by Structured Settlement Watchdog
Bribery has made a strong claim to be the third leg of a structured settlement factoring industry "mélange a trois" of malfeasance (bribery, forgery and ponzi schemers)
It has recently come to light through a court filing that a predator may have been bribing structured settlement factoring company employees to obtain annuitants' confidential information out of factoring company databases.
Novation Sues Predator Who Bribed Employees
Novation Funding filed suit" against factoring predator Daniel Sears a/k/a Mark Foster who (until it was removed) was listed as co-owner of Lion Settlement Funding on Linkedin. Novation's suit, filed July 14, 2017 in Palm Beach County, comes less than an a year after DRB Capital sued Daniel Allen Sears in Palm Beach County on the basis of similar allegations [ DRB Capital LLC v Sears, Daniel 50-2016-CA-06604 ] . Daniel Sears, 33, allegedly engaged in the alleged conduct, "using the Mark Foster alias, a false business name and LinkedIn profile "to solicit plaintiff's employee to steal valuable, confidential and proprietary information".
*Novation Funding LLC d/b/a Novation Settlement Solutions vs Daniel Sears 50-2017 CA 07864
Novation Funding is An Unsympathetic Victim
I'm not defending Novation Funding. I personally think that Novation Funding are false advertisers and predators funded by a hedge fund, who appear to target and prey on young African Americans. My opinion is formed in part by what Novation did to New York resident Cedric Martez Thomas, and excessive discount rates it charged and/or is charging to young African Americans like Currel Smallwood, in structured settlement factoring transactions that I have recently uncovered in NY. In the Thomas case, Novation forum shopped the then 19 year old New York resident (ostensibly to financially rape him for in excess of $1.4 million in profit spread in their own backyard, instead of where he actually lived) and thereafter falsely advertised that Novation paid the maximum payouts while leeching off the paid for goodwill of a remarkable adaptive athlete (Novation is a sponsor).
But Novation's lawsuit against Daniel Sears (and by reference DRB Capital's) helps continue to highlight just how sleazy the under regulated structured settlement factoring industry is.
Consumers Have Reason to Doubt Factoring Company Confidentiality
Defendant Daniel Allen Sears allegedly has successfully solicited employees of Client First Funding and Seneca One as well as Novation to steal valuable, confidential and proprietary lead information using "kick backs", according to the Complaint. According to the Complaint in May 2017, Defendant Daniel Sears allegedly said to a Novation employee that his " top broker made 445K last year and still works at JG" For many years JG Wentworth, which is a publicly traded company, has led the structured settlement factoring industry in volume [Something else for the shareholders of JG Wentworth, those being serviced by JG Wentworth and SEC regulators (as far as investigating and disclosing the alleged breach) to ponder along with the anemic stock price].
The identity of the JG Wentworth employee should be easy if Sears or his purported entity issued a 1099 as would be required by law. The amount that that individual bogarted from JG Wentworth is in excess of 10% of JG Wentworth's total market cap at time of publication.
Daniel Allen Sears is a real piece of work. In addition to allegedly inducing employees of other companies to breach their responsibilities to their employers, for his and their financial gain, while they still collecting a paycheck from the same employers...
- Daniel Sears has been charged multiple times for domestic violence, according to Palm Beach County court records. Here's Daniel Sears' mugshot from one of his arrests
- Daniel Sears has 13 traffic tickets in 9 years, 4 in the last 3 alone,according to Palm Beach County court records. Among them going 59 in a 35, failure to respect an HOV lane multiple times.
- Daniel Sears has a default judgment against him for $1,417.57 from a credit card company. It took them more than 2 years to get the default judgment in October 2016, according to Palm Beach County court records.
What I want to know is who is Daniel Sears' bag man? If Sears is so financially irresponsible that he can't clean up a bubkis credit card bill and have to incur a default judgment, how can Sears afford to pay the alleged "kick backs"?
It is in the public interest to know the names of who is taking the kick backs and whether these people have been fired, because those people lack trustworthiness to speak to consumers. Furthermore, if their employers know of the breach and still keep the employees who breach on the books what does that say about the employer? Should selling annuitants who have done business with such factoring companies and are in their data bases, be noticed of the breach?
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