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Jax Heights investors scammed by firm: Peralta

Jax Heights investors scammed by firm: Peralta
By Jeremy Walsh

As investors lost billions on Wall Street, Latino immigrants in Jackson Heights and other Queens neighborhoods were reeling from their own financial crisis: a questionable investment firm that evidently will not refund their money.

Several frustrated investors and state Assemblyman Jose Peralta (D−Jackson Heights) gathered for a conference outside one of the offices affiliated with Buyersnet, which Peralta said owes 15 people who contacted him a total of $244,000.

Peralta accused the company of targeting immigrants with an imperfect grasp of English by requesting referrals from current clients.

“They promised them a deal they couldn’t turn down,” Peralta said. According to company documents, Buyersnet offered investors a 12 percent rate of return on their investments and allowed them to withdraw money at any time.

The catch, investors complained, was that after the first time they withdrew money, Buyersnet became impossible to contact or sent them checks that bounced.

One Maspeth woman gave the company $8,500. She got all but $500 of it back, Peralta said, but her family members invested another $27,000 that has not been returned.

Buyersnet’s fortunes appear to be on the wane. Peralta said three offices in western Queens have closed in recent months. A visit to the office of All Sources Funding, the reputed sister company of Buyersnet and the site of last Thursday’s news conference, revealed the sign had been torn off the door and the office was locked.

No one answered the phone at the number listed for Buyersnet’s main office and its president, Giancarlo Giuseppe, in Long Island City.

Peralta has asked state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown to investigate Buyersnet and its parent corporation, TAEL. The Queens DA’s office confirmed it was investigating the company.

“The only thing they want today is their money back,” Peralta said of the people who contacted his office.

Rafael Baquero invested more than $60,000, his life savings, in Buyersnet in 2006, entering into a one−year contract.

“After a year, that’s when they brought in arguments saying different things, that they have problems,” he said, noting the company stopped paying him interest six months ago. “I don’t have money to pay my expenses and they don’t have an answer.”

Fresh Meadows resident Gerald Ferrai, 65, said he invested $5,000 in Buyersnet in 2006. Now, he said, he is owed more than $7,000, including promised interest.

“I know my money is gone,” he said after visiting the closed Jackson Heights office. “But I wish they would pay with some prison time.”

Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e−mail at jwalsh@timesledger.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 154.