by Structured Settlement Watchdog
Six Actionable Steps to help clean up sell structured settlement advertising fraud:
- Advertising for selling structured settlements should include clear financial disclaimers warning consumers that such sales will result in a financial loss. This outcome is not a possibility but a certainty—selling your structured settlement will invariably lead to a financial loss in every instance.
- Companies that buy from sellers should refrain from advertising the provision of financial advice unless they, and any representatives offering such advice, hold the appropriate licenses and professional credentials.
- It should be impermissible for a structured settlement factoring company to advertise that they can “discuss your options” when the only options they have involve are selling all or part of your structured settlement at pennies on the dollar. That is really not “discussing your options”.
- All public-facing websites soliciting the sale of structured settlement payment rights should be required to display their primary physical address, where employees and operations are located, along with a telephone number. It should be prohibited to omit an address or to list only a UPS store mailbox, a Regus office center, or a P.O. Box.
- The deceptive practice of structured settlement factoring companies luring annuitants by creating the false impression of being a government agency, in order to register their settlement and extract personal information, should be deemed illegal.
- Using paid actors for testimonials should be banned unless they’ve genuinely sold their structured settlement payments to the advertiser, with the transaction verified through court records. Any paid testimonials should be clearly labeled as such in the ad.
Structured Settlement Secondary Market Wall of Shame
Bogus “Agency” Name Who Was Behind It?
Department of Structured Settlement Affairs 123 Lump Sum (“you’ve been flagged to receive an audit”)
National Structured Settlement Registry Seneca One Finance
National Settlement Registry Seneca One Finance [which registered structruedsettlement registry(dot)com in 2014]
Settlement Union CBC Settlement Funding
Use of Paid Actors/Paid Testimonials
Einstein Structured Settlements Ryan Blank/Richart Ruddie/JRR Funding
Sovereign Funding Group David Springer
Masquerading as Fake Employees of Both Genders to Make Company Seem Bigger
Sovereign Funding Group David Springer
Unlicensed Financial Advice
“Maximizing your settlement benefits” CIYA | Forensic evidence suggests commonality with Einstein/JRR Funding
“Maximizing your settlement”
Novation Settlement Solutions
Using Dubious investment projections
Two Florida companies (ClientFirst and High Point Funding)