Merchant Account Underwriting Tools

Monthly Archives: April 2012

GREEN MILLIONAIRE……..free gas for life

According to Federal Trade Commission filing on April 12,2012 an injunction has been issued against Green Millionaire, LLC, Syndero, Inc, Scott Waltz, and Nigel Williams.

The complaint on April 11, 2012 alleges that via “deceptive television and cable commercials, as well as the Internet,” defendants offered the Green Millionaire Book for “Free.”

Cardholders who went to the website to order the “Free” book were without notification entered into a ‘negative option” resulting in recurring billings.

Surprisingly, it appears from the complaint that cardholders “were not shown how to get free gas for life, how to put solar panels on their roofs for free, or how to get their electricity meter to go backwards paying them.”

As underwriters its not our job to protect consumers who think they will get something for “Free.” However, it is our job to protect our merchant portfolio from the chargebacks that result from undisclosed “negative options.”

A little checking on a principal’s history is always a good idea.

PAYMENT PROCESSOR PLEADS GUILTY

march 26, 2012 Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Announced that CHAD ELIE, a payment processor who worked with Internet poker companies, Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker (the “Poker Companies”), pled guilty today to conspiring to commit bank fraud and operate illegal gambling businesses in connectionRead More

TWO CHARGED WITH $6 MILLION ONLINE CREDIT CARD FRAUD SCHEME

The Fraudulent Merchant Accounts
In order to process credit and debit card transactions, a business must establish an
account with a credit and debit card processor, known as a “merchant account.” Each merchant account is linked to a bank account associated with the business.
As part of their scheme, KHANDAKAR and SAELIM established fraudulent online
merchant accounts linked to phony businesses, which they used to process bogus credit and debit card charges. Some of the charges were unauthorized, and others were authorized, but goods or services were almost never provided to customers in return. For example, they founded a site that purported to sell childcare-related products. However, instead of fulfilling orders that customers placed through the website, KHANDAKAR and SAELIM generally pocketed the customer payments. They also used phony merchant accounts, linked to businesses called “Tips,” “La Pala Pa,” and “Café 007,” to make unauthorized charges on stolen credit and debit
cards.

Through these fraudulent merchant accounts, KHANDAKAR and SAELIM attempted to make more than $3 million worth of charges on at least 385 stolen American Express credit card accounts, and attempted more than $2 million worth of additional unauthorized charges on more than 1,000 credit or debit card accounts at Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Discover, among others. In some cases, the same credit cards that incurred charges in connection with the fraudulent EZ pass purchases were also charged in connection with the
fraudulent merchant accounts.
Read More

They Did The Math

People who have multi million dollar fines suspended due to their “inability to pay” have it figured out. Pay .03 of what you stole and start over. How good was the card processor’s math? For Release: 03/26/201 Loan Pitchman Permanently Banned from Telemarketing Consumers Charged Up-Front Fee for Supposed General-Use Credit Card The telemarketing businessRead More