by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Is the truth about what structured settlement buyers do coming around from the inside?
Einstein Structured Settlements contends that "According to researched data companies such as Stone Street, JG Wentworth, Peachtree Financial, and Seneca One have helped to facilitate transfers from Transamerica's policyholders to themselves in exchange for a small lump sum payout". So it's really NOT as big as they said it was.
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by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Don't seek guidance about the purchase of insurance products, including structured settlement annuities, from anyone who does not hold an active insurance license, or is not appropriately credentialed or licensed as a financial adviser.
JRR Funding, a Florida Company, operating out of the Baltimore Maryland/DC area, that has somehow escaped regulatory scrutiny engages in both "selfie" promotion and appears to be soliciting insurance without a license using its Einstein Structured Settlements brand.
A number of structured settlement factoring companies provide information about the primary side of the structured settlement marketplace, but JRR Funding, through Einstein Structured Settlements appears to take it a step further. In a page discussing Structured Settlement Rates that insinuates JRR/Einstein's ability to place structured settlements is:
"As you can see, Structured Settlement Rates can be very involved and complicated, and this is exactly why... always recommend the guidance of a firm like Einstein.."
A series of fraudulent ads promoting settlement planning seminars in Chicago and San Francisco were used by JRR Funding/Einstein Structured Settlements in 2014.
AS I have previously documented, a number of fake, paid testimonials were used and continue to be used by JRR Funding/ Einstein to promote its business. The fake testimonials testimonials use paid actors who, at $5 to $25 a pop are falsely portrayed actual customers of Einstein Structured Settlements.
Among other fraudulent claims by JRR Funding/ Einstein Structured Settlements websites is "Not every broker is as qualified as Einstein...", so don’t assume that they are. A broker should at least be a Licensed Health, Life and Disability Agent, or have very close ties to such an insurance firm. He should also carry Errors & Omission Coverage". As I've shown above neither Einstein, nor the listed principals are licensed in Maryland or Florida.
On the website of another Richart Ruddie/Ryan Blank associated brand, Annuity Sold, there appears the fraudulent claim that Annuity Sold is licensed to purchase in all 50 states.
Much of what is posted on Einstein Structured Settlements is not well researched and is often poorly articulated.
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by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
More fraud from Einstein Structured Settlements. Make that two non-existent promotional stunts by the structured settlement secondary market's standard bearers in false advertising and deception.
Prior to the bogus Chicago Structured Settlement Planning Seminar promoted in Chicago Crains December 2014 (that I exposed as a fraud non-event earlier this year and tied to Einstein Structured Settlements, a JRR Funding brand), there was a promoted "San Francisco Structured Settlement Sale Seminar", advertised on SanJose.com as purportedly taking place on September 24, 2014 at 8pm in the "Structure store" at the Westfield Valley Fair Mall. I spoke to the manager of that store today and there was no such structured settlement sale event on that date.
The brand Structure, was incorporated into Express Men in 2000. The Express Men store at the address in question, sells men's clothing and is still open at 8pm serving its retail customers. according to the manager. The phone number (561)270^6159 in the bogus sell-structured-settlement ad resolves to getastructuredsettlement(dot)com** which is connected to fatlossbands(dot)com of which JRR Funding's Richart Ruddie is Vice-President and Registered Agent. [ Postscript March 2017 Read Reputation Management Fraudster Richart Ruddie Pays Up in Scam Slam, Plea Bargains in Criminal Case]
and I have evidence that apparently other structured settlement purchasers, including a member of NASP were inveigled in this "bollocks bolognaise" link baiting with another "seminar" in Dallas. Upon information and belief the NASP member in question used Rich Ruddie and Ryan Blank for its SEO until sometime earlier in 2015.
The likes of Ryan Blank and Richart Ruddie as well as others like them are enabled and emboldened by the lack of regulation of solicitation in the structured settlement secondary market. They are simply exploiting the regulatory chasm. Think about what one has to do to pitch investors in regulated financial products like securities. With structured settlement payment rights, just about any huckster can be an affiliate marketer.
** Postscript getastructuredsettlement(dot)com now redirects to einsteinstructuredsettlements(dot)com.
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by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Weren't fake testimonials and fake academic credentials in their company advertising bad enough? Have Owings Mills' Ryan Blank and Rich Ruddie now resorted to sanctioning selfie reviews to promote their structured settlement buyout business? Sure seems that way.
