Whistleblower Group

January 28, 2016

Manhattan-based advisory firm, QED Benchmark Management LLC, and its Toronto-based founder/manager, Peter Kuperman, will reimburse investors $2.877 million in losses to settle charges that they misled investors about a fund’s investment strategy and historical performance.  According to the SEC’s order, QED and Kuperman avoided disclosing heavy trading losses to investors by using a misleading mixture of actual and hypothetical returns when describing the fund's performance history.  After obtaining millions of dollars from investors based on these misrepresentations, QED and Kuperman then deviated from their stated investment strategy and poured most of the fund’s assets into a single penny stock.  SEC

February 10, 2016

New York announced that in 2015, more than $2 million was refunded to 53 New York consumers who claimed their new cars were lemons, and nearly $500,000 was awarded to 15 consumers who had problems with used cars. Lemon laws provide a legal remedy for consumers who are buyers or lessees of new cars and certain used cars that do not conform to the terms of its written warranty, and the manufacturer or its authorized agent is unable to repair defects with the car after a reasonable number of attempts. Since 2011, New York consumers have recovered $12,391,367 through the Attorney General’s Lemon Law Arbitration Program. NY

February 10, 2016

Authorities announced the arrest of Mohammad Shahid Zaman, of Staten Island, NY, who allegedly was a central figure in an elaborate fraud scheme in which the participants used fictitious identities to obtain credit cards and open bank accounts which they used to steal approximately $3 million from various banks. The scheme included a group of “merchants” who in many cases allegedly ran shell businesses set up solely for the purpose of participating in this fraud. The merchants allegedly swiped the fraudulent credit cards using point of sale terminals and received reimbursement from credit card processing companies via wire transfer, while never actually providing any merchandise or services. Twelve other defendants were charged by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office in December as a result of a joint state and federal investigation. NJ

February 9, 2016

A federal court ordered Cindy Vandivier and Paul Vandivier of Coconut Creek, Florida to pay almost $3 million in penalties and restitution to settle CFTC charges of fraudulently soliciting customers and misappropriating customer funds in connection with illegal, off-exchange transactions in precious metals.  CFTC