Here are various scams that are used by unscrupulous individuals whose intention is to bilk money from unsuspecting people who are either seeking to protect their assets, or are seeking ways to make money:

Asset Protection Consultant

This is a multi-level marketing scam that involves franchisees who pay $10,000 or more in order to become "consultants" in the area of asset protection. These same "consultants", without any education or training in the area, then go about and solicit clients to participate in Nevada bearer share structures (which have highly questionable advantages and many tax disadvantages). The scam operates on two levels:

1. It works against the against the franchisees who are conned into buying into the program

2. The clients who are duped into buying services from the franchisees.

Asset Protection Kits

These are "do-it-yourself" packages that purport to allow purchasers to create "one-size-fits-all" asset protection plans. Sad to say, the quality of these plans is highly suspect, compounded by the fact that in most cases the purchasers never implement the plans correctly, which often leads to very negative tax consequences.

Cookie-Cutter Plan

A plan of a one-size-fits-all nature sold by promoters, who make enormous profits from selling such plans because the costs for them to implement the plan are nominal. The effectiveness of such plans is highly questionable since, typically, if a creditor is able to defeat one plan then all similar plans can be defeated as well.

“Grandfather of Asset Protection”

A self-annointed title that is shamelessly used by some cookie-cutter promoters in their sales materials in an attempt to falsely give the impression that they were the one responsible for creating the field of asset protection planning.

Promoter

This is an individual selling one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter plans to clients whose checks clears, regardless of whether the plan is suitable for them or not. These Promoters will often attempt to maximize their profits by selling asset protection kits.

Pure Trust

This is a sham trust sold by scam artists which purports to be free of government regulation or intervention because of the Contract Clause in U.S. Constitution

If you would like more information regarding asset protection, trusts, family limited partnerships or the subject of this article please call or email our office.