Update on VFG Pension Advance Schemes, Cash Flow Investment Partners, and Pension Viaticals Structured Cash Flows

I have written before about Voyager Financial Group.  I am still getting calls from people who sold their pensions to Voyager Financial Group (VFG) even five years ago. I don't think VFG still exists Incredibly, there is still a  Voyageur Financial Group website, but note the spelling:Voyageur.   This appears to be a different company, one that spells "voyager" like the Canadians do.  Different spelling or not, in my opinion, they picked a lousy name, and they ought to consider changing it in light of the problems with the pension-advance VFG. I spent an hour looking at their stuff before I realized it was probably another company entirely.


How bad are these pension advance companies? In September of this year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit against another group of pension advance companies.  Here is the text of the CFPB press release:

The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP) has filed a complaint against Future Income Payments, LLC (FIP), Scott Kohn, and the following related entities: 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, filed in federal district court in the Central District of California, alleges that the defendants violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010, 12 U.S.C. § 5536(a)(1)(B), 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 when, in actuality, the pension-advance products were loans, and were subject to interest rates that were substantially higher than credit-card interest rates. The Bureau also alleges that Defendants violated the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S.C. § 1638(a)-(b), by failing to disclose a measure of the cost of credit, expressed as a yearly rate. 

What is notable about this lawsuit is that it was the first enforcement lawsuit filed by the CFPB under the the supervision of acting CFPB director Mick Mulvaney.  Mulvaney never met a corporate scam he didn't like. He has even advocated dismantling the very agency he purports to head.

The Virginia attorney general also secured a default judgment in a separate lawsuit against some of the same entities.  https://www.consumerfinancemonitor.com/2018/11/21/virginia-attorney-general-obtains-judgment-in-lawsuit-against-pension-advance-company/


As I have said earlier, I believe virtually all of these pension advance contracts entered into by consumer/employees and private investors are illegal.  We have successfully protected pensioners who have decided to stop making payments on the contracts.

If you are a pensioner who is losing some of your pension every month, I suggest you talk to an attorney before ceasing payments, but that can be an option worth considering in a given case.

If you invested in a pension annuity, you might have a right to sue the individual or company that sold you the annuity.  Keep in mind, it is harder to get back money that you put out than it is for the pensioner to keep from losing additional money beyond what has already been lost.

I came across a great article at consumermojo.com titled "when you stop paying off a pension advance" that looked at a lawsuit between an investor in a pension advance and the pensioner. The long and the short of it is that the investor walked away empty handed.


Below are the names of some companies that have been associated with pension advances. I have not examined the contracts of all of these companies.

• LumpSum Pension Advance
• Pension Funding LLC
• Pensions Annuities & Settlements LLC
• Pension Income LLC
• Cash Flow Investment Partners
• DFR Pension Funding
• Veterans Benefit Leverage
• Voyager Financial Group LLC (Pension4Case/Cash Out My Pension/Buy Your Pension)
• First American Finance Corporation
• Investing Forward (Termbrokers LLC)