What can YOU do?
September 30, 2015
What can someone do when confronted with the realities of court scraping, shady forum shopping, deal poaching, aggressive solicitations, and poor rates on factoring transactions, especially from big factoring firms?
- If you think your clients aren’t factoring, think again. They are getting hounded by mail, phone calls, and ads on TV. Most of the time, they don’t feel the need to call their brokers about factoring.
- If word reaches your ear that an annuitant is being hounded, refer them to www.stopcashcalls.com and www.factoringethics.com. Information is out there to arm people against factoring predators; give it to them.
- Let them know what to expect once their case is structured. When it comes down to factoring, refer only to those you know to have good track records; those who don’t engage in unethical, aggressive, or shady behavior.
- Know who’s doing more than just talking the talk – know who’s walking the walk. Bentzen Financial is leading the way to clean up the industry. We wear the title “irritant” of the big factoring companies with pride. Click here for more on choosing Bentzen Financial.
- Know why the factoring giants have notoriously poor rates, in general; it’s simply a matter of cost. The bigger you are, the more it costs to get and close a deal. Click here to learn more on this topic.
- Sign our petition to protect the personal identification information (PII) of structured settlement beneficiaries so that they won’t get scraped by shady factoring companies.
The post What can YOU do? appeared first on Bentzen Financial.
SHARE ARTICLE
Our Recent Blogs

Factoring isn’t the boogeyman and structures are not perfect.
The best structured settlements are beautiful, but don’t get attached to them. Life happens, and as such it’s life, not factoring, that is the enemy of a structured settlement. The best laid plans, like the best policies, with the best intentions, can’t s

Myth: You will lose money by factoring, so take out a loan instead. Reality: Whether you factor annuity payments or take a loan, there is a cost to obtaining money, but many people believe that factoring involves “losing” money. This misconception comes from comparing the cumulative future payments with the present value lump sum payment offered by the factoring company. For instance, if an annuitant has 200 monthly payments of $1,000 , the cumulative payments would be $200,000 . In this case, a factoring transaction might net the annuitant approximately $100,000 or 50% of the cumulative total. This is not “losing” money, it is the result of obtaining future payments early at a 10% discount rate. If instead the annuitant took a $100,000 loan at 10% and paid it back over 200 months , the total cost including interest would also be $200,000 (assuming the annuitant had sufficient credit to get the loan). A loan requires credit, collateral, origination fees, and carries the risk of late fees and foreclosure if payments are not made when due. In the factoring scenario, the annuitant would need to wait 200 months (almost 17 years) to collect the full $200,000 , during which time the equivalent present value of the payments is continually diminishing due to inflation. A dollar will not have the same purchasing power in 17 years as it has today.

The foundation of abuse in the factoring industry is cracking! South Carolina’s supreme court as well as its senate are readying for reform in response to the most recent expose (see here , here and here ). Both the court and the legislature are intent on fixing a clearly broken system. Despite the natural inclination to copy what other states have done (MN, GA, LA, etc.), whose reforms ironically ended up benefiting the worst abusers of the industry, we suggest a simpler reform that will solve the absolute majority of abuse: Keep the personal identification information (PII) protected for all structured settlement recipients from here on out. This way, the companies guilty of these abuses won’t be able to find new victims. More: make such protection retroactive. This is already standard practice for minors receiving structures, and it works, at least until they turn 18. Extending this protection would do wonders for structure health. What predatory companies can’t find, they can’t chase. Keep people safe and their identification information secure. Advocate for smart reforms.


