A bill collector in Williamsville recently pleaded guilty to fooling a local bank in a fraud that caused his nearly two dozen victims to lose $440,000. Noah Schapiro, the man who ran the fraud was informed by the State Supreme Court that he will most likely face a prison term of six to twelve years and will that he will be forced to sign confessions of judgment for his whole scam to seventeen debt investors and the Citizens Bank.
Talking in a soft voice that caused the judge to periodically tell him to speak louder, Schapiro pleaded guilty to grand larceny and scheme to defraud charges. Pending his March 22 sentencing, he was remanded.
The State Police Investigator Therese Schroeder and Financial Crimes Prosecutor, Candace K. Vogel informed the judge that the mastermind of the scheme, a former stock broker took $388,168 from his victims in the time period ranging from March 2008 through September 2009. The victims, of course, had been promised big profits in his debt collections funds.
According to Vogel and Schroeder, Schapiro was convicted in 1998 of investment fraud and spent his investment funds either on himself or to pay off debts from the past from former investors he had taken for money before. Vogel told the judge that the bill collection scam was just “one big Ponzi scheme.”
She attested to the fact that Schapiro pulled off a check “kiting” fraud scheme to scam the bank between May twentieth, 2009, and June eleventh, 2008 by writing out checks to other business on a bank account from Citizens Bank that he knew did not have the funds to cover those checks.
Businesses that are looking to hire out potential third party bill collections agencies are able to prevent this fraud from occuring by taking the following precautions. Know the company you are working with, acquire the contact information, address, and name of the person in charge of accounts receivable. Ironically, pulling a credit report on this person can be of assistance as well.
Mallory Megan is employed by a debt collection agency. She also does stories on business and finance, consumer spending and debt collection.
