I have heard this is a pyramid scheme/MLM group. One of my friends just signed up to start working for them. I looked at their website and it says their parent group is Citigroup. This makes them look credible, but I do see where they advertise the business opportunity.

Can anyone tell me whether they are a scheme?

Star

www.primerica.com

[primericabuster.bravepages.com]

As the web site creator states: "...the core problem being the Primerica sales organization's well known false, misleading and deceptive sales inducement presentations communicated to the public for the purpose of enticing and luring the public to engage into a business relationship with the company.".

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star22
I have heard this is a pyramid scheme/MLM group. One of my friends just signed up to start working for them. I looked at their website and it says their parent group is Citigroup. This makes them look credible, but I do see where they advertise the business opportunity.

Can anyone tell me whether they are a scheme?

Star

www.primerica.com

Quote
star22
I have heard this is a pyramid scheme/MLM group. One of my friends just signed up to start working for them. I looked at their website and it says their parent group is Citigroup. This makes them look credible, but I do see where they advertise the business opportunity.

Can anyone tell me whether they are a scheme?

Star

www.primerica.com

They used to be called A.L. Williamns, and they sucked me in right out of high school here in Minnesota. Their top man was a brilliantly-gifted salesman. They had me convinced that by convincing people to buy term insurance and invest the difference (and/or become my downlines), not only would I help people, but I'd get insanely rich. So I went around with a licensed agent inflicting this stuff on my unsuspecting friends, family and neighbors who were at least polite enough to listen, but not even one ever bought anything.

I studied and studied for that brutally difficult insurance exam. Never did pass it. Worse you have to pay a hefty fee to take it. If you ever suffer from insomnia, I highly recommend insurance-test study materials. It'll put you out like a light. I attended more "rah rah yeah team" events than I care to mention lest nausea overcome me. My upline heaved on plenty of guilt on account of my dismal sales performance, as if it were all my fault.

Yet more than once they let me down, and after breaking appointments with my one hopeful prospect three times in a row I lost the only sale that I might have had. He even had the stupidity to ask me if it was his fault! WELL DUH!

Eventually even the naive 19 year old that I was finally realized that either I was the worst sales person in the history of the universe, it was a scam, or both. It's hard to admit that you've been duped, that I wasted time and money that I'll never get back, and that I made a fool of myself in front of family, friends and neighbors.

I just quit going to their meetings one day. You can't pay bills with flowery platitudes and wishful thinking. It's hard to convince people how much of an opportunity your offering when you drive an old rusy 1977 Olds Cutlass Supreme.

Whenever they called I gestured to my mom to say that I wasn't home. The last time my up line guy called me up he sounded so plaintive on the phone, according to my parents, as if I was ending an old friendship or something. No, I was just getting rid of a parasite. I wonder sometimes if any of them are still in on it. However I suspect that the peons, like me, had to long ago move on. Not one ever kept in touch. So much for "rah rah yeah team."

CNFT

I waswondering when these guys were going to show up here.

I had a little involvement with Primerica through co-workers from my job.
Definitely a pyramid scheme, but the people I met were not too hard pressure. More Like used-car salesmen.

I never joined up. No-one ever pressured me to. They did try to sell me stuff. I went to a couple of meetings and got the sales rap, but it was so boring I nearly fell asleep. If they used subliminals or hypnotic techniques, they didn't take very well. As a matter of fact, I can barely remember the big indoctrination, and didn't even remember going until I started to write this, that's how boring it was.

Didn't they turn into Solomon/Smith/Barney after the merger with Citybank? Is Solomon/Smith/Barney legit? I got the impression that this was a bank, non?

Primerica is run just like any other financial advisory firm. I am in the field (not with Primerica), and it is very common that when one person sells something that their supervisor makes a cut (usually a small piece, however). This is how supervisors make money, since they don't get a salary. In return, the supervisor provides an office, training, and tools for easy complaince. BTW, most financial reps do have to pay their own fee to take their exams. It is certainly not exclusive to Primerica (