Prepaid Legal Complaints
Is My Prepaid Legal Opportunity A Scam? 

There are many prepaid legal complaints appearing on the internet now. On the other hand, there are also some genuine companies. If you are involved with a prepaid legal opportunity or considering joining such a scheme, you may be wondering whether it is genuine or a scam.

What Is Prepaid Legal?

As the name suggests, this is a way of paying for legal advice ahead of time. The member pays a monthly fee and has access to various legal services whenever they are needed. In a sense, it is a form of insurance, and in some US states the services are regulated by the state's insurance commission.

What Do You Get?

Most pre-paid legal plans offer free access to legal advice, consultations, drafting wills, reviewing contracts, filing divorce papers or having a lawyer write a letter for you.

Some plans offer a wider range of services including representation in court, but often you have to pay extra for this. Even where it is offered, the plan will usually only cover a limited number of hours.

What Is A Prepaid Legal Business Opportunity?

Originally, most legal plans were sold by insurance agents. However, as their popularity grew, it became possible for people to set up selling pre-paid legal plans on commission as a business opportunity in itself.

Why Are There So Many Prepaid Legal Complaints?

Most of the prepaid legal complaints relate to the business opportunity aspect of these services. Since the rise of the internet there has been a huge growth in the number of agents that have been taken on, while the number of people interested in taking out a legal plan has not grown. This means that it is often not so easy to make money as a prepaid legal representative.

Prepaid legal complaints often relate to the fact that while companies recruit agents on the internet, they often do not let you advertise on the internet, or have very restrictive rules about what you can say. This makes it difficult for an agent to sell plans online. People who were hoping to make money while staying at home with the kids are disappointed to find that in fact, they have to go out in their local neighborhood to find clients. So before you sign up for one of these opportunities, read the fine print to see what you can really do.

Some companies have been accused of scamming members and this is a different matter. In these cases, members have said that the advertised services are not being provided. For example, a plan might offer free drafting of wills, but when you contact one of their lawyers you find that the service is not free at all. In this case the complaint should be taken to the Better Business Bureau or even the FTC who will investigate.

A real scam is rare. Most prepaid legal complaints turn out to be from people who were disappointed because they did not read the fine print before joining.

by J. D. Blocker - May 19, 2010

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Source: http://www.LegalAdviceOnline.org