Jay Varma: Scamdemic Wizard

"Dr." Jay Varma had orgies and dance raves on molly while advising Mayor de Blasio to shut the whole city down causing millions of New Yorkers to lose their jobs and then crafting the vaccine mandates that led to thousands of New Yorkers losing their jobs. And he did it for the power and the glory and from this video, for the p--sy. This lowlife belongs in prison but for now we'll take him getting humiliated while dining al fresco

Migrants hoodwinked by hotel shelter worker realty hustle

 

THE CITY 

Around a dozen migrant families desperate to move out of a Staten Island shelter said they were scammed out of thousands of dollars by an employee of the shelter, who promised them leases and furniture in newly renovated apartments, THE CITY has learned. 

The employee was fired after “serious allegations and evidence of dishonest and fraudulent activities” came to the hotel’s attention, according to a letter posted inside the Holiday Inn Express and dated Oct. 2 that identifies the employee as Cythia Guevara Rodriguez. 

THE CITY interviewed more than a dozen shelter residents who said they fell victim to Rodriguez and also reviewed the fake leases they signed, screenshots of Zelle transfers and messages they exchanged on WhatsApp and Facebook with Guevara that show  families willing to do anything to move out of a shelter and into apartments of their own doing business with someone who appeared ready to capitalize on their desperation. 

The situation at the Holiday Inn Express highlights the troubles faced by migrants families in shelters as they try to find places of their own before the city potentially puts them on a clock to move out. 

She played with the emotions of our children. Our children were so excited, they thought they were going to get out of here,” said Jennifer, 41, a Venezuelan mother to a one-year-old who asked her last name be withheld. She and another couple said they’d paid Guevara $1,700 in a series of cash and Zelle payments, and were expecting to move together into a house with a parking spot on Elverton Avenue in Great Kills on Oct. 16. 

“I can’t sleep thinking, ‘what happened actually happened,’” she said in Spanish. “It won’t leave my mind.”

Guevara, for her part, denies the allegations, telling THE CITY on Thursday that she’d taken money from two families and had intended to get them apartments through Craigslist but she hadn’t been able to find them yet. 

“They were impatient,” she said, adding that “they’re gonna get their money back.” 

Others, she said, must have made photocopies of leases and were fabricating additional allegations against her. 

“A lot of people right now what they’re doing is trying to gang up on me,” she said. “They’re just trying to make it, you know, worse than it is.”

Jaclyn Stoll, a spokesperson for Project Hospitality, the nonprofit with a $5.3 million contract to run the Holiday Inn Express migrant shelter, said Guevara was not an employee of the nonprofit and declined to comment while an investigation was pending. She deferred further comment to the city’s Department of Homeless Services or DHS. 

“It is unconscionable that any individual would attempt to exploit vulnerable families for material gain. Whenever we learn of an incident that puts the wellbeing of our clients at risk, we work with our not-for-profit provider partners to immediately investigate the situation and take swift and appropriate action to address the issue at hand, said Nicholas Jacobelli, a spokesperson for DHS.

“We serve incredibly vulnerable populations, and we expect all those who interact with our clients to treat them with dignity and respect.”

Cons hack Con Ed

 

SI Advance

 Savvy scammers are using popular payment apps like CashApp, Venmo and Zelle to steal city residents’ money by threatening of utility cutoffs if demands are not met.

Con artists are calling the company’s customers and telling them they need to make an immediate payment using one of the apps or risk having service slashed from their homes, Con Edison announced in a release.

The company said it does not accept payments via payment platforms and does not demand immediate payment. If residents receive a call requesting a bill payment through these apps, they should hang up the phone.

“The emergence of payment apps as the favorite method of scammers shows how inventive these people are,” said James Duggan, a department manager in Con Edison’s Corporate Security group. “They never stop looking for dirty tricks they can use to steal from our customers. We want to be just as relentless in urging our customers to recognize signs that someone is a scammer.”

