Madoff versus Baladjay: The King of Ponzi versus The Queen of Pyramiding

Madoff versus Baladjay: The King of Ponzi versus the Queen of Pyramiding

by: Kendrick Chua, The Wealth Warrior

Wall Street has had a colorful week to say the least. The notorious Bernard “Bernie” Madoff had been sentenced to 150 years in prison and restitution of $170 Billion dollars for the 11 cases of felony with over $65 Billion dollars of fraud, the largest in US History. Clearly, he earned the title, “King of Ponzi”.

That was the headline of Wall Street this week. But in the local front we have someone who can give Madoff a run for his money. And she is the queen of pyramiding, Rosario Baladjay-the president of the Multitel who duped millions of investors into her pyramiding scheme.

Mano-a-mano, who amongst the two is the better (or worse) scoundrel?

(more…)

Tags: fraud, ponzi, pyramiding

Reversing Credit Charges

Reversing Credit Card Charges

by: Kendrick Chua, the Wealth Warrior

A couple of months back, I became an addition to the growing number of victims of Internet fraud. That uneventful day, my paypal password got hacked and all my earnings from Internet marketing went kapoof!

Worse, since my credit card was linked to my Paypal account to verify this, the difference between the transaction and the funds was charged to my BDO credit card, without my knowledge and consent.

The amount charged was Ps. 1,300++. Although I can pay this to avoid the hassle and inconvenience of calling up their customer service or fraud department about this, I decided to proceed to file my complaint.

I first submitted a letter to BDO customer service after getting the fax number through their hotline. In my letter, I detailed the transaction and why the credit card was linked to my Paypal account and that my first call to cancel my credit card to their customer service was unsuccessful because I was told they were doing a systems updating which will last for a couple of hours.

After a week or so, I received a call from their fraud department asking me to re-fax the letter this time with my signature on it (must have forgotten to sign it the first time around).

I did what I was told but I never heard from them again.

Just today, I received my BDO statement of account and I discovered the reversal of charges. I was pleased with BDO for protecting their card holders against fraudulent transactions. When you place the customers’ interest before you own, customers will stick with you and that’s what BDO did.

Furthermore, I was pleased with myself as well for taking the initiative to contest the transaction. At first I thought it was futile since it was still my responsibility that the transaction was made but because of what I did, I saved P1,300.00!

In case you unfortunately encountered similar case, try to the following:

1.)    Have your credit card blocked off. If the request cannot be made for whatever reason, indicate the time, date and cause so that you can strengthen your complain in the future. It’s not your fault they are doing their updates or their system is down.

2.)    Immediately write a letter on the fraudulent transaction and contest the purchase. It won’t hurt to try especially if the amount is something they can let go, they will gladly do so just to maintain your business.

3.)    Follow it up with the customer service on your request’s status. They will know that you are serious in your complain.

Internet frauds are very rampant now but we have a way to also safeguard and protect ourselves. Although the items above are just tips, I hope you won’t ever need to do those things.

Tags: credit card, fraud