey]

He paid people to get him credit cards from other to swipe by him.

This is what makes the whole thing even scarier to me. It sounds like there was a secondary market for credits card swipes. Were the credit card swipes being bundled and sold down the line, like in the secondary mortgage market?  If that is true the  credit cards funds could have ended up anywhere; floundering businesses, hard money lenders, etc. making things that much more complicated to unravel.

My heart breaks for these people. We have been raising the alarm on this forum for years but what if we had raised the alarmed publicly years ago. Who knows how many (financial) lives and Sholom bayis could have been saved. OTOH, we didn’t really have anything solid to go on back then. I just feel terrible about what so many are going through.

Perhaps some of the hundreds of victims (at least those who’s stories are very similar) would want to organize, hire competent counsel, and develop a comprehensive workable strategy that they can execute, rather than dealing with this on the individual level. At the very least Just having others in the same boat to talk to might provide moral support, kind of a support group for victims.

[JACKBLUE]

Still not 15k every 6 weeks, it’s once per year

they took from a bunch of people they knew what they’re doing!

[YesThatsMe]

ere is the story in regards to one of the recent credit card swiping scams.

Someone already mentioned the owners name S*****. He has a business reselling toners and other photo electronics.

He's been using people's credit cards for quite a number of years where he would use people's cards and pay the bills when they were due. He also had a lot of loans from loan sharks - paying 30% interest and paying over a year etc.

It reached a point where his business couldn't sustain the extreme amount of interest he was paying for swiping other people's credit cards.

He paid people to get him credit cards from other to swipe by him.
I know for a fact that he and his brother hounded people for credit cards when they already knew that things were going downhill, so all this talk that he's not a ganev, and didn't mean to screw anyone is a load of BS

The straw that broke the camel's back was when his credit card processor froze his processor and alot of money as well, and that is when the whole thing went bust.

There is between 15-18mm dollars owed to over 200 people just on credit cards alone. This doesn't include cash loans that he owes people.

These people live a very comfortable lifestyle, nice houses, expensive cards, own real estate etc.

Unfortunately there are many young kollel guys involved that don't have a single penny to their name and got connected to all this via the guys who brokered credit cards to this business.

At this point he hasn't given any sort of plan on how and when hes paying people back and is mostly just avoiding giving any real concrete plan. The options for all the victims all have downsides to them.

A few people have already disputed 100's of thousands of dollars, and this caused the merchant account to be flagged. Almost every person I know that is involved have gotten FR'ed by Amex.

People are either going to just have to default on the loans and hope for the best, or some may take the dispute route although with this much money at stake I doubt the processing bank will go down so easily. There are ways to dispute legally without saying any lies but it can be expensive and in addition there is a very big chance that this can blow up into an even larger criminal fraud investigation, and people might not want to be connected in any way shape or form to this business.

Its a big mess, and this isn't the only story happening right now - aside from Sterling there are at least 3 more stories that I know of going on right now.

I know it's been said many times here, and I myself always thought it won't happen to me, and its quite embarrassing - I'm a longtime ddfer and know many people on here personally - hence I created a new username for this post.

It's a very unfortunate situation with many victims involved. I know people who were/are on the verge of getting divorced bec of this. It's just not worth it. No matter how much point/money you can make. There are too many risks involved.

I will not answer any pm's and will try my best to answer any questions that are asked here.

Wow.  I PITY YOU.

This S**** sure lives in an expensive house (Zestimate $2,094,259, would sell for $3MM), and his kids are all mesudar. But good luck, the house is definitely in an LLC (probably retro transferred) and you won't see a penny there. Other than that he prob has 0 assets (like 90% of the people in Chareidy America who own a house and some brand name clothes and sit in seat 3C).

Oy, we have come a far way since the camps. Our grandparents who came to America found a land where opportunity abounded. They were happy to work and live w/o the fear of the last 2,000 years.

The next generation learned to take materialism to a whole new level, becoming the ultimate Americans. And generation 3 knows no answer other than debt. "Everyone has it" "What am I, a neb" "Yoish I love it I need it" etc. etc. etc.

"דרייט קרעדיט קארדס" is in Chareidy America today considered normal. How can a community which shuns the professions ever keep the Champ-Des-Elysees which 13th Ave has become busy? Pay for leases (-another form of debt) on Escalades and Navigators? Fly to Israel in first and stay at the WAJ? Make Chasuna for $200K a side? Buy $5K Shtreimels and Sheitels every 2-3 years?

Credit cards, LOC's, triple mortgages, Amazon Loans, and now - screwing the rest.

