by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Who owned the web domain webuypayments.net and why should you care?
The website, that at the time of posting was associated with the landing page for a series of rogue websites spreading like a virus, that use the names of players in the structured settlement and structured settlement factoring industry, cities, states and towns in an apparent search engine optimization effort to boost local traffic to what appears to be a spam website.
Webuypayments.net, which is anonymously registered with GoDaddy.com lists no address, no phone number, yet has the audacity to include testimonials to this mysterious “company”. “John Smith Entrepreneur” and “Jessie James Work Accident Victim”? C’mon! webuypayments.net landing page wayback
The feeder websites are also anonymous. Needless to say, in my opinion, this is reason enough alone for consumers to avoid webuypayments.net like the plague. My opinion extends to any website that does not place its address and telephone number conspicuously on its website landing page, or at the very least on the “contact us” page.
This author believes that participants in both the primary and secondary market sites were victimized
- Prior to the sites pointing to webuypayments.net the landing page was often (at least on the initial click) pointing to the website of Sovereign Funding Group, an active factoring intermediary.
- This author contacted David Springer who runs Sovereign Funding at the end of last week and showed him the problem. Mr. Springer denied any role in this and said he would contact Google
- Since that conversation the links no longer point directly to his company ‘s website.
- David Springer later further implicated himself in the webuypayments scheme through an email to Kathryn Sias and Nicholas Jackson on May 9, 2012, where he referred to the aforementioned call about links to webuypayments.net as “out of the blue calling to pry into SFG business.” [ SFG stands for Sovereign Funding Group ]
Anyone on the structured settlement primary or secondary market side should carefully check for anonymous owned websites that use your name, company name, member’s name, or company name in the URL (in an attempt to game the search engine because no content on the ensuing web page is about what is in the URL. It’s important to distinguish this activity from pages with fair criticism or commentary and relevant content is presented) and clicking on the link brings you to webuypayments.net. For those that regularly post to blogs or already have a very strong Internet presence the offending websites may appear on page 2, 3 or beyond in Google search results.
The sleuthing continues.
A. It appears that the owner of the site has an affinity for wine judging from the sites that are being followed on its Twitter page
http://twitter.com/#!/WeBuyPayments/following
We can also see who is following this person company by checking who its followers are despite no postings. Who follows someone with no postings unless they know them, right?
http://twitter.com/#!/WeBuyPayments/followers
B. The “company” has a YouTube channel with no videos.
C. A Google search of the address and phone number listed on the Facebook page (as of 12:45pm on July 25, 2011) for WeBuyPayments.net, matches up perfectly with the address AND phone number for Sovereign Funding Group on the Better Business Bureau website
It is only by the collective efforts and alert observation of those who are victimized that the activity by people that create such sites can be obliterated
Postscript
- After 4 days of trial in August 2014, in March 2015 there was a judicial finding in Maryland federal court that Mt. Airy, MD resident David Springer owned or controlled webuypayments.net and the associated scheme, just as I uncovered here in this blog 4 years earlier.
- Springer was found liable and Woodbridge Structured Funding was awarded monetary damages.
- David Springer filed for bankruptcy about 6 months later. In addition to facing legal claims by Woodbridge, Springer was sued by JG Wentworth in Maryland State court, a matter that resolved to the best of our knowledge.
Hosting History for Webuypayments
On May 25, 2011, a Mastercard was used to purchase WeBuypayments.net from GoDaddy and register to David Springer at the Mt. Airy MD address that he resided at when the webuypayments scheme was hatched.
Much has changed about the fabric of the structured settlement secondary market since 2011. All 50 states have Structured Settlement Protection Acts. A number of states require registation of transferees and bonding. There is still a way to go, but the landscape has changed.
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