In 2021 alone, scammers have received more than $550,000 from Con Edison customers, though the company noted the problem is likely to be more widespread as many people who are targeted do not file complaints.

Con Edison said it continues to receive calls daily from customers who were targeted by impostors claiming to be from the company.

The slick scam artists use technology capable of making a Con Edison phone number show up on the resident’s caller ID, the company said. Both residential and business customers are targeted, while Spanish-speaking customers often receive calls from scammers fluent in the language.

In addition to newer payment app techniques, scammers also continue to use well-known tactics against Con Edison customers, including attempts to get residents to buy a pre-paid card to avoid service turnoff.

The company said it has even received reports of scammers claiming the payment did not go through before demanding another payment — causing customers to send multiple payments totaling thousands of dollars to a scammer.

Dirty cop ripping off tenants and charging above market rate for basement apartment

 

 

NY Daily News

A duplicitous NYPD veteran is accused of scamming eight apartment hunters by posing as the owner of his rented Queens home, collecting a security deposit and first month’s rent from his victims before disappearing, the Daily News has learned.

Officer Burban Pierre advertised his rented basement apartment in Ozone Park via Craigslist over a four-month stretch in which prospective tenants paid up to $2,800 in move-in costs for the leased space that he called home, according to a victim and one of his neighbors.

Vivian Griffith answered the officer’s ad in April, recalling how she texted Pierre, signed a lease and paid $2,200 upfront for security and rent. But the frustrated woman was never able to move inside, and neighbors eventually alerted her to the officer’s ongoing swindle.

“I knocked on the people’s door upstairs,” she recalled. “They answered and said, ‘Pierre is the tenant living downstairs.’ I showed them the lease. They said, ‘Oh, he’s good. You’re the eighth one. We’ve had eight people come here on this.’ He never told me he was a cop.”

But Pierre, who earned nearly $130,000 on the job last year, definitely told her the building belonged to him, Griffith added.

“I feel very upset with the fact that this comes from an officer who is supposed to protect and serve,” added the mother of two daughters. “It’s shocking that a police officer would go to such lengths to take from people who don’t have. It’s disheartening and upsetting.”

The NYPD confirmed an investigation targeting Pierre, who joined the department in 2010 and was recently moved to the Bronx Court section after working in a pair of Manhattan precincts.

Bad pick Governor Hochul

THE CITY 

Newly appointed Lt. Governor Brian Benjamin stands to make a hefty profit from insider stock he holds in a company that arranges loans with interest rates up to 500% and has been sued repeatedly, THE CITY has learned.

Gov. Kathy Hochul recently tapped Benjamin for her old job after she succeeded Andrew Cuomo, who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations and other scandals.

Benjamin, a Manhattan state senator for the past four years, is set to be sworn into his new role on Thursday.

The Harvard Business School grad got the inside edge via his role as a founding board member of Next Point Acquisition Corp., an investment firm that earlier this year bought the oft-sued California firm LoanMe, records show.

Benjamin resigned from NextPoint’s board in March, but kept his stock. THE CITY estimates that Benjamin could net a hefty $80,000 profit off what appears to be his initial $4,100 investment if he sold the stock tomorrow on the Toronto Stock Exchange where it’s traded.

The California-based LoanMe arranges small personal and business loans for borrowers with troubled credit histories, using banks in states with few restrictions on interest rates. LoanMe borrowers are then on the hook for interest rates of 98% to 500%, plus fees, according to rates in some states posted on the company’s website.

LoanMe does no business in New York because interest rates on most loans are by law capped at 16% per annum. The state considers rates higher than 25% to be criminal.

LoanMe has been sued 33 times in seven states in the last five years, records show. The firm has settled all but two of those lawsuits under terms that remain sealed, records show.

In some suits, consumers charged that LoanMe bombarded them with texts and robo calls pushing them to take out loans. In others, borrowers alleged LoanMe employed similar harassment if they were late with payments.

Some borrowers have also alleged LoanMe reported to credit rating agencies that they still owed money even after they’d paid their debts — an erroneous claim they said destroyed their credit.

