So says J.G. Wentworth's Advertising. It's the last part of the sentence that leads to JG Wentworth's inclusion in this week's Wall of Shame. JG Wentworth claims that people have to wait to receive full value yet the ad fails to disclose the "small print" . Essentially if these people do business with JG Wentworth they will not receive full value. Therein lies a reason that the advertising confuses the consumer. Let me explain.
JG Wentworth is in the business of factoring. In this instance they offer payment of cash in exchange for structured settlement payment recipient's structured settlement payment rights. The amount of cash they give to the seller of structured settlement payment rights is deeply discounted. There are significant costs to the structured settlement payment recipient when they sell or transfer their structured settlement payment rights to JG Wentworth or any other factoring company for that matter. Other factoring companies include Novation Capital, Peachtree Settlement Funding, Prosperity Partners, INc. (a/k/a PPI Cash), RAM Funding, Stone Street Capital, Settlement Capital, Strategic Capital, Sovereign Funding Group (SFG) and several others. By virtue of the fact that the seller of the structured settlement payment rights receives a discounted lump sum cash payment he or she can never receive full value.
JG Wentworth also claims that it is the "leader in the structured settlement industry". This is pure marketing hyperbole. JG Wentworth is not part of the structured settlement industry. They are part of the factoring industry or the so-called "advanced funding" industry. As described in its paid advertising on www.morelaw.com, JG Wentworth is a finance company! JG Wentworth was founded in 1992 . By their actions it appears that the factoring industry would like to be part of the structured settlement industry, but they are not part of the structured settlement industry. EPS Settlements Group, a large structured settlement annuity brokerage headquartered in Denver Colorado and whose predecessor companies were among the founders of the National Structured Settlement Trade Association, has the following definition of the structured settlement industry on its web site: "The structured settlement Industry was created in the 1970’s because of Internal Revenue Service rulings. These rulings made it clear that periodic payments to claimants in personal physical injury cases were free of federal taxation as long as certain conditions were met. This IRS acknowledgment made the concept of using periodic payments to help injured parties and defendants resolve claims popular. Before this time, U.S. common law promoted lump sum payments to claimants." Nothing in this definition includes a factoring company like JG Wentworth! By their actions (e.g. bidding up the key word "structured settlements" to $100 a click, fomenting the set up of splogs) it appears that the factoring industry would like to define structured settlements, but they are still not part of the structured settlement industry. JG Wentworth may be a leader in the factoring industry but it is not a leader in the structured settlement industry,
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