The sign says "disco" but inside the feature is a barbershop quartet singing "Mr. Sandman"**
The invitation says Black Tie and instead you find the crowd is decidedly unstructured.
You pile your 10-13 year old boys and their friends into your SUV to see a WWE smackdown at your local arena (at least that's what the ads and tickets say). Instead of "The Undertaker" or "Batista" there is a show featuring "little rabbit foo foo". Wouldn't want to be you!
Hopefully you catch my drift. These are hypotheticals of "invitations" or "solicitations" that imply one thing but the reality is quite different. I don't know how many people would be happy campers with heightened expectations of the first of the above and THEN getting the second.
With respect to structured settlements, some entities unfairly create consumer confusion through the very names of their companies or websites. Here are some examples:
Structured Settlement Investments, Ltd.
Reality: Name of a factoring company
Why Company Name Could be Misleading
- Falsely implies that Structured Settlements Are Investments and subject to NASD, SEC or state level securities regulation. Only one product is at the time of posting, and this company doesn't offer MetLife Settlement Plus.
- Falsely implies that someone can invest in structured settlements. Even in a factoring transaction the investor provides the financial resources to the factor so that the factor can purchase the structured settlement payment rights.
- Implies that the company is licensed by securities regulatory authorities. Are they?
Structured Settlement Quotes
Reality: Name of a factoring company's affiliate marketing company based in Rhode Island
Why Company Name Could be Misleading
- Falsely implies that the company deliver structured settlement annuity quotes a sopposed to what it does deliver which is a quote for the purchase of payment rights which is something entirely different.
- Implies that the company is licensed by the appropriate insurance regulatory authorities to sell annuities. Betcha they aren't!
Reality: Name of Blog that solicits people to sell their structured settlement payment rights.
Why Company Name Could be Misleading
- Falsely Implies that there is such a thing as a structured settlement loan.
- Mischaracterizes a structured settlement factoring transaction or structured settlement transfer as a loan.
- Content of the web page falsely implies that you can obtain a "big bag of cash" now by "clicking here". Not surprising that this is Structured Settlement Alliance, a JG Wentworth alter ego.
Structured Settlement Alliance
Reality: Name of JG Wentworth Alter Ego that solicits people to sell their structured settlement payment rights.
Why Company Name Could be Misleading
- Falsely implies that it is an alliance of diverse factions in the structured settlement industry
- Falsely implies that this entity does structured settlements when what it does is rely on predatory impulse tactics to encourage consumers to trade their long term financial security for a discounted amount of cash (that they won't get now)
- Nothing in the name says what the firm does, but everything about the name says what the company DOESN'T do
I will highlight more of these in later posts.
These examples show why more regulation is needed of factoring company business practice. It is anti-consumer to permit a company to have a name, or register a domain name and publish a web site, that falsely implies that it does something that it does not.
** Mr. Sandman was a classic tune written by Pat Ballard, recorded by the Chordettes and #1 on Billboard charts in 1954. Featured in countless movies like Back to The Future, when Marty McFly first arrives in 1955.
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