by John Darer
An unnamed self-proclaimed mid-20s financial blogger from Vancouver Canada, shilling for Structured Settlement-Quotes.com on the Freedom Thirty Five Blog is this week's honoree of Dumbest Things Said About Structured Settlements. While the blog itself isn't bad (if you are Canadian), the following nugget of misinformation is just plain misleading.
"The nature of structured settlements requires people to wait to slowly obtain the full amount of funding".
The Reality
The person receiving structured settlement payments actually receives much more than the "full amount of funding" of the structured settlement. A structured settlement is a voluntary transaction.
Concerns about SSQ
This author has a major privacy issue with Structured Settlement Quotes. After years of referring pro-bono business to the company when it was run by Andrew Cravenho, Mr. Cravenho was apparently bought out. Shortly before the buyout, in the summer of 2011, I was approached with a seemingly innocuous proposal to make a charitable donation in my name to a charity of my choosing. Prior to agreeing to this it was made expressly clear that this charitable contribution was acceptable only if it was out of the company's general funds and NOT tied to any particular case. Needless to say the transaction was a private transaction. I was disappointed to learn in July 2012 that SSQ decided to use information regarding a former customer to defame me and deflect valid criticism. Shortly thereafter the same information ( believed to be known only to Mr. Cravenho and the check writer, who is an executive from a Canada based purchaser of structured settlement payments), appeared in August 2012 and still appears on a defamatory website registered in China which has made judicious use of black hat search engine optimization techniques with the intent to harm my business and with bitterness so disturbing that there is a wish to disrupt my soul in the after life.
When confronted in August 2012, the Canadian executive, coincidentally also from Vancouver, denied any involvement in Structured Settlement Quotes as did his company's Chief Operating Officer.
Nobody from SSQ has had the courtesy to address the breach of privacy issue with me. For the reasons stated in this post I would not ever recomnend SSQ again to any person, structured settlement industry colleague or financial planner in advisory roles, seeking to sell structured settlement payment rights. If they can do it to me they can do it to you.
Structured Settlement Quotes lists an office in Hartford CT (and nowhere else) but has not filed a registration with the Connecticut Secretary of State, according to the state's CONCORD on line record system. Moreover SSQ has not filed Annual Reports. Download PublicInquiry SSQ Structured Settlement Quotes 1-9-2013.
While SSQ purports to offer an online bidding system as its value proposition, getting the best bid can also be had by simply shopping around. We've recently published stories of two real individuals who were able to achieve discount rates of less than 7% by simply being patient and shopping around.
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