markets altered its ability to purchase assets last year, and that it
was unable to meet a margin call in the fourth quarter of 2008 as it
faced liquidity issues. I and others have reported for months about its tumbling credit ratings…and now this.
There have been a number of strong reactions to the news and today I received the following letter from the father of a young woman who sold her structured settlement at age 19 and is now dependent on her parents.
"John,
I thought that it might be helpful to fill you in on the
reason for my interest in J.G. Wentworth’s affairs. They purchased a settlement
from my daughter a few years ago when she was only 19 years old, and quite
naive. There is no question that they financially exploited her.
Seven
years later my daughter now lives at home with me and I do my best to help
support her and her child. I loathe the fact that J.G. Wentworth has made bad
business decisions and now they are going to use Chapter 11 bankruptcy to
cleanse themselves of all of their past mistakes. How can they be allowed to
continue to get away with financially abusing people, like my daughter, who need
protecting?
While she desperately needed the money at that time for
medical expenses we are now aware of other companies that would have offered her
far more for her settlement. I wish my daughter had shopped around at the time
rather than impulsively calling them when she saw one of their shady commercials
on tv.
We really need people like you to help educate the public to help
them make better choices than the easy fix that J.G. Wentworth
offers.
Regards, TJ"
When a company goes bankrupt one cannot help think of potential jobs
lost and families affected. Yet in this case one's sympathy is deeply
conflicted because one cannot forget that this company is perhaps the
most polarizing figure in its space (and unfortunately ours) AND the notion that it probably "services" a boatload of structured settlements. Now is the time for regulatory reform. It is also appropriate to write to your Congressman.
I encourage any person who has bad dealings with JG Wentworth, or any other cash now pusher to discuss their story with me. Let's see how big the letter pile gets. I assure you that I will take your letters to my Congressman.
The time is now for settlement professionals to do something more in this area than simply reading what I have to say. As TJ says "We really need people like you to help educate the public to help
them make better choices than the easy fix that J.G. Wentworth
offers".
Quotes from May 20, 2009 DemocraticUnderground.com about JG Wentworth show what others think:
" If it wasn't such a rip off, how else could they buy so much advertising time?"
"This
does give me a ray of hope tho… Because, even at a sucker born every
minute, the rate isn't fast enough to keep these guys going"
"Such an evil company"
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