by Structured Settlement Watchdog
In an apparent tribute to "Garland Greene", the fictional serial killer who boasted in 1997's Con Air, that he "drove through 3 states wearing her head as a hat", the dubious "NLRB Financial Consumer-Union" is wearing the well worn online "head" of the National Labor Relations Board Credit Union as a "hat" to drum up leads for a Florida company that is a member of the National Association of Settlement Purchasers.
How It Works
Consider this:
- NLRB Federal Credit Union Address 1099 14th Street NW Suite C300 Washington DC. It used the website domain of nlrbfcu.org
- NLRB stands for National Labor Relations Board, a government agency. As best I can tell the National Labor Relations Bureau does not buy structured settlement payment rights.
- That credit union was established in 1938 is listed as merged or closed and the the branch at that address was closed.
Now Consider the Dubious "NLRB Financial Consumer Union" and The Fraud Discovered Therein
- NLRB Financial Consumer Union address is listed at 1099 14th Street NW Suite C300 Washington DC, the same address as the National Labor Relations Board Federal Credit Union. It is clearly using the imprimatur of a government agency to drum up interest which is really sleazy marketing.
- NLRB Financial Consumer Union says a review is coming soon for Imperial Structured Settlement, a company that was acquired by DRB Capital.
- NLRBFCU lists a phone number on its website that is answered by DRB Capital, a Florida structured settlement payment buyer.
- The representative of DRB Capital that answered the phone who I spoke with stated unequivocally that DRB Capital does not have a Washington DC office.
- The sole review on the site is for DRB Capital and is purportedly written by a woman named Laura Bushnell, which happens to be close to the name of a celebrity from the Bachelor season 20 (2016), except her name was Lauren and she had blond hair. There is also a faith healer with that name but she is not in Boston. There is no Linkedin profile for a Laura Bushnell that meets the description on the NLRBFCU(dot)org site. It's therefore quite possible that she does not exist and it's a photo stock model. This type of nonsense is not unusual in the structured settlement secondary market where there was Imperial and DRB's "Kristen" who we had a field day making light of in 2014, or tales from the Maryland Cauldron of Deceit, where Mt. Airy Faker David Springer's James Goldstein in 2012 (the latter even being summoned for a deposition in 2014 in a legal case that left Springer's lawyers fumbling to defend and ultimately forced to admit was fake). Here's how I broke that story in July 2013. Then there were the Owings Mills fraudsters who tried to pawn off an alias of Ryan Blank as a graduate of Yale Law School when he graduated from the College of Charleston.
- New Evidence of Fraud On January 25, 2019 I contacted the Club Secretary for the Charles River Rotary. He is aware of every member of the Charles River Rotary. Upon review of the About Laura Bushnell on the NLRBFCU site he confirmed that Laura Bushnell is not a member of Charles River Rotary.
NLRBFCU Disclaimer Seems to Implicate a NASP Member, But Maybe Not...
The use of affiliate marketers is not unprecedented by the structured settlement secondary market.
A Disclaimer on the website says "Many advertisers and/or companies pay us a referral fee if you sign up for professional financial services, agree to sell a structured settlement or annuity, or purchase financial products after clicking links or calling phone numbers listed on our website.
The companies, products, and services listed on our website have been thoroughly researched, tested, and/or verified by our team of experts. Our opinions, views, and/or recommendations are never influenced by possible monetary compensation. If a product, service, and/or company is rated the best by our staff, it is not a coincidence that we also receive financial compensation from that company, it is due to we only work with companies we feel are the best in the industry".
Why Maybe Not?
DRB Capital set up a bounty program last year to target fraudsters in the industry and recently sued and referred to competitors, including fellow NASP member Rightway Funding as structured settlement factoring parasites in a press release. Maybe this is payback to make it look like it's DRB.
Wearing the Figurative "Head" as a Hat is Not Without Precedent in the Secondary Market
Someone bought another government related domain with an existing website at statelocalgov(dot)net. Structured Settlement Spam , a website dedicated to identifying structured settlement spam and purports to filter the fake news, commented about statelocalgov.net "some snapper head bought an old website that has nothing to do with structured settlements and is reviewing companies just like an SEO would (as opposed to a real structured settlement expert) and making it obvious that there is little to no knowledge about structured settlements. The navigation on the site is all off and they gloat about another website that has been in existence for like two minutes"
"Garland Greene" from the movie "Con Air"
Website domain : Identical
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