The Chareidy Tri State communites are the Soddom of our times. Everything is money money money. Kavod Kavod Kavod. SAD.

[Moshe123]

Do people realize that the logical next step is the banks and FBI getting involved against the victims for fraudulent income declarations?

[Dan]

Do people realize that the logical next step is the banks and FBI getting involved against the victims for fraudulent income declarations?

Oy.

[Dan]

The Chareidy Tri State communites are the Soddom of our times. Everything is money money money. Kavod Kavod Kavod. SAD.

Add to Pros/Cons thread.

[ayman]

Wow.  I PITY YOU.

This S***** sure lives in an expensive house, and his kids are all mesudar. But good luck, the house is definitely in an LLC (probably retro transferred) and you won't see a penny there. Other than that he prob has 0 assets (like 90% of the people in Chareidy America who own a house and some brand name clothes and sit in seat 3C).

Oy, we have come a far way since the camps. Our grandparents who came to America found a land where opportunity abounded. They were happy to work and live w/o the fear of the last 2,000 years.

The next generation learned to take materialism to a whole new level, becoming the ultimate Americans. And generation 3 knows no answer other than debt. "Everyone has it" "What am I, a neb" "Yoish I love it I need it" etc. etc. etc.

"דרייט קרעדיט קארדס" is in Chareidy America today considered normal. How can a community which shuns the professions ever keep the Champ-Des-Elysees which 13th Ave has become busy? Pay for leases (-another form of debt) on Escalades and Navigators? Fly to Israel in first and stay at the WAJ? Make Chasuna for $200K a side? Buy $5K Shtreimels and Sheitels every 2-3 years?

Credit cards, LOC's, triple mortgages, Amazon Loans, and now - screwing the rest.

The Chareidy Tri State communites are the Soddom of our times. Everything is money money money. Kavod Kavod Kavod. SAD.

You've taken that pretty far, painted an entire community with broad strokes that hardly define the majority, let alone the entire population.

This is a serious issue, and it affects plenty of ppl. Taking the message and skewing it either with sarcasm, or extremism isn't helpful.

[churnbabychurn]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud

To make points and rewards, people I know swiped their ink card at Toners.com and got 5p per dollar, they gave $200K made 1M points and sold for $15K every 6 weeks.... so they didn’t ask for what they’re swiping.... making $15K every 6 weeks makes you addicted to swipe more.

It's not so much affinity fraud. It's mostly greed and a naive culture of getting free support/money with no hard work. That combined with total misunderstanding of finance or business in general..

[gingyguy]

It's not so much affinity fraud. It's mostly greed and a naive culture of getting free support/money with no hard work. That combined with total misunderstanding of finance or business in general..

That, and the fact that its a seemingly Frum Yid. Hence the Affinity Fraud

[churnbabychurn]

Do people realize that the logical next step is the banks and FBI getting involved against the victims for fraudulent income declarations?

Absolutely. I felt like this for a while... Some poor shmo is going to be begging for legal money soon..

Imho this was/is the biggest risk of lending $$$ to a swiper. Bankruptcy is not life ending. A criminal investigation is..

[YesThatsMe]

You've taken that pretty far, painted an entire community with broad strokes that hardly define the majority, let alone the entire population.

This is a serious issue, and it affects plenty of ppl. Taking the message and skewing it either with sarcasm, or extremism isn't helpful.

גלייב מיר, איך ווייס וואס איך רעד.

[yelped]

גלייב מיר, איך ווייס וואס איך רעד.

True to an extent. In your (self-identified somewhere else) community, it's unfortunately true to a degree. But that's not the whole BP. Maybe you live in Willy.

[churnbabychurn]

That, and the fact that its a seemingly Frum Yid. Hence the Affinity Fraud

Yeah I guess. Spoke to a Vic the other day. He's out 180k. He was dumbly counting his points and was absolutely clueless about the business he was swiping for.. wasn't in the least concerned, like never even thought twice about lending hundreds of k...
Until one day they didn't pay him.

[gingyguy]

גלייב מיר, איך ווייס וואס איך רעד.

The Chareidy Tri State communites are the Soddom of our times. Everything is money money money. Kavod Kavod Kavod. SAD.

Weird because the vast majority of people that i know in the tri state area are not money or kavod hungry .
hence

You've taken that pretty far, painted an entire community with broad strokes that hardly define the majority, let alone the entire population.

This is a serious issue, and it affects plenty of ppl. Taking the message and skewing it either with sarcasm, or extremism isn't helpful.