by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Direct Settlement is an anonymously registered riddled with nonsense website, that displays the phone number of JG Wentworth brand Olive Branch Funding at time of publication. The only possible financial beneficiaries of the site is Olive Branch Funding/J G Wentworth and possibly an affiliate marketer who Olive Branch/JG Wentworth pays a cut of any leads.
Nonsense 1: It has become commonplace for lawsuits that are settled out of court to provide the award through a structured settlement via an annuity
FACT: A settlement is not an award, it's a settlement. A settlement is the result of a compromise and agreement among parties to a dispute. An award is an amount of damages given after a trial by jury, or a bench trial.
Nonsense 2: You can sell your annuity on the secondary market through an annuity broker. By using a qualified agent and following the process defined by your state, you can legally change your settlement
FACTS:
1.Your structured settlement may be funded by an annuity but what you receive are structured settlement payments. You have no ownership rights in the annuity. You cannot sell the annuity. You can however, sell (or transfer) the structured settlement payment rights for pennies on the dollar if a judge approves the transaction in accordance with the laws of your state.
2. Representatives of settlement purchasers are typically not annuity brokers or qualified agents. Don't be deceived. You can easily verify if someone holds an insurance in your state by Googling "(Name of Your State) verify insurance license, or insurance agent look up". If any representative is holding themselves out as a broker or agent or agent without a verifiable license report them to me, with appropriate documentation (copies of emails, website, solicitation postcard) and I will get the information to your state regulator. Or you can do so yourself. You would like to think you can trust these companies, but you can't when you have the likes of Annuity Sold LLC, a Maryland company associated with Ryan Blank and Richart Ruddie of Owings Mills MD and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which at one time fraudulently advertised that the company was licensed in all 50 states. Fortunately Annuity Sold was banned from doing business in Maryland for 7 years along with a slew of other Ryan Blank and Richart Ruddie related companies.
Nonsense 3: All but three states require a court to approve the sale and have a strict process. This process protects you, the seller, from unethical structured settlement purchasers.
FACTS:
The process provides zero protection from unethical structured settlement purchasers.
Because state legislatures have left a gaping wound in the regulations that have addressed the process but have not regulated those soliciting and providing advice to sellers, state legislators have exposed their citizens to be pecked away by structured settlement secondary cash now vultures and financial rapists.
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There is an easy fix. Regulate the "Mo-fos".