by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Getting an annuity sold is not a guarantee in New York. For years young African Americans from New York state and elsewhere have been flown or bused into Florida, Virginia and elsewhere and groomed by structured settlement factoring companies with the end result being a financial rape sanctioned by an ineffectual court. All the big cases pending against structured settlement factoring companies involve allegations of forum shopping and big money heists of stable secure futures sanctioned by the so-called structured settlement protection acts.
Now, according to structured settlement secondary market observers, Connecticut's courts are being targeted by structured settlement cash now fraudsters attempting to get an annuity sold when they can't get a judge to approve structured settlement transfers in New York courts. I've heard this from two sources in the secondary market tracking such cases. One claims that a single company has almost 70 files on which this strategy is being used.
Fortunately laws have changed in some states. But the demons of the settlement purchasing industry are wily and look for the squeaky wheels. Is Connecticut's precarious financial position to blame. In 2016, the Malloy Administration proposed $64 million in budget cuts to the judiciary. Is a financially weakened judiciary a hole for cash now pushers to exploit for the purpose of getting an annuity sold?
A quick survey of structured settlement purchasing companies showing up in CT court records reveals that most are not even registered to do business with CT Secretary of State. That's a lot of lost state tax revenue.
Connecticut's Structured Settlement Factoring Disclosures Are Woefully Inadequate
A state that once boasted to be the insurance capital must do a better job
Here is is How Current CT State disclosures are Deficient:
- No effective discount rate that allows a seller to compare the rate being charged after all expenses are taken into for a true comparison of the cost of money. Instead the CT statutory disclosures use the applicable federal rate which gives a meaningless result. Would Luke Burr have agreed to sell his payments to false advertisers Novation Funding, if he knew he was being skanked for 18% effective discount rate? Instead all he saw was the Applicable Federal Rate of bubkis.Would the New Britain Judge who approved it had second thoughts?
- Prior transactions are not disclosed to the judge
- No Mandatory court appearance by seller to assure comprehension
All of these items should be incorporated as amendments to the CT Structured Settlement Protection Act CGS 52-225g-52-225l as soon as possible. In addition CT statutes should have strong domicile requirements to discourage forum shopping.
CT should also require settlement purchasers to be registered with the CT Secretary of State
Have you been denied a structured settlement transfer in New York and being told to file in CT?
If so I'd like to hear from you. If you sign a legal document attesting that you live in CT and you don't in fact live in CT you are committing fraud.