As YWN reported last week, A Pesach getaway program scheduled to take place at the Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ, has dissolved into disaster due to what the director of the Pesach program described as a “huge financial scam.”
Many people are wondering what happened, and on Motzei Shabbos, Zev Brenner of talkline Communications interviewed Heshy Goldstein, the owner of Aryeh Hospitality on the Atlantic City Pesach program Debacle.
Was it a bad gamble or Fraud?
Scam or was the owner conned?
What happens to the money for those that paid for the Passover program?
Was the owner scammed as he claimed or is there more to the story?
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17 Responses
This story breaks my heart. I work in banking and I have seen hundreds of people lose millions through scams line this. NEVER wire money to anyone based on an email no matter what that email contains. Hackers can see everything and pose as anyone. NEVER confirm the wiring information contained in an email by calling the number in that email. Call the sender on the number you know is theirs. These are the rules we follow in banking and they are the only way to avoid these scams. Attorneys, accountants, title companies… anyone can be hacked and the hackers can send emails that are identical to the legitimate ones.
So sad. It’s too bad that those other people to whom this happened previously didn’t alert the broader frum community beforehand, so that this wouldn’t have happened to these people.
Never trust an email.
I would also want specified in the contract the exact account to use for payment, and any changes regarding that or anything else would be valid only with a revised contract from the vendor that is signed by both parties, not by email.
May Klal Yisrael never again suffer any loss.
How could Zev Brenner not have a spokesman on from The Claridge Hotel?
You would think that after 40 years of radio he’d have improved.
Like the first poster said, always confirm wiring instructions by phone to a number you trust, and particularly if they are being changed. That should have raised red flags to the accountant; this sadly sounds like a textbook case.
Good interview but the story is not credible. For a month before a big program was there no reason to contact the GM??!?!!
Sounds fishy. Or worse
The truth will be revealed.
Phishing Scams are real.
Was this a phishing scam or another scam? Time will tell. Heshy did say that the FBI was involved, and obtained the account holder, so it would make sense that the account holder would be served, and thus public knowledge could clear Heshy’s name of intentional wrongdoing.
However, without future evidence from Authorities corroborating the phishing scam. Would lead me to think it was the other scam type.
Unfortunately, Heshy’s persona seems like he has all the answers, and doesn’t seem like he has the ability to truly accept or own his share of responsibility. Whether it is with critics on the call, explanations for previous partners, explanations for previous vendors etc etc etc … Which in my opinion is a red flag.
The hotel’s conduct makes a lot of sense. They will double dip by collecting liquidated damages in the amount of the total rooms reserved for the program because of the breach plus earn additional revenue by renting out those rooms to other customers coming for spring break.
While I understand that it is important for his customers to know what happened, can someone please explain to me why this story was posted on Jewish news outlets? What is the toeles for this to be discussed in front of klal yisroel at large? I know that if I was this Heshy guy, I would want as little people as possible knowing about this unfortunate circumstance. To me this seems like true gossip, being maaver kol without reason. Lashon hara lmehadrin.
if you know anything about this person, you will realize that he himself is the scammer. but nice try with the story though
It was unclear whether a crime was reported to the FBI, or that a friend “recommended he talk with a agent he knows”. The latter is not enough. A report must be filed with the FBI.
Since there is an allegation of a serious crime here, a Police report and FBI report should have been made, as well as with the Attorney Generals office.
So these Report case numbers should be made public, and that would go a long way to satisfy the public that this being handled correctly
I don’t know any of the parties involved but anyone watching this interview would agree that this story doesn’t pass the smell test.
What business owner sends out large wires without verifying who the recipient is?
What caterer/event planner shows up to a venue without communicating with the venue in advance?
Which owner of a business sits back candidly talking about a crime that shut him down?
Which owner of a business goes on video and calmly and collectively speaks about a crime against his own business with a smirk on his face?
Then he goes on to BLAME those that reached out to him, for not making him aware that there is such a scam on the planet…..
Puhleeze…
This seems like a cover up, nothing else.
In the interview Heshy sounds sincere, and I wanted to believe him, but a few things just don’t make sense.
He wired the hotel six figure sums of money and never confirmed that they received the wires? The hotel didn’t reach out to him even once after they didn’t get the payments?
As others have noted, no business would continue forwarding wire transfers w/o confirmations. Also, friends in the hospitality industry tell me that anyone with guaranteed block room bookings would be in frequent contact with the hotel and banquet office to check on details and status. This guy has been in business for several years at least and cannot pretend he was granny in her 80s and was a naive and trusting yid who had been scammed.
It’s quite a scheme, you have to admit. As he mentioned in the interview, he encouraged all his guests to buy vacation insurance, and he said many did. Those people will recover their money from the insurance company. So even if he refunds all those who didn’t get insured, he can still pocket the money of those who did have insurance.
By the way, when asked why he himself didn’t insure his event, his answer was “I didn’t practice what I preached”. That would be bad enough, but more likely he didn’t buy insurance because then they’d investigate his story and discover the truth.
That was quite the interview! Very long and very uninformative. There was nothing to corroborate the story- just a story. If Heshy truly wanted to absolve himself, he would have come with witnesses or names or evidence of some sort. He says he owes nothing to anybody but his customers but still went on a popular show to defend himself?! Doesn’t make sense. Honestly, I am totally unfamiliar with him or his programs and don’t know what’s true or not and don’t care. Just watching him though in this interview doesn’t sit well with me (and yes, I can say that since he went public to solicit public opinion). At best he’s a very very very poor businessman with multiple major errors at multiple programs he’s admitted to. At worst, he’s a scam artist, which I’m gonna assume and hope is not the case. I just hope he has a backup plan (a kosher one) for parnassa.
Crummy interview. A lot of weird actions that don’t add up. I for one don’t believe a word this guy says
Anyone that wants answers, just ask a previous guest, investor, vendor, or employee of heshy. You’ll learn a lot.