Zev Brenner Talks Credit Card Swipe for Points, with Daniel Eleff of Dan’s Deals, and Binyomin Lifshitz of CrownHeights.info

Zev Brenner hosted a round table discussion on the Zev Brenner show, and discussed the recent revelation of a Crown Heights Credit Card scam that encompassed nearly four million dollars.

The discussion focused on the prevalence of the scam, and how it can be found in nearly every Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.

With over $50 Million invested in these shady practices, they are beginning to come apart, leaving the sometimes ignorant credit card holders holding enormous debt.

12 Comments

  • Chaim

    at 3% on the swipe its 18% APR because the money is held for two month not one.

  • Chaim

    The threat was that if you dispute the merchant will fight and not help at all but if you wait and dont do anything the merchant will pay back in full. but that was a lie to!

  • Sam

    Don’t dispute it with a lie. The merchant promised goods and services and did not deliver. What is the fraud?
    The goods and services was a check for the value of the swipe…

    • BW

      Artful way to phrase it. If you are a victim and your lawyer advises this, go for it.

      However, the principals are the account holder (you) and the vendor who received the payment. If the vendor shipped the merchandise to Sterling, as indicated as address on the initial transaction, no fraud was committed by the vendor. You trusted Sterling with a line of credited, they defaulted, your gripe is with them, not those who fulfilled merchandise orders to them.

      I think Bankrupcy is the way to go if the amount lost by individual is insurmountable. Will be hard to re-establish yourselves, but paying back $100k or more is not realistic, absent major brochos. So so so sorry to all the victims and parties involved.

    • To BW

      We don’t know for sure that he swiped the card as a vendor. He could have swiped it at his own terminal and used the cash to pay other debts.

  • BW

    My heart goes out to them and don’t mean to make them feel worse than they already do.

    However, rule of thumb, never make an investment that has 2% upward potential and 100% downward potential. The only way that such a downwardly skewed investment could be justified, is if the chances of loss are far less than a fraction of 1%. But in this instance where the one offering the “opportunity” was doing so because he didn’t have adequate credit on merit so he resorted to the highly unconventional. Highest reason of divorce is financial hardship, so these types of “opportunities” can seriously ruin your life. Stay away from unconventional investments, unless your gambling an amount of money that you can afford to lose.

  • Noson A. Kopel, Esq.

    Sam has a good point. There are several legal claims that victims can pursue to attempt to reclaim/prevent losses.