Litigation

Ever checked into a hotel room and get the heebie jeebies wondering who previously occupied the room, slept on the bed, used the remote or drooled on the same bedspread? Well that's feeling I'm getting about this.

The Alabama structured settlement annuitant who chose to do business with Rhonda Bentzen in a deal that has been pending for 7 months claims that while Bentzen was the initial contact he has been thrust on to "Audrey" at 123 Lump Sum (the d/b/a for Structured Asset Funding).

Members of congress and Alabama state representatives and settlement brokers ought to be getting the heebie jeebies that this company, 123 Lump Sum is actively (still current 7/19/2009) soliciting structured settlement annuitants to cash in their structured settlements to take a vacation or buy a new car or boat. It's a disgrace!

The company uses sales pitches such as:

• Cash Now

• Fast Cash Today

• and THEN contradicts itself with Cash in Hand Quick.

I don't know if my new "acquaintance" from Alabama. the Connecticut woman or anyone with a pulse would call 7 months quick!

Bentzen, whose Linkedin profile states that she is President of Business Development (of a company that she doesn't own) is perhaps the only factoring solicitor with a history of being "protected" by a settlement industry trade association (Society of Settlement Planners)  despite her once shocking disclosure that 90% of the industry that does business with her asks for and receives a kick back.

Now it appears that Bentzen's deals seem to end up with a company soliciting structured settlement annuitants to cash in their structured settlements to "take a vacation" or "buy a new car or boat". That's a whole lot different than the benevolent sales pitch that Bentzen has previously put forth and far away from the message that I hope and think those settlement planners and settlement brokers that refer business to her (and possibly take her kick backs)  would like to convey to the nation's trial lawyers.

In March 2008, Bentzen said "When an annuitant comes to me now wanting to explore cashing out some of their structure, I take that same settlement planning approach to unwinding the structure as I did putting it together".