Yeshiva Orchos Chaim has filed a lawsuit seeking judicial intervention after $84,076 was unlawfully pilfered out of their bank account, FAA News has learned.
Elite Interior Contracting Corp., which is owned by Fabio Bordone, is located in Maspeth, New York.
Atteran LLC d/b/a Workforce Go!, located in Carrollton, Texas, is a payroll processing company.
Elite's owner (or possibly an individual pretending to be him) retained Atteran to handle their payroll processing.
Somehow, instead of processing the payroll from Elite's bank account, Atteran accessed Yeshiva Orchos Chaim's bank account and deducted the funds from there.
Multiple transactions occurred for payroll of Elite and processed by Atteran and the yeshiva's account has now been scammed a total of $84,076.
Upon receipt of their bank statement, the Yeshiva's Administration learned about the stolen funds and reached out to both Atteran, and their bank, Fulton, to demand a return of their funds.
Unfortunately, both Fulton Bank and Atteran have refused to restore most of the stolen funds.
At this point, the yeshiva's administration are uncertain of whether or not Atteran was aware of the fraudulent scheme.
Either way, they do need to get their moneys returned and as of now neither Atteran nor Fulton Bank have assisted.
As such, the yeshiva's administration has retained Hackensack Attorney Avram E. Frisch, Esq. to assist in getting their money back.
Mr. Frisch has just filed a civil lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court in Ocean County naming as defendants Fulton Bank, Fulton Financial Corporation, Atteran LLC d/b/a Workforce Go!, Fabio Bordone, and Elite Interior Contracting Corp.
The Complaint alleges:
Fulton was negligent in allowing the transactions to occur and has been resistant to making the Plaintiff whole.
Fulton has an obligation to safeguard Plaintiff’s accounts, but is instead deducting sums from Plaintiff that are the obligation of Fulton to pay.
This is simply theft from Plaintiff’s account, and Fulton is refusing to restore the funds, as is Atteran.
The first count asserts negligence:
Fulton has a duty to their account holders to maintain the security of accounts.
Fulton allowed the two factor authentication phone number to be changed without notice to Plaintiff.
Fulton failed to detect a lengthy series of transactions to unknown individuals in very similar amounts.
Fulton has failed to ensure that phishing schemes are promptly detected and shut down, such as the 5th result item on a google search for Fulton Bank.
Due to the breaches of Fulton, Plaintiff was damaged and $84,076 was wrongly taken from Plaintiff’s account.
The second count alleges conversion - Bordone, Elite and Atteran are liable for conversion of the funds, as they have wrongly taken possession of Plaintiff’s funds and deprived Plaintiff of possession thereof.
The third count alleges unjust enrichment - Each of the parties has been unjustly enriched by the funds taken from Plaintiff.
The fourth count alleges breach of fiduciary duty - Fulton has fiduciary duties to its account holders. Fulton’s conduct has breached the duties of loyalty and duty of care. Plaintiff is thus entitled to recover from Fulton for the losses incurred due to Fulton’s breaches.
The suit requests judgment of compensatory damages, for all damages, including pre-judgment interest; and punitive damages; costs and disbursements of this suit including reasonable attorney’s fees; and such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.
The yeshiva administration certainly hopes that the mere filing of the lawsuit will "do the trick" and get their funds back.
If it does not, the defendants have 35 days to answer the Complaint.
Always remember to safeguard your personal information such as your bank account, keep your two factor authentication settings on, and keep a close eye on your bank account transactions!
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1 comment:
The article says that Rabbi Schnall has met with the governor. If that is true, I hope during his next meeting, he brings up the litigation. Unfortunately Schnall's position is that the litigation harms his standing with Trenton and he can get the formula fixed without a Court order. This, of course, is nonsense.
The governor is dragging it out until his term expires. The Commissioner review has nothing to do with the Court order. It is just a delay tactic. Murphy would be smart to settle with Lakewood and recommend a fix to the formula. Yes, it may be true that we don't get back to court until the Commissioner is done with the review, as the Court is willing to give her time, but once we get to the Supreme Court, the next governor is going to have a mess on his hands because half the districts in NJ will file suit.
NJ is a home-rule state. That means that power flows up locally to state, bottom to the top. If we had a BOE that supported the litigation, and simply put the public interest above their own interest, whatever it is, I am not sure, then the township would support the litigation, our legislative delegation would support it, and the governor would have incentive to settle. But as far as Murphy is concerned, no one in the kehilla cares.
It all starts with the BOE.
Aaron Lang
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