You've seen the commercials.  
 
A distraught person is shown screaming out the window at the top of their lungs in frustration because some evil, unnamed annuity company has separated them from their money like some latter day Silas Marner.  This financial affliction appears contagious since soon seemingly everyone in the neighborhood joins the chorus.  They, too, want their money and they want it now!

 

Then, just when all hope seems lost and suicide-by-window jumping surely looms, a savior arrives in the form of a serious but not unkindly-looking gentleman who promises these hopeless souls the "CASH" today that will render their worries moot.  After all, he assures them, it's their money and they deserve it.
 
Beyond disingenuous, these ads purportedly exist to help people get back what's rightfully theirs.  But an article that recently appeared in an edition of Allentown, Pennsylvania's The Morning Call sheds a whole lot of light on how dearly people pay when they choose to sell their structured settlement benefits.