COVID card sharks

  NY Post

With these cards, you could be playing a real dead man’s hand.

A group scammers tried to make big bucks by selling useless cards that they falsely claimed would ward off COVID-19 and free users from having to wear a mask, prosecutors said.

The so-called “Virus Shut Out Cards” were meant to be worn around the neck on a cord and act as “air sanitizers” that killed the coronavirus — but they were really bogus snake-oil protection.

“The brazenly false claims allegedly promoted by the defendants about their product potentially endangered the public not only by claiming to protect against the COVID-19 virus, but also by exposing users to the health hazard posed by a misbranded pesticide,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme in a statement.

Po Shan Wong, the general manager of JCD Distribution Inc., and Zhen Wu, the company’s sales manager, allegedly sold the cards in minimum quantities of 50, charging $9.50 each, over the phone and online from April to July, the complaint states.

JCD allegedly claimed on their Facebook page in Mandarin that the cards were “portable space disinfection and sterilization” devices that emit chlorine dioxide, which they touted as having a “sterilization rate at 99%.” Chlorine dioxide — a gas at room temperature — is actually a bleaching agent and a pesticide, officials said.

New Woodside luxury apartment building's mandated affordable housing units start at $1,890

Jackson Heights Post


More than 20 apartments are up for grabs in a new affordable housing lottery for a soon-to-be completed development along Queens Boulevard in Woodside.

J&J Tower, a nine-story project at 46-02 70th St., is offering 23 apartments ranging from studios and two bedrooms, starting at a monthly rent of $1,890 a month and going up to $2,530.

The units are available to households earning 130 percent of the Area Median Income.
Five studios are available to households of up to two people, with two available at $1,890 and three going for $1,920. The latter three studios require a household income between $65,829 and $95,030 for a single-person household to quality, and goes up to $108,550 for a family of two.

 

That's right, there are studios that are accepting applications for two people. And the max is at 100,000?  It's clear what this affordable housing is being offered to in this area and how unobtainable it is to, let's say, 80% of this city's citizenry.

Metrocard scammers at Sutphin

From PIX11:

A daily commuter who moves through the Sutphin Boulevard transit hub told PIX11 a troubling situation has been going on there for at least three years.

“Gangs control the front of the turnstiles,” the woman told us. “They don’t let tourists out of the station until they give up their MetroCards.”

The hustlers want the cards to “swipe through” other tourists arriving in the United States, who want to get into the subway system. A guy named Lavell said he’s seen the swipers in action and knows the fee.

“Two dollars, and they give you a transfer.”

When PIX11 decided to investigate on two recent weekdays, we saw several people—men and women—soliciting MetroCards from travelers who were leaving the subway system, pushing their luggage along, on their way to the AirTrain that would take them to JFK airport.

Someone is reusing surrendered license plates

From PIX11:

The DMV is supposed to destroy all license plates turned into its offices. A department official said the plates are sent to a recycler in upstate New York. But, the official admitted, there have been instances of surrendered plates turning up on other vehicles.

“Somebody is doing something illegal," Sandi said, speculating that someone, somewhere, must have the Durells' old plates.

Next, the Department of Finance sent the Durells a Notice of Impending Default, tacking on a $30 penalty and threatening to turn the case over to a collection agency.

Don't trust this real estate brokerage!

From PIX11:

Jaclin Osan admits she’s been too trusting.

She responded to an ad on apartments.com and liked a place in Queens. A guy she knew as Jason showed it to her. His real name is actually Joe Chyla. He was associated with a real estate brokerage called Incmobilia. Being so trusting, Jaclin gave Jason a $1,900 deposit. Cash.

But soon afterwards, Jaclin says Jason told her the landlord wanted a year’s rent up front. She decided she wanted her deposit back. Jason/Joe told her Incmobilia had the money. And Incmobilia gave her a run around. She says a woman named Michelle Wiser told her Jason didn’t work for Incmobilia.

So, she got in touch with the head of the company. But it was more run around.

South Ozone Park landlord engages in rental scam

From PIX11:

Samintra Boodram from Queens went to see the apartment at 117-20 Lincoln St. in South Ozone Park, Queens.

It’s in a multi-family house. She says a man who identified himself as Tony Bacchus, the landlord, showed her the three-bedroom unit.

It was obvious people were living in the apartment. The landlord told her the tenants lease was nearly up and urged her to put down a $2,000 security deposit. She did. A week later he asked for another $2,000 in cash for the first month’s rent. She paid that, too.

Sumintra says the landlord told her she could move in August 17, after he had fixed up the apartment. But she says he then stopped answering her calls and emails. She went to the house and says she heard voices inside the apartment, but no one would open the door.

“I called the police and the neighbors came out. Everybody was saying how he had been doing this to a lot of people,” says Sumintra.

Scammers sought in phony apartment rental scheme

From PIX11:

Several New Yorkers hoping to move into new apartments were the victims of a scam, police said Monday.

The culprits met with the victims over the last few months and identified themselves as apartment owners, police said. They took deposits from victims and gave them keys for already-occupied apartments.

The scam started on April 1 when a man took a $1,400 deposit from a 40-year-old woman in Jackson Heights. Subsequent ‘deposits’ by other victims were for even more money. A 25-year-old woman gave a man $1,800 for an already-occupied apartment on April 21.

Sunnyside rental scammer sentenced to probation

Photo from Sunnyside Post

From Sunnyside Post:

A Queens woman who owned a Woodside real estate firm and scammed 28 prospective tenants out of nearly $95,000 was sentenced last month to 3-years probation–and is required to repay all her victims.

Rosita Tsiklauri, a 48-year-old College Point resident, operated Fast Solutions Realty out of 47-20 48th Avenue, where she duped prospective tenants out of thousands in cash, according to the Queens District Attorney’s office.

Tsiklauri’s firm collected deposits, fees and rental payments on apartments that were not available.

She would often show the same apartment to prospective tenants and ask them for cash payments to cover the deposit and first month’s rent. She would then tell her victims that the apartment was suddenly taken and pocket the cash.

In cases where she did refund her prospective tenants, the checks either bounced or her bank account was frozen.

She was arrested last year at JFK Airport after returning from the Ukraine. She was charged with second-degree criminal possession of stolen property, third-and-fourth degree grand larceny, first degree scheme to defraud and issuing a bad check. She faced up to 15 years in prison.

Police impersonator strikes in Flushing

From CBS:

Cops are still looking for a police impersonator who made a fake stop in Flushing, Queens last week.

He told an 82-year-old man he could pay him $700 to avoid a traffic violation for running a stop sign.

The suspect drove the man to a bank where he handed over the cash

Phony contractors are scamming the elderly

From CBS 2:

Con artists appear to be targeting elderly homeowners in sections of Queens.

The suspects convince people to get roof repairs and pay in cash — only later do residents learn the work is sub-standard.

As CBS2’s Dave Carlin reported, police in Middle Village posted signs warning residents of a door-to-door scam.

Police said sometimes, scam artists steal the identities of legitimate roofers, making them difficult to track down. They said they need neighbors to help spread the word and help them stop the scam with tips to avoid getting conned.

The warnings posted on trees and power poles are a heads up for homeowners to ignore anyone knocking on doors offering roof repairs or other fix it jobs.

Tip offs that the workers are not legit include vehicles with out of state plates and demanding cash payments for the work.

Another scam involves awning repairs. Con artists get money up front for the work, but never return.

Apartment denied, deposit pilfered

From PIX11:

Demaris Morales and her mom Delia need help getting a new apartment in Queens. Why? Because they gave a $6,600 deposit to a broker they knew as “William” at Britati Realty in Woodhaven.

Demaris and her mom are Section 8 tenants. They’re housing is assisted by the federal government. But they told us “William” never permitted the Section 8 inspector to check out the Jamaica apartment they wanted. And next thing they knew, another tenant was in there.

So, of course, “William” gave them their money back, right?

Of course not. If he did the right thing I wouldn’t be involved.

Oh, and by the way, it appears “William” may actually be Anthony Ferrerosa. He’s used both names. In 2013, The NYC Commission on Human Rights found “William” and “Anthony” were the same person. And fined Ferrerosa $7,500 for discriminating against tenants with subsidies or vouchers.

Anyway, when we went over to his office, “William” wasn’t very happy to see us. First, he said there was a paper the ladies had signed that seemed to suggest he was off the hook. No such paper exists. And then he bolted out the door and then just walked away.

Beware of latest mail scam

From CBS:

A fake pest control violation letter is circulating in the city and its asking its recipients to pay up big bucks.

On Friday, Henry Gelfand received the official looking letter claiming to be from the City of New York.

“They’re using the city logo on top, they’re using the city logo on the bottom,” Gelfand said told CBS2’s Tracee Carrasco.

Only problem? It’s not the city who sent the letter. The notice, which is printed on a fake New York City Department letter head, claims to be from the “Rodent Control Program Assessment.”

The letter demands immediate payment for an unspecified violation ranging from $120 to $280, to be mailed to “Vermin Control of New York.”

“The property address is missing, the lot number is missing, all the information that should be provided in a violation is missing,” Gelfand said. The letter reads “this violation cannot be contested or challenged.”

De Blasio press release indicates shelter shuffle is a huge scam

The de Blasio administration has announced the imminent opening of 4 new shelters this month in Maspeth, Woodside, Bed-Stuy and Ozone Park.

Yet on August 10th, he announced the following:

So do we need to "plan capacity" or should we pat de Bozo on his head for his deft handling of the homeless crisis?

Astoria con artist still at it

From PIX11:

Recently, Phivos was arrested after allegedly ripping off a number of other renters from whom he took a combined $13,000 in fees for an apartment in a brand new building on Astoria Boulevard. Each of them was promised the apartment after they paid first and last month’s rent and a broker’s fee. However, none of them got the promised lease or their money back.

As a result, the Queens district attorney investigated Ioannou and he was arraigned on three counts of grand larceny in the third degree and three counts of scheme to defraud in the first degree. Bail was set at $15,000. Ioannou remains in jail awaiting trial. His next court date is March 8.

While that case moves along, another victim has recently come forward. Engeel Zeldon says she gave Phiovs Ioannou $7,200 in cash to rent an apartment on 40th Avenue in Astoria.

Zeldon, the single mother of two children, paid $2,400 each for first and last month’s rent and $2,400 for the broker’s fee. Phivos told her the landlord was out of town in Las Vegas and when he returned a few days later, he would sign the lease and give her the key. But after those few days passed, and Phivos stopped answering the phone, Zeldon went to the office of Astoria First Realty and found it was closed down.

The city marshal had evicted Ioannou for allegedly owing six months rent to the landlord.

"Was licensed" contractor scammed old lady

From PIX11:

Joseph Battaglia claimed to be a licensed home improvement contractor when Virginia James hired him to renovate her small bathroom and replace a number of doors in her Queens home.

But a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs says “Battaglia and Sons Contracting license was revoked in 2013.” His new company, JAB Home Improvement, is also “not licensed” and is “under investigation,” says the Consumer Affairs Department.

We recently confronted Battaglia about a court judgment he lost to Virginia James for $4854.00 for failing to complete the bathroom renovations and not delivering the replacement doors.

“How come you haven’t paid the judgment?” I asked Battaglia. He claimed to be unaware the court case had taken place six months ago and that he lost by default when he failed to show up.

“You take advantage of the elderly. My mother was 80-years-old”, said Eileen James. It was Eileen’s mother who sued Battaglia. Tragically, she died just one week after filing suit, and Eileen continued the court fight on her mother’s behalf. “He made commitments to me that he was going to refund the money and fix what needed to be fixed. And of course, months went on. He never did anything”, said Eileen.