First the Einstein Structured Settlements website, a vehicle of Blank and Ruddie's JRR Funding, that has been used for "brand jacking" competitors and false advertising, including but not limited to outrageous paid for testimonials, says this:
"There are also known websites like the Annuityguys.com and annuitysold.com that have different speculative information for investment purposes that may be of use to our visitors so we want to recommend that you check them out if you are looking for a different investment vehicle" (emphasis added)
But annuitysold.com, which has gone dark since they were exposed in Annuity Sold Claims to Be "Licensed to Purchase". It's Baloney on September 8, 2015, is also run by Ryan Blank and Rich Ruddie and crew and emails have been circulating from each of them to others in the secondary market using an @annuitysold.com email address
Popstscript
In January 2018, punishment saw Ruddie and Blank's Annuity Sold, JRR Funding and other operations banned from doing business in Maryland for 7 years, after an investigation by the Maryland Attorney General.
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by John Darer® CLU ChFC MSSC RSP CLTC
The loss of a loved one brings change and transition. The physical, psychological and social realities of change are the real challenges, even when you’re attending to them. And when you aren’t attending to them because either you are unaware that you should, or you’re unsure about how best to go about it, you’re likely to compromise your future. The result? A new normal fraught with obstacles, anxiety, and even chronic physical problems, in addition to financial problems. [Sudden Money Institute]
Successfully managing Sudden Money is tough for most people. It is more challenging and complex than recipients anticipate. It is also difficult for many financial advisors to understand how to help new wealth clients, not to mention peddlers of inheritance advances like the people behind Einstein Structured Settlements. It's a fact life that one day, hopefully after a much longer and fruitful life, JRR Funding's Ryan Blank is going to lose his father Barry Blank. Then, although hopefully before, perhaps Ryan Blank will truly understand that losing someone you love "ain't all about the money". Moreover "it ain't all about the money NOW"
In the meantime this is an embodiment of Ryan Blank and his minions' lack of understanding about transitions, quoted directly from the Einstein Structured Settlement website:
"When you’re stuck waiting for a delayed inheritance, an inheritance advance is a much easier and safer way to get money earlier. When you apply for an inheritance advance, the settlement company will review your claim and will likely pay you within a week of your application. Depending on the size of your future inheritance, you could receive anywhere from a few thousand dollars up to a 6-fixure advance....Don’t get trapped waiting for a never-ending inheritance. With an inheritance advance, you get your money fast and without any liability on your part. This way you get to enjoy your inheritance today without dealing with the headaches of potential delays".
Easier and safer?
There is a specialized financial planning discipline to address the unique experience Sudden Money creates. Whether it's an inheritance or an athlete getting a big contract or a divorce or a law suit settlement, transition expertise matters.
Few people need money right away. While some people in transition may gravitate toward concentrating on the money—the numbers—it may be because they are concrete and easily definable. Having the space of mind to orientate oneself after a loss may help you to avoid hasty choices that you could live to regret later.
Image: Dreamstime.com
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by Structured Settlement Watchdog™
Has JRR Funding had enough of making sophomoric attempts to simultaneously promote themselves while doing the dirty work for certain structured settlement secondary market players?
Shortly after apparently getting a cease and desist from 800 lb gorilla JG Wentworth "encouraged" them to take certain content off their Einstein site, and being exposed for involvement in sites with bogus advertising and brand-jacking, false advertising, paid reviews, fake BBBs etc, JRR Funding has apparently decided to "pack in" the clearly documented and unsavory activities on the above named sites, for now.
Their sites in the search results at time of posting, now point to a Google search page.
Having ambition is good, but JRR Funding apparently chose to enter an established structured settlement secondary marketplace using dishonest means instead of providing something of real value. JRR Funding could have used their energy and skills in a positive way, but instead chose the negative path.
When you consider all that has been done via the internet properties connected to JRR Funding and all that I have uncovered and reported, I would like to remind all my readers, including Ryan and Rich, to keep in perspective that I reached out to JRR Funding's Ryan Blank in early 2013 after discovering from Yale and UCLA that the academic qualifications were not as advertised. He didn't go to Yale or have a PhD and a law degree as advertised for his pseudonym Ryan Einstein, he graduated from college in Charleston, SC with a Bachelors. I had a nice conversation with his father Barry Blank about this and two suspect video testimonials (proven 2 years later to be fake paid for testimonials). Eventually I spoke to Ryan and told him that he was a young guy, then recently engaged to Anna with his October 5, 2013 wedding approaching, and I didn't want him to "F---up his professional life" before it even got started. I did not have to do this.
Ryan Blank was initially appreciative of my effort as can be substantiated by the transcripts of several email exchanges between February and May 2013. For example...
Timeline
2/1/2013 " Hey John, Hope all is well. Wanted to get your opinion on these ads [ email about an infographic from ryanblank1@gmail.com on behalf of Ryan William ( ryan@jrrfunding.com ) [in hindsight even then he was covering for himself]
2/20/2013 " Wanted to see what you thought about this content" [email from ryanblank1@gmail.com
3/11/2013 " John, Are you going to attend this convention? If so are you a sponsor or interested in splitting the cost of a sponsorship/ both/ or host a lunch with us? Ryan" [from ryanblank1@gmail.com inquiring about the NSSTA 2013 Annual Meeting in Palm Springs]. I respond to him "Hi Ryan, I am not going to Palm Springs, but if you’re marketing factoring services I’m not sure NSSTA will let you sponsor. If you’re getting different feedback let me know. JD"
3/18/2013 I sent Ryan Blank the following email message "FYI, This spam blogger seems to be promoting Einstein. The content is absolute crap http://www.renoskateboarding.com/working-with-certified-structured-settlement-consultants/ JD"
The wheels came off the wagon when I refused to accept an offer to write for them and laid out the reasons in a very frank but terse email in May 2013 in which I suggested that the Einstein brand could not recover due to the lies. As time went on the expected proof over the paid fake testimonials emerged.
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by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Richart Ruddie of JRR Funding and Profile Defenders (NuProfile) was sued in August 2012 by Las Vegas sports betting giant Bill Walters as part of litigation against companies and individuals that Walters said put up phony websites to trick gamblers into thinking they were buying betting tips from him.
The Complaint Against Richart Ruddie
Download William Walters Complaint against Richart Ruddie Nevada 2012.
Claims alleged against Richart Ruddie in the lawsuit included:
Richart Ruddie and Michael Cooper, among the Defendants in the case, are listed as managers and members of Cooper's Picks, an online sports betting site, according to annual reports filed with the Florida Secretary of State at all relevant times Download Coopers Picks FLA Secretary of State Annual Report 2012 and still are today.
Walters filed suit in U.S. District Court for Nevada and sought a temporary restraining order to have the sites shut down, which was granted. The matter was settled in 2014, according to Court records.
Walters said in the lawsuit he earned hundreds of millions of dollars from his sports betting and gaming investments and that he does not share his betting picks with the public or others in the sports betting industry.
In line 32 of the of the pleadings Walters alleged that "upon information and belief, Defendant Richart Ruddie has criminal records in the States of Maryland, Virginia and Florida".
Clearly Ruddie has a history of being associated with "brandjacking" even before his involvement with Einstein Structured Settlements, which burst onto the scene in October 2012.
As I have clearly documented, Richart Ruddie has been involved with JRR Funding and Einstein Structured Settlements, a "master class" in the brandjacking of competing settlement purchasers, generation of crap content and false and misleading advertising, including the use of fake names and aliases and fake academic credentials. Other JRR Funding associated properties Edison Funding and Greenspring Funding use fake BBB seals. A number of companies in the structured settlement secondary market have been the financial beneficiaries of this.
Elsewhere on the internet there is evidence of Ruddie's threats of a DDOS attack on a website in 2011.
Also in July 2012, Park Avenue Funding (PAF), a mortgage investment firm, sued Profile Defenders and its principals, David Lynn and Richart Ruddie, in Superior Court of Ocean County, New Jersey Docket L01771. In the lawsuit, PAF asserted that it hired Profile Defenders to help it manage its internet reputation. According to the suit, Profile Defenders, rather than assisting PAF, used confidential information that PAF provided to it to blackmail PAF in an attempt to extort money from them with threats to further damage their online reputation. PAF filed the lawsuit to illustrate the dangers of providing confidential information to unknown "web companies" who claim to do "reputation cleanup" or otherwise monitor your "internet presence." Bruno de Vinck, Officer of PAF, said, "These firms can very well turn out to be the client's worst enemies that they actually brought upon themselves."
Postscript
In 2021, this post was the subject of a fake DMCA complaint, along with another post concerning reputation manager Richart Ruddie's "TextBook Frauds cited in Utah Law Journal" from 2020 that both (1) plagiarized our work and (2) the plagiarized content appeared on Richart Ruddie's own blog on the same blogging platform with a backdated published date to support the fake DMCA. Our post was subsequently restored following our discovery of the attempted scam of the blogging platform and our DMCA counter claim as the original author and publisher.
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by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Shortly after having his "court scraping" business plan for NASP member Fairfield Funding exposed by the Structured Settlement Watchdog®, JRR Funding's Ryan Blank appears to have assumed the alias "Ray Goldberg" for the very same Prezi account and content. While I drew a "blank" expression when I read it, frankly I'm not surprised. There is something in the air in Maryland that seems to point to an "acceptable" alternate reality.
JRR Funding CRM javascript has been discovered in Edison Funding, Einstein Structured Settlements and Greenspring Funding.
We have additional forensic evidence tying Einstein, or the people that manage it, to
What concerns me is that consumers need to know who they are dealing with really is the name that they are given. What could possibly be a legitimate reason for the use of an alias in dealing with consumers about money?
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by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Einstein Structured Settlements was caught copying a New Mexico law student's entire work in a bonehead move that provides support to ongoing allegations of false advertising against them.
On January 16, 2015, the Einstein Structured Settlements skunks engaged in false advertising by stating falsely, that it "is consistently reviewed as the top buyer of structured settlement and annuity payments"
Allegations of Einstein's latest false advertising display are supported by Einstein's own citation and posting of the entire 2014 research paper of New Mexico law student Jeffrey Stradling entitled " I have a Structured Settlement and I Need Oversight Now: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Structured Settlement Industry".
In Stradling's research paper (at page 7), discussing aspects of the structured settlement secondary market, Stradling characterizes a number of companies as "top purchasers". The list of top purchasers notably DOES NOT include Richart Ruddie and Ryan Blank's Einstein. The "geniuses" cited Stradling as an authority as follows: "Hat Tip to Jeffrey P. Strandling (sic) a 2015 graduate from the University New Mexico School of law (sic) for writing a detailed analysis about the secondary market and practices of factoring companies in the structured settlement industry"
After Stradling was notified of a potential copyright violation involving Einstein [which again copied Jeffrey Stradling's entire research paper about structured settlements] and being asked by Stradling to remove same, Einstein posted this:
"As per Jeffrey's kind request we have redacted the full research paper". [ an admission]
Is Einstein Falsely Holding Itself Out as a CFP?
Setting aside the copyright issue and its getting impaled by its own citation, perhaps the most sinister aspect of Einstein's willful misconduct, is its ongoing use of the title " Einstein Structured Settlements CFP in The Industry". The following is a screenshot from a Yahoo Search February 16, 2015.
The Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation is a professional certification mark for financial planners conferred by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board) in the United States, and by 25 other organizations affiliated with Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB), the international owner of the CFP mark outside of the United States. To receive authorization to use the designation, the candidate must meet education, examination, experience and ethics requirements, and pay an ongoing certification fee [ Wikipedia]. The CFP designation is conferred upon individuals, not companies (or websites masquerading that purport to be a company).
According to Jeffrey Stradling's LinkedIn profile, he is not a CFP, so are we simply looking at another attempt by Einstein Structured Settlements to hold itself out to be something that it is not ? Another false advertising stunt that should leave legitimate CFP and the Certified Financial Planners Board of Standards outraged In December 2014 Einstein solicited tickets to a purported structured settlement planning event in Chicago which we researched and found did not happen.
Which companies are benefiting from Einstein Structured Settlements false advertising? Are any NASP members involved? NASP members Structured Asset Funding and Fairfield Funding have at times used the services of Ryan Blank and Richart Ruddie. Shouldn't whoever is benefiting financially from Einstein's improper use of credentials be held accountable as well?
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by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Like them or not, it's worthy to note that JG Wentworth has prevailed upon the industry's chief punks, Richart Ruddie and Ryan Blank of Einstein Structured Settlements, to remove their web page containing the words JG Wentworth scam in the URL
As I have conclusively shown in prior posts, Einstein Structured Settlements itself has its foundations built on fraudulent advertising, brandjacking and negative SEO with respect to competitors or those its clients compete with. Einstein's efforts to brandjack JG Wentworth, which according to Novation Ventures, LLC, controls 75% of the secondarymarket, include the control of a website jqwentworth.com, which redirects to the JG Wentworth Scam page (now with content removed) on the Einstein Structured Settlements website.
Given that Einstein continues to mislead the public with paid testimonials for more than 2 years, soliciting consumers with advertising fraudulent academic credentials and soliciting money by electronic means across state lines for a purported Chicago settlement planning conference that has been refuted, anything published by Einstein needs to be viewed with a jaundiced eye.
What is a Scam?
A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. The confidence trickster, con man, scam artist or con artist often works with an accomplice called the shill, who tries to encourage the mark by pretending to believe the trickster. ... [ Source: Wikipedia]
A scam is also known as bunko, con, fiddle, flim flam, gyp, fraud, shell game, sting or swindle
The "strategic"use of the word "scam" for marketing purposes in the structured settlement secondary market was believed to be introduced by a Maryland resident who was eventually sued by JG Wentworth in 2011, after he ran two sites dedicated to disparaging JG Wentworth using the word. That individual is now trying to get his personal homeowners policy to cover more than $60,000 in defense costs and is awaiting trial in that matter as well as a decision in another lawsuit brought by another Defendant over similar subject matter.
Einstein has picked up the mantle and made an absolute hash of it, bringing the structured settlement secondary market to even lower lows.
Surely consumers can be educated about the structured settlement secondary market without having to resort to calling one's competitors "thieves", without any specific evidence to back them up.
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