Thinking of taking a pension advance?

Are you a retiree thinking of taking an advance on your pension payments?  If so, perhaps you should re-think that idea.

This is an industry replete with fraud and there are a lot of unscrupulous companies out there looking to advance some funds to you at a very high rate.  Just a few months ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit in federal court in California against Scott Kohn, Future Income Payments, LLC, and a variety of related entities including:  FIP, LLC; BuySellAnnuity Inc.; Cash Flow Investment Partners LLC; Pension Advance LLC; Cash Flow Investment Partners East LLC; Cash Flow Investment Partners MidEast LLC; Lumpsum Pension Advance Atlantic LLC; Lumpsum Pension Advance Southeast LLC; Lumpsum Settlement West LLC; PAS California, LLC; PAS Great Lakes, LLC; PAS Northeast LLC; PAS Southwest LLC; Pension Advance Carolinas LLC; Pension Advance Midwest LLC; and Pension Loans South LLC.

The lawsuit alleges that these companies violated federal law by “representing to consumers that their pension-advance products were not loans, were not subject to interest rates, and were comparable in cost to, or cheaper than, credit card debt .”  These “pension advances” sold to retirees were actually subject to interest rates that were substantially higher than credit card interest rates.