Posts Tagged ‘skimming’
Eating out at a posh New York City restaurant? Check your credit card statement daily!
I’ll bet Warren Buffett checks his credit card accounts
Diners at some of New York’s most popular restaurants had their credit card details stolen by waiters working for gangs who targetted American Express black cards then spent millions of dollars on luxury clothes and vintage wine…
The cards of wealthy customers at Smith and Wollensky’s, Capital Grille and Wolfgang’s steakhouses were allegedly “skimmed” and used to buy Rolex watches, Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel handbags.
Almost 30 people have been charged with crimes including racketeering, conspiracy and grand larceny, after the alleged fraud ring was broken by police in Manhattan. Seven waiters at the restaurants are alleged by prosecutors to have been recruited by Luis Damian “D.J.” Jacas, the 41-year-old alleged ringleader, and equipped with card-copying devices.
They were instructed to focus on customers with premium credit cards including the American Express black card, so that large purchases would not trigger alerts to customers…
Police seized $1.1 million in cash and $1 million worth of designer watches, as well as 100 designer handbags and 35 cases of expensive vintage wine…
To protect the alleged scheme, Jacas is alleged to have only allowed purchases up to $35,000 and to have ordered that the cards be used for three days before being ditched.
His alleged second-in-command, a 51-year-old convicted killer called Gregory Portacio, 51, remains at large. All the defendants deny the charges. They each face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
Not a new practice. We all know that. But access to top-shelf clientele and high credit lines makes the scam more profitable than ever.
Top-rated restaurants had better check their hires with more accuracy. Consumers should be using accounts which allow a chance for you daily to check on illegal charges. It’s in your own interest, folks.
Banned film about Save the Children charity gets rare airing
Corporate headquarters in Westport, Connecticut
A 1969 documentary by Ken Loach, made for and later banned by Save the Children, has been shown to an audience of critics and colleagues in London. The untitled film will have its public premiere on 1 September and forms part of a major retrospective of the British director’s work at BFI Southbank.
The film took a critical view of the charity’s work in the UK and Kenya that its backers felt subverted its aims.
“There was a showing and not much was said,” the 75-year-old Loach remembers. “People left the room, and then we heard from the lawyers.”
The 53-minute film was co-funded by Save the Children, then celebrating its 50th anniversary, and London Weekend Television. “We assumed LWT would support the independence of a critical eye,” said Loach on Monday. “But they just backed away.”
As a result, the piece was consigned to the British Film Institute’s National Archive “and the key thrown away”.
That’s the version the Brits get to deal with. During my years in performing arts in among other places – Fairfield County in Connecticut – there were several happenings like this in the same time period.
One involved staff from Save the Children quitting their world headquarters over the “cost of doing business” which had a surprisingly smaller percentage of charity donations than perceived actually passing through to the children supposedly being saved. I knew a few of those folks and they worked for salaries considered nothing more than standard for the market. Yet, the managers of the charity took big chunks for themselves. Perhaps that’s changed?
Of course, films can be strange beasts. I saw the first cut of “Carry it On” and Joan Baez liked to have a fit on the spot with so much portrayed of her hubby, David, walking away from pacifism after he spent serious time in prison with folks from mean streets. The version that made it to nicey-nicey film festivals had lots of changes.
Sheriff jailed for skimming budget for inmate meals
Daylife/AP Photo by Gary Cosby Jr.
A federal judge ordered a north Alabama sheriff jailed this week, saying the lawman intentionally served jail inmates “woefully insufficient” meals in order to pocket more than $200,000.
After a Wednesday hearing, Clemon found Sheriff Bartlett in contempt of court, saying he had failed to comply with a consent decree in a 2001 lawsuit regarding conditions at the Morgan County Jail, according to documents filed in the case.
Clemon ordered Bartlett released from the federal Talladega Correctional Facility the following day after the sheriff’s attorneys pledged to provide better and healthier meals to inmates.
At issue is an Alabama law that attorneys for the inmates claim provides sheriffs with an incentive to skimp on feeding inmates. Under the law, sheriffs are permitted to keep — as personal income — money left over after purchasing food for inmates.
The state provides sheriffs with $1.75 per day per inmate for food, according to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office. However, in a March 2008 opinion, the office affirmed that sheriffs may legally keep what is left over.
What medieval creeps! The dude makes the Sheriff of Nottingham look positively benevolent.
Of course, the idiots in the state legislature – combined with slimy lawyers – constructed a system of commerce that pretty much guarantees stealing above and beyond the call of opportunity. Cripes!
How to be a world beater? Pick the right competition
World mountain bike chariot championships, Powys, Wales
Most of these events are in the UK. Do the Brits have the market cornered on wacky competitions?
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your gears. The village of Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys may be more famous for hosting the World Bog Snorkelling Championships and the Man versus Horse race, but mountain bike charioteering looks a lot more fun.
For those readers not hailing from the town of Rawtenstall in Lancashire, clog cobbing is the sport of throwing an old working boot. Its genius lies in its simplicity: competitors have three goes at hurling a boot (there’s a wide selection on offer) backwards over a shoulder down the road outside the Roebuck Inn.
World stone skimming championships, Argyll, Scotland
Once a year hundreds of competitors congregate on Easdale Island, the smallest permanently inhabited island of the Inner Hebrides (population 60), to do battle in one of the world’s less conventional sporting arenas: a flooded slate quarry. Happily for readers who see the referral of sporting decisions to a video umpire as a sign of the impending collapse of society, the stones are not judged on how many skips they make (although they have to do at least three) but the distance they travel before they sink.
And on and on.
There’s also a wife-carrying championship in Finland and the Famous Nathan’s hot dog eating competition in Coney Island. Surely, you can find some sort of silliness to match your talents and competitive ego.
