by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Structured settlement purchasers including one NASP member and a non-NASP member set up a structured settlement annuitant to fail in a common technique used by operatives in the secondary market for structured settlement payment rights, an industry where nobody is required to be licensed to give financial advice to consumers or adhere to either a suitability or fiduciary standard.
Operating on the maxim "Free the Head (of the Structured Settlement) and the Rest Will Follow", a parody of the 1992 En Vogue hit "Free Your Mind", the vulgar pathway to the "Structured Settlement Slaughterhouse" works like this.
- Factoring company one gets the annuitant to sell structured settlement payment rights from the nearest term payments.
- Factoring company one or factoring company two "pig piles" onto the annuitant with another deal, harassing the annuitant into selling a larger payment and pushing the periodic payments resumption date out further. No consideration is given about how the annuitant is going to make ends meet in the interim.
- Facilitated by a judges not giving adequate consideration to "best interest"
- While the original structured settlement cash flow may have made for a decent tax exempt salary in a "job the annuitant cannot be fired from", each successive cash for annuity deal makes the income from the structure less of a living wage and puts the annuitant in a downward spiral
Surely there is no question that members of NASP and other settlement purchasers are providing financial advice on which payments to sell.
It is clearly in the "best interest" of the factoring company to set the annuitant up to fail so it can get repeat business. The only question is how often that occurs.
How about some attorneys general regulators start crawling up settlement purchasers' behinds and start examining repeat transactions? Charlatans that provide bogus financial advice, licensed or not need be held accountable,in my opinion. The ship needs to be righted.
Is it hypocritical of legislators to seek to create a fiduciary standard, but giving such advic to some but not others, equally or even more vulnerable? How much longer are members of state legislatures from around the United States going to let this situation continue to the potential detriment of their citizens.
I can assure you that there is more out there that has not yet appeared here or in the mainstream press. More bad news is coming… and I would opine that lack of regulation of solicitors is the root of the problem. Don't say I didn't warn you.