by Structured Settlement Watchdog
Investors in "secondary market annuities" tied to certain Access Funding transactions, must wait another year to learn if they will see their money. In the unlikely event that the judge makes an on the spot decision, affected investors will have waited 25 months from the time they were noticed of suspended payments in February 2017. That's not what they signed up for. Even if they win, it's a Pyrrhic victory.
The Baltimore City Circuit Court has thrown out the claims that threatened the structured settlement payment rights to which investors are entitled from transfers originated by the defunct Maryland entity, reincarnated as Reliance Funding. The court granted summary judgment against the Maryland Attorney General on all claims seeking restitution for the payees whose structured settlement payments were transferred to Access Funding. The court found that the settlement of the class action brought on behalf of the same payees concerning the same allegations, in which the payees released all other claims arising from those allegations, foreclosed the Attorney General’s efforts to obtain additional monetary relief, including relief in the form of future payments.
The court’s order in early 2018 disposes of the Attorney General’s claim for a declaration that the transfers are void and that future payments must be made to the payees. The Attorney General has appealed the approval of the class action settlement to the intermediate appellate court in Maryland, and oral argument will take place in March 2019. It's rare that a decision is made on the spot and such a decision could take 30, 60, 90 days.
One cannot rule out the possibility that the resolution of that appeal will affect the court’s summary judgment ruling, although some are optimistic that the appellate court will agree with the Circuit Court. Since it is not the highest court of appeals in Maryland there is also the possibility that the Maryland Attorney General could choose to appeal further to a higher appellate court.
The terms secondary market annuity and secondary market annuities, are scam labels for structured settlement derivatives assumed by the peddlers of structured settlement derivatives.
By March 2019, Linda Cooper and her husband will have been suffering for more than two years over the fate of their investment in Secondary Market Annuities sold to them by Somerset Wealth Strategies. Somerset Wealth Strategies continues to maintain a website with the scam label Secondary Market Annuities even though it no longer markets the derivative investments.
Hundreds of "Secondary Market Annuity" investors noticed in Bankruptcy Filing by Woodbridge
Recently hundreds of investors in structured settlement derivatives were listed in the 47 page list of creditors in a bankruptcy court filing pertaining to the bankruptcy of Woodbridge Structured Funding (a/k/a Woodbridge Wealth). The SEC filed an action in December 2017 alleging that Woodbridge was a Ponzi scheme.
If Only They HAD Bought An Annuity
FACT: If these folks actually bought an annuity, instead of the scam labeled derivative investments that they were sold, they wouldn't be incurring the additional costs, aggravation or uncertainty.
Whatever defenses any peddlers of scam labeled structured settlement derivatives have, many are licensed insurance agents who knowingly misrepresented that the structured settlement derivatives were annuities to investors and, in some cases. brazenly peddled the scam labelled derivatives by insinuating consumer protections, which would be unlawful to speak of under the insurance laws of most states, if what they were peddling were in fact annuities.
Related
A Secondary Market Annuity is Not An Annuity
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