‘My Harvest America’ Files For Bankruptcy – Leaves Many Lakewood Customers Shocked

my harvest americaSCAM? “Due to circumstances beyond our control, My Harvest America, Inc. has been forced to file for protection under Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. Further information for claims will be forthcoming from the US Bankruptcy Court, May 27, 2011. Case # 2:11-bk-15482”. That is the message My Harvest America Inc. posted on their website.

My Harvest America, enabled ‘customers’ to purchase $300 face value gift cards at $225.00, but thousands – including many in Lakewood who signed up with the company – were left at a loss when the company failed to deliver.

The company, founded in December of 2009 and advertised in local Lakewood publications, has no further information on their website, but many are saying this appears to be just another scam, gone up in smoke. TLS-CCP/TLS-TSC

See video below of associates talking about My Harvest America.

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74 COMMENTS

  1. To # 5
    you have no idea wat your talking about. Everyone received the gift cards months ago. For the last 3 months they have been mailing checks instead of gc’c. The check was also supposed to come with a produxt – the product never arrived.

  2. You can dispute it. Just make sure to do it before 60 days from the statement date. If you got the “worthless sleeves” but not the gift check then you didn’t get the whole product. I disputed it and got a refund from the credit card.

  3. When I first heard about My Harvest America in the Yated and Lakewood circulars, I was trying to figure out how the company makes a profit. They are basically selling currency for a discount, which makes no sense. Some of the independent reps “tried” to figure it out by giving answers which did not add up i.e. the merchants fee, interest on sale of card purchase until used, lost and unused cards…. none added up to 15%. Did I know they would go Bankrupt? No. But I knew it could not last.

  4. Oy! I pleaded and proved to my friends that this is a scam. They didnt listen.
    Why, oh why pray tell would someone give you free money??
    If its to good to be true, its to good to be true!

  5. To # 5
    IH’meavily involved in this program. They replaced the gift cards with checks a few months ago. The check was supposed to come with a product – the product never arrived. Thats wat we are disputing.

  6. I Just Disputed These Charges A Few Days Ago When It Was Announced That They May Go Bankrupt. Does Anybody Know If The Credit Card Company Is Responsible To Refund The Charges Even In A Situation Where The Merchant Goes Bankrupt? Thanx

  7. I Disputed These Charges A Few Days Ago When It Was Announced That They May Go Bankrupt. Does Anybody Know If The Credit Card Company Is Responsible To Refund The Charges Even In A Situation Where The Merchant Goes Bankrupt? Thanx

  8. Yes if you never got the product they have to refund you by law. Even if the company is bankrupt. Just make sure to file dispute within 60 days!

  9. Can some one please explain to me what you mean by the product? If the chks came instead of the gift card isint that the product?

  10. Actually the cards are not worthless!
    They are either Wells Fargo
    or Amex gift cards and they still
    have the value that was loaded to them originaly – 2 or 3 hundred dollars … the issue is with orders that were not sent out since feb. which can be disputed with your cc company since no product was received. (TLS… please update story with the correct facts)

  11. @fred
    it seems like u dont know the full story. I cant write out the story righr now but too say it in very short – 2 seperate people each opened 100 accounts under made up names. When the checks came , they cashed them . They then went ahead and disputed THE ENTIRE CHARGE with the cc company. You can imagine that after $60,000 of disputes the cc processor froze thier account. Thats where all the problems started from.

  12. Insider, I think tls is reffering to the worthless sleeves. The exact details are too complicated even for someone that got their 16 emails a week announcing a change to to “fraud”. That alone should have told you to stay away.

  13. I don’t believe it. They never sent any checks since they started with the sleeves. Also if the whole problem was with credit cards then they could have just switched to ach. I also got that email. They just needed an excuse to answer why they couldn’t pay anymore and to not look like a scam. After all they don’t want to sit in jail. And from the naïve people that are still defending them even after you got scammed it seems they did a great job! I’m sure they are hoping a judge will be as naïve as you.

  14. Fred, the sleeves were always worthless. – except that untill now we werent aloud to sell them on ebay as per MHA policy, but now we can sell them on ebay.

  15. Fred, I got a couple of checks from them. We can discuss this further off the air, you can email me at (moderated-contact TLS for the email address) and I will verify everything I said here. Thanx

  16. What’s a sleeve?
    Syag lechochma shtika! Fred, there are seriouse felonies of wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud etc. Involved
    Do not take ANY action before consulting an attorny. This includes but is not limited to disputing charges.
    There is a VERY thin line between a victim and a perp with these things…. Shveig!

  17. Hey insider, do not mess with credit card companies and banks… You may think your smarter than them but if the Feds for some reason desire to take a look at you you would be shocked how many felonies you can be accused of.
    Stop playing shtik.

  18. “Took profits and ran…” knowingly profiting from a criminal enterprise….

    The long arm of the government has unlimited patiance and resources.
    Do you?

  19. You guys who profited & left are subject to clawback laws ,if the court appoints a trustee.
    The question is is it worth it?
    How much did you make?
    How easy could they put a lien on you?
    I was contacted by a moisad who wanted to become an agent after a little research, I strongly advised against it. Thank G-d they listened.

  20. The Fair Credit law allows any consumer to dispute the credit card charge within 90 days from the date is was billed to the card.

    That right is guaranteed by Federal Law, and any credit card holder can use that right with their credit card company.

  21. To Insider:

    You are incorrect about the difference between a chapter 7 bankruptcy and a chapter 11. Chapter 11 does not mean that the business shuts down temporarily. See the bankruptcy code for the rules, especially for the rules concerning a debtor in possession. Rather, a chapter 7 is a liquidation as opposed to a chapter 11 that has different rules.

    In almost every bankruptcy situation a creditor can ask for payment back, but when a company files chapter 7 and will be liquidated then secured creditors must be paid in full first before any unsecured creditors, and that is only after the trustee and lawyers for the debtor get paid. Therefore, people who purchased these Harvest America products are unsecured creditors and likely would get nothing in a bankruptcy.

    Furthermore, unlike an individual who files for chapter 7 and then gets a discharge from his debts, a business that files chapter 7 does not get a discharge. Therefore, no one in the future would ever honor the Harvest America cards. They are worthless.

    Also, the Fair Credit Billing Act does protect a consumer who purchased a product or service with a credit card and did not receive the products or services. But a consumer that used cash, check or debit card will not be protected under the Fair Credit Billing Act. Furthermore, anyone seeking protection under the Fair Credit Billing Act must fill out the paperwork correctly or else the credit card company does not fall under the Fair Credit Billing Act jurisdiction.

  22. A ‘ charge,’ not using a credit card illegally to knowingly participate in a ponzi scheme.
    How much do I have to elaborate? It’s all fun and games while you out smarted the big banks and made a couple o measly bucks….
    You obviously are very ignorant of how the criminal justice system works. Take my advice, take no further action. Never gloat about illegal gains, especially not online in public for the whole world to see, and must I mention, your definitely NOT anonymous.

  23. To 34. “Therefore, no one in the future would ever honor the Harvest America cards. They are worthless.”

    As said before they are not MHA cards. MHA bought them from the banks WF and Amex. Everyone thought they were buying them at a discount . but it now seems like they bought them for full value. either way they are bank gift cards not associated with MHA . and therefore still have their value
    the one you see in the picture is a sample of what they “planed” on sending

  24. I happen to know some guys that actually lost a lot of money with this huge my harvest america scam and have top connections are working to get them in real trouble and make sure that they do not try opening another business like this!

    As of now it sounds like they have some real proof that this was designed with intentions to steal peoples money! And they made up a nice story to look nice and real! And I guess they are in contact with the right people!

  25. By the way, the picture and story is inaccurate. They didn’t give debit cards that were issued by my harvest america. The dbit cards were issued by wells fargo and amex. Anyone who got cards from them can still use them. The issue is that since about the end of feb. They stopped sending them and they have 3 months of orders that they never filled. Please don’t cause people to throw out the cards that they have thinking they are now worthless! That is not the case! Thet are still perfect! Like I said the whole issue here is that they had people paying and ordering new ones for the last 3 months and those people paid and got nothing. But those that got cards are fine.

  26. I totally deny all the comments that imply that this scam was run by Sefardim, as a matter of fact I think it was run by ashkenazim.

  27. Who said it was a scam? It was a failed business. They had everyone asking for refunds at once! Of course they go under. When everyone goes to withdraw money from a bank at once they go bust too! Is every bank a ponzi scheme? Ask any business that accepts returns, I’m sure if every person that bought something in walmart in the last 90 days would ask for a refund, they wouldn’t have issues too!

  28. The first step is for each individual to accept personal responsibility for allowing themselves to be drawn once again into an obvious scam.
    Second of all, I would like to call upon the Jewish publications to better monitor the ads that they allow into their magazines and newspapers. Although they most likely do not have any legal responsibility, what happened to the responsibility towards your fellow Jew.
    Last of all, if you were someone that sold these cards to others, you need to do a thorough Chesbon Hanefesh (soul search). The temptation to earn a quick buck at the expense of your brothers and sisters should not even entertain a moments thought in your mind.
    I pray that this should be the last scam that fools people.

  29. i am happy i got scammed about 18 yrs ago by some lady selling some cleaning product that u had to sell $40@ mo and somehow u get cheaper products or something like that ,well bh i only did it first monthb4 i dropped out and learnt my lesson. if u dont understand the buissness plan then it probably is a scam.mileage a makes sence u spend $100,000 and the merchant makes a percentage and they give a percentage of that back to u. u can prob make more $ stocking shelves ,but if u r spending the $ any ways y not

  30. I can’t say to much I promise does people that I will not give out any details, but one think I can tell you, “this is defiantly not a business that failed and it was intentionally designed to steal peoples money”. Don’t be so naïve and just go back step by step how the corruption was going slowly! If you were not involved in it for at least a few months nobody is interested in your comments! That I can tell you!

    And for does involved in the big scam (and trying to leave some comments here) Just wait and see when everything comes out!

  31. As many of you know, My Harvest America has given back to consumers millions
    of dollars in discounts, rebates and special deals. The purpose was to create
    a community of like-minded consumers working together to build a better America.
    Unfortunately, many individual consumers have fraudulently taken advantage of
    our program.

    What do we mean by fraud? Consumers would enroll, often multiple times under
    false identities, order product and receive the rebate, deposit the checks,
    then do a chargeback on the whole transaction. These incidents have created
    major issues with our legal team & merchant account provider. This is not
    a minor issue, some of these occurrences have cost MHA into the tens of thousands
    of dollars, and that is just for one incident and we have many.

    We will be making a major announcement tomorrow regarding our plans for the
    future for MHA. We have been working on a plan that would eliminate most of
    the problems discussed here and ultimately increase your earning potential.
    Join us for this special call on Wednesday, May 18th. See call info below.

  32. We bought some of these cards. It took a very long time .Bh we panicked took our money and ran . I new there was something fishy. There’s a few more of these potential “scams” around .let the buyer be ware . You can’t cry genial when u did a stupid investment

  33. I don’t chop the prob who ever got the cc got the money in the card and if you did not get the card then stop the charge and no one will loose any money is that simple I don’t know what’s the big deal

  34. I had several email exchanges with the person who started advertising this “huge moneymaking potential for individuals and mosdos”. The exchanges went something like this: ME: You must know that the founders of MHA were involved in another MLM where people lost money 3 years ago. MHA started out selling discounted groceries and that flopped within 3 months. Now they switched to this debit card model. Please don’t cause unsuspecting people to lose money by advertising this product. HIM: There is a real business plan here and it can’t lose. ME: It is simply selling more monet for less money. Someone will be left holding the bag. HIM: even if it is an MLM who cares. You can’t lose because your making money every month. Who cares if the company goes under eventually- ahow me how you can possibly lose money. Besides, you can dispute with your credit card company if anything goes wrong. ME: The founders of MHA did cost people money last time around- do a search online. The last people in are going to be left holding the bag for you and anyone else who got in on thev MLM early. How can you sleep at night knowing this?. Him: you can’t show me how you can possibly lose. WHEN WILL PEOPLE LEARN? IF IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT IS NOT TRUE! LET THIS BE A LESSON FOR THE FUTURE.

  35. Wow. Scary Stuff. As you see from the comments, so many people have been affected by this. Why are we so drawn to these types of marketing ploys? Perhaps it shines a negative light upon the “wise guy” philosophy. Companies are not stupid. If they offer something that to good to be true, it’s not because you found a way to take advantage of them. Quite the contrary it appears they found a way to take advantage of you. For example, one of the stores that offered free groceries was National Furniture. They appear to be a thriving business, but so many people were hurt by them, their advertising is misleading, and worst of it all, they are unabashedly unethical at best and straight out thieves at worst. Rabbi Forsheimer has advised many people not to shop there, yet every week countless people are duped and duped again. This really is “scary stuff”.

    As a rule of thumb, don’t be shy to use your head. If after that it makes sense to u AND the store has an excellent reputation then by all means trust that “great deal of a lifetime”. It’s possible; after all we may have faith in people. But if it doesn’t make sense to you, then go ahead pass on it, and let someone else become the “millionaire”.

  36. The biggest risk that all peopel who got sucked in to buying these cards is that theses scam artist have your credit card, social secuirty #, birthday address. You can loose MUCH more than a few hundred dollars.

  37. Before you call to dispute the charges, think long and hard about the role you played in this scam.

    I saw this ad in the local papers and was amazing that someone was basically selling me $300 in cash for $225. So I emailed for information – which by the way, it was NOT harvest america advertising, it was a local person who is the “representative”.

    After getting a long convoluted email about how the system worked, I realized right away something was not right.

    I was subsequently contacted by other people explaining how i can ‘trick’ the system by buying more cards than I am allowed by using other peoples names, forging forms, reselling things that are not allowed, etc.

    If you participated in any of this, you broke the law, and it would be stupid of you to raise awareness to the authorities of the scam you were part of.

  38. To #45 I’ve Been Involved Since October. I’m Close With Some People That Are High Up In The Company. I Have No Idea Wat You Are Talking About And Neither Do They. Please Stop Making Things Up. Thanx

  39. You didn’t have to give any personal info other than a name and shipping address to buy the cards. To be an “agent” and get commission by sucking others in, you had to give your ss number. I was told that putting in. 0000000 is fine as they didn’t check it anyway. I never felt comfortable giving my ss number to strangers so I stayed away from this thankfully. Those that just ordered cards and didn’t “upgrade to elite status” didn’t give their personal info.

  40. As dan/ctownbochur said when told about this “MLM that is different than all the others!” “a pyramid is a pyramid is a pyramid”

  41. The video posted isn’t nogea. Its from when they were selling groceries. That was different, they had real products for sale they were an online grocery store. When that failed they started this new debit card program which they labeled as “since shipping cost is too high they will just give you a debit card for 15 percent off to use at your local grocery store” that’s when the real pyramid scam began. With no product to sell other than gift cards and getting people to suck in others with crazy high commissions. Which we now see was just using peters money to pay paul.

  42. I hope people should learn their lesson this time!

    I think in my opinion rabonim should not allow MLM in our community! If you see someone advertising any of this businesses stop them from trapping other people and save them from not loosing the little money that they earn!

    Thank god I did not go into it! As much as they where trying to convince me I turned them away! I just feel bad I did not make them leave this scam earlier!

    I personally if I will see any posters advertising any of this type of businesses I will make sure people don’t see it.

    Let’s start this Ahavas Yisroel Campaign together and save lives from now on and make sure this scams don’t roll in again in our shuls or kolelim!

  43. To Shloime #69: I’m proud of you Shloime!! I wish I would have done it b4 and have saved more people from being trapped! You know how things go! When someone gets excited over something he always thinks this is not going to happen this time! This case is different! And you can’t convince him to drop it!

    THE ONLY WAY IS NOT TO LET THEM SEE IT!

    ALL THE ONE MARKETING THESE SCAMS HAS TO BE INVESTIGATED AND PUNISHED!!!

  44. To Shloimie #69:
    I’m very proud of you Shloimie! I wish I would take down this signs earlier and would save a few guys from getting trapped at this big Myharvestamerica scam!

    You know Shloimie how things go! When someone gets excited over a garbage you can’t convince him to turn away from it! This multi level guys are experts on making these clips look so real! As much as people know that MLM don’t work, once they get excited they would always say this time its going to work!

    The only way is to hide this signs from them! Call the local publishers if you see an ad about mlm and have them stop marketing scam!

    What’s the limit of seeing our friends getting scammed again and again by this professional thieves! And this time as it sounds it was big money!!!

    Let’s work on ourselves and help our friends! SAY NO TO MLM! SAY NO TO PYRAMID!

  45. I checked the bankruptcy docket online. They filed in the case in Arizona. So far, its a Chapter 7 (liquidation) with only preliminary papers which estimate 5,000-10,000 creditors, $1M-$10M assets, $1M-$10M liabilities. More detailed papers will be filed by June 10, unless an extension is obtained.

  46. think that if more men got an education so they can support their famlies in a normal way, things like this would not be a temptation to those who need to make money. If someone has a good business sense and can see themselves working in a business, great. But if someone does not fit this category, they should seriously look into getting an education – on line, off line or whatever way possible.- in a field that they feel will be suitable for them.

  47. I contacted my bank and they said I would have to sign an affidavit because the FTC was investigating MHA and anyone involved..I don’t need that hassle 🙁

Comments are closed.