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Stories
Judge Grants Restraining Order Against Deceptive Funding Company
May 6, 2018JTT Funding, the company previously accused of having forged a Confession of Judgment, stands accused now of stealing the identity of a rival funding company. On May 3rd, New York Supreme Court Judge W. Franc Perry granted an injunction against JTT Funding from using the name, logo and likeness of Accel Capital from its marketing and contract materials.
Similar to the forged COJ suit (which was brought by FundKite), JTT Funding did not answer or contest the claims.
Plaintiff Accel Capital demonstrated in their papers that an agent of JTT was using a gmail address with “accelcapital” in the name and the company’s logo in its contracts. When a merchant funded by JTT Funding (who pretended to be Accel) inadvertently contacted the real Accel Capital, the scheme was revealed.
JTT Funding went on to ignore Accel’s Cease and Desist letter, court papers say, which led to the lawsuit and demand for an immediate injunction.
According to the Financial Times, JTT Funding is owned by Queens-born mixed martial arts fighter Jim “The Tyrant” Boudourakis. In his October 2017 interview with the publication, Boudourakis said, “There was a learning curve, going from being a fighter to a salesman. But I’m good with people.” FT also reported that his company had 18 full-time salespeople and was funding $4 – $5 million per month.
In the FundKite suit, it is alleged that Boudourakis’ first name Jim is an alias.
The Accel Capital suit can be found in the New York Supreme Court under Index Number: 153447/2018
Why Funders Are Investing in Real Estate As Their Side Hustle of Choice
January 25, 2021After five years in finance, Peter Ribeiro decided to strike out on his own and start US Business Funding in 2008, providing equipment leasing and financing for businesses. But when the housing market collapsed four months later, Ribeiro saw a second major business opportunity emerge. Earlier that year, he had purchased a $250,000 home in southern California that appraised for $355,000 at the time he bought it. Within seven months, the home’s value plummeted to $95,000. “I told myself I knew the area really well, so I might as well start buying some properties.”
At that point, Ribeiro’s fledgling company still wasn’t generating much revenue. “I thought, ‘Man, I just can’t get a lot of loans done right now. I only have three or four employees.’ That’s how I got into the real estate industry.” Twelve years later and at the height of a global pandemic, Ribeiro is simultaneously running two thriving ventures —US Business Funding, and a portfolio of hundreds of rental properties he now owns.
At a time when fintech startups and other industry innovators are looking for investors, alternative lending execs like Ribeiro are instead choosing to put their money in real estate to beef up their investment portfolios. Although some execs shy away from talking publicly about their real estate dealings, citing the fact that they don’t want too much exposure, the consensus is that there’s a lot of money to be made in buying, selling and renting property – if you know what you’re doing.
“I think real estate is lucrative because when you look at the history of investments, there are two or three ways to really make money: You can put your money in the stock market, or you can put it in bonds. And the other one guaranteed to go up in value is real estate,” Ribeiro says.
To Ribeiro, real estate offers a few major advantages: It’s a tangible asset. You can leverage it as it appreciates in value. Deductions make it so you pay very little in taxes. And it offers significant cash flow. “It’s the best investment you can make,” he says.
What makes real estate an especially good fit for alternative lending and fintech execs is that they possess the skills, resources and financial literacy to succeed at it.
“Real estate is a long-term gain,” Ribeiro says. “The industry we’re in is a cash-flow cow. People who are doing well are printing money. But what can you do with that money? You can put it in the stock market, but you won’t control much. Then you pay capital gains on it.”
Attorney Paul Rianda, who represents both cash advance clients and real estate investors, says it makes sense that real estate investing appeals to alternative lenders – especially amidst the uncertainty of COVID-19.
“If you’re a cash advance guy and COVID happened, then you’re not doing very well,” he says. “If you diversified your assets by doing real estate and cash advance, you’re able to weather these downturns a lot more easily than you would otherwise.”
Rianda has not yet counseled any of his own cash advance clients on real estate matters. But based on his insights from working with both areas, he says real estate would be a logical move for MCA executives, and he’s seen some of his clients in the bankcard industry buy up properties.
“One of my clients had a portfolio of merchants and sold it for a few million, then flipped over to real estate. So it’s a means (to an end),” Rianda says.
‘Snowball effect’
Ribeiro has relied on a simple strategy to steadily build his portfolio of residential properties: Buy. Fix. Leverage. Repeat.
“I feel like the portfolio is doubling every couple of years. It’s just a snowball effect,” he says.
After Ribeiro buys a home, he waits about six months before he has it appraised and fixes it up in the meantime.
“If you go to the bank within the first six months of purchasing it, they’re going to give you the actual market value of whatever you purchased the house for,” he says. “If you wait six months, they’ll reappraise the home and give its true market value, which could be another 40, 50 or 60 percent. And so now you’re going to have a lot more equity in the house, and you’re going to get a lot more money when you leverage that home to go buy the next one.”
Ribeiro says he sees lots of people making the mistake of buying a home, and then going to the bank a week or two later for a loan.
Constantly maintaining a positive cash flow is Ribeiro’s number one rule of real estate investing. “Your best friend is depreciation,” he says.
Depreciation refers to one of the key tax benefits of real estate. Since owning a rental property is technically a type of business because it generates income, the property is considered a business asset. The IRS allows you to deduct the cost of acquiring that asset – the property – over the span of its useful life. For residential properties, the IRS sets a standard depreciation period of 27.5 years.
So if you buy a $100,000 property with a $20,000 land value, $80,000 of the asset is considered depreciable. Over the course of 27.5 years, you can take an annual deduction of just over $2,900 a year.
The trick, Ribeiro says, is to stick to lower-priced properties with an 80/20 home-to-land value. Most of his properties are single- and multifamily homes between southern California and Las Vegas.
Like Ribeiro, Rianda’s investor clients concentrate on one geographic area to find the best properties. “They look at the area for a long time, understand the area,” he says. “In my neighborhood, three blocks can make a 50 percent difference in the price of a house. You need to focus on a particular geographic area and do a lot of transactions in it.”
Small portfolio, big impact
Real estate investing has provided a way for Jared Weitz to earn more money while being able to focus on his primary job as CEO of New York-based United Capital Source Inc., the company he founded.
“For me, it’s just a really good second income stream and a way to have a secure return of 4.5% to 6.5% a year,” he says.
Growing up, Weitz got a feel for real estate by watching his uncles invest in multifamily properties. At one point, Weitz’s uncle owned 15 different multifamily homes, and Weitz would help do the maintenance on them.
Eight years ago, Weitz invested in his first two-family home and has fixed and flipped eight properties since then. He currently owns two two-family homes and invests primarily in multifamily homes in Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens. Over the next five years, he plans to pick up at least two more four- or eight-family properties. Working with a small portfolio of residences in his home state has allowed Weitz to have full control over managing his properties and to turn a good profit.
“I think for me, it just offers more liquidity,” he says. “It’s an asset I can sell and liquidate at any time. That’s really important for me.”
Ideally, Weitz would like for his investment to build generational wealth that he can pass down to his son. With many people in the U.S. unable to qualify for mortgages, Weitz sees real estate investing as an opportunity to help the economy by giving renters a place to live and put down roots. “Depending on the neighborhood, you can put yourself in a situation where you have good renters for 20 to 30 years. They want to raise their families and have their kids grow up there,” he says.
Litigation among the pitfalls
Even though Ribeiro has had success with his business model, he cautions that there’s considerable risk involved with real estate.
“I love the industry. It’s a passion. It’s beyond my wildest dreams of the size of the portfolio and how well it performs,” he says. “But don’t think it’s all cupcakes and unicorns. There’s a lot to the madness. That’s why not everyone can replicate the model.”
“Professional litigators” and multiple lawsuits from renters are a major downfall that Ribeiro points to. He sees at least one substantial suit each year and tries to settle outside of court whenever possible.
As an attorney, Rianda says his real estate clients call on him not just for the purchase of the property, but for various issues that occur during the ownership period.
Here’s one scenario: A property owner has a tenant who isn’t paying rent, so the property owner sues the tenant. But while the lawsuit proceedings are under way, the tenant declares bankruptcy, which puts a stall on further litigation.
“There are people who understand the system and can make it difficult for you to get them out (of the property),” Rianda says, adding that it’s important to have legal counsel readily available. “You need someone who has really done this a lot and knows how the system works to get that person out of the rental property as quickly as possible.”
To minimize liability, Ribeiro has divided his properties into about 10 different business entities – each with a separate umbrella insurance policy.
Rianda sees his own real estate investor clients follow this strategy by grouping multiple homes under the name of an LLC. “If you personally own all these various assets, there’s the potential that if something catastrophic happened at one, it could bleed into all your other properties and potentially put them at risk,” he says.
Dual careers
Ribeiro’s real estate investments and finance company both serve as full-time occupations for him. Some years, he’ll focus more on one area than on the other, depending on market conditions. He spent more time on real estate between 2008 and 2013; then his business needs flip-flopped when real estate prices started going back up. This past year, he’s directed more attention to the finance company because of COVID, which necessitated some operational changes and a need to help clients who had been trying to get PPP loans. But he’s also started investing in commercial real estate, which has taken a hit because of companies forgoing office space to save overhead costs while employees work remotely.
Ribeiro expects to start seeing more mortgage defaults on lower-level homes in 2021 and 2022, after forbearance periods are over. And he’s been leveraging his assets to start buying more properties around the second quarter of the new year. “I think it will be a good time to start buying heavy again,” he says.
An attractive investment vehicle
With the pandemic weakening business portfolios, secondary investment options might sound like just what the doctor ordered.
When COVID first hit, some of Rianda’s clients started pursuing other investments like personal protective equipment (PPE). Most of his cash advance clients closed up shop for a few months.
“As time goes on, I’m starting to see my clients go back into their lending,” Rianda says.
Even as clients start to recoup their business, Rianda sees the wisdom in other investments and says cash advance executives are well suited for real estate. “It’s just a way that people who have been successful and spin off a lot of cash for their businesses see as a safe way to diversify their income,” Rianda says. “It’s something I find that people who are doing well in their business do, regardless of what business they’re in. So cash advance guys are just following the things people have done for years.”
Ribeiro cautions that people who get into real estate should look at it as a 10-year investment minimum, and not just a two- or three-month stint.
“It’s not a lottery ticket, and it’s not an overnight race,” Ribeiro says. “This is a long-term gain. But it’s a very lucrative gain from a cash-flow perspective and a tax perspective. I don’t think there’s a more attractive vehicle than real estate.”
Michele Romanow to Keynote deBanked CONNECT Toronto
June 18, 2019Michele Romanow, a TV star on Dragon’s Den and Co-founder of Clearbanc, will be the keynote speaker at deBanked CONNECT Toronto on July 25th. She joins other industry executives speaking at the event from across the business finance industry in Canada.
Tech titan Michele Romanow is an engineer and a serial entrepreneur who started five companies before her 33rd birthday. A “Dragon” on CBC’s hit show Dragons’ Den, Michele is the co-founder of Clearbanc, which in 2018 gave entrepreneurs more than $100 million in funding; SnapSave, which was acquired by Groupon; and Buytopia.ca, ranked #3 on the Profit Hot 50 list of fastest growing companies. Named in WXN’s “100 Most Powerful in Canada” and listed as the only Canadian on Forbes’ “Millennial on a Mission” list, Michele brings her incredible entrepreneurial savvy to every stage.
Michele has driven new digital solutions to many of the world’s leading brands, including P&G, Netflix, Starbucks, and Cirque du Soleil, and she has advised Fortune 100s and governments on innovation, AI, blockchain, and the new economy. She was a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award; the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards; and was a Cartier Women’s Initiative Award global finalist.
Awarded Angel Investor of the Year by the Canadian Innovation Awards, Michele is a prolific angel investor who has also co-founded the Canadian Entrepreneurship Initiative with Richard Branson to encourage more women entrepreneurs. Michele In the media, Michele’s work has been profiled in Forbes, The New York Times, Entrepreneur, The Globe and Mail, and Chatelaine.
During her Civil Engineering undergrad at Queen’s University, Michele founded The Tea Room, the first zero-consumer-waste coffee shop. She was also given the Queen’s Tricolour — the highest honour awarded by the university — and, after completing her Queen’s MBA, she founded Evandale Caviar, a vertically integrated commercial fishery.
Michele is currently a director for Vail Resorts, Freshii, League of Innovators, Queen’s Business School and Shad Valley, a transformational program that develops the entrepreneurial potential of exceptional Canadian youth.
Other great executives speaking at deBanked CONNECT Toronto:
ISO Pretending to be Funder May Be Sent to Jail
October 14, 2018A New York Supreme Court judge ordered on Thursday that Long Island-based ISO JTT Funding either be fined or sent to prison if it does not comply with a previous restraining order obtained by NYC-based funder Accel Capital.
Accel alleges that JTT funding has been impersonating it through correspondence and on contracts, a scheme that was outed when merchants claimed they had been duped into sending thousands of dollars upfront to JTT (disguised as Accel) to obtain a loan yet never received one. Accel responded by suing JTT and obtained a restraining order on default when the defendant failed to respond.
According to the Financial Times, JTT Funding is owned by Queens-born mixed martial arts fighter Jim “The Tyrant” Boudourakis. In his October 2017 interview with the publication, Boudourakis said, “There was a learning curve, going from being a fighter to a salesman. But I’m good with people.” FT also reported that his company had 18 full-time salespeople and was funding $4 – $5 million per month.
In an unrelated suit, JTT Funding is accused of forging a confession of judgment.
The Accel Capital suit can be found in the New York Supreme Court under Index Number: 153447/2018
Merchant Cash and Capital Hits a Billion Dollars
March 18, 2015I was there. In August 2006, a little startup in College Point, Queens hired its third and fourth employees. One of them was me. The company’s CEO Steve Sheinbaum hired us to be underwriters of a financial product that at that point didn’t really have a name. It would later become referred to as a merchant cash advance.
The company grew fast, almost too fast. By December of 2006, half of the company was working out of temporary offices in the Empire State Building. And when that no longer made sense, we leased a floor at 450 Park Avenue South in mid-2007 where Merchant Cash and Capital still has its headquarters today.
Fast forward to 2008, I was the most senior risk manager of the firm. As the Director of Underwriting, my direct reports were two underwriting managers. Below them were three or four team leaders. And below them were entry-level underwriters and their administrative assistants. I oversaw what was arguably the most important department leading up to the financial crisis. I really believe the hard work of all the underwriters and the seriousness of which they took their job is a huge contributing factor to why MCC survived when many of their competitors did not.
It is great to see them hit the milestone of $1 billion in funding. Congratulations.

See Post... queen funding, tvt capital, unique funding solutions, vitalcap fund, , confirmed seen queen doing a bunch of weeklies recently.... |
See Post... queen funding, tvt capital, unique funding solutions, vitalcap fund... |
See Post... queen funding . fundura capital or wg funding ? , , this is a wake up call and hopefully we learn from this ., , please explain where the scam is?, , 1. default merchant owes a funder money --> funder tries to collect., 2. funder does collect (rightfully so) --> merchant cries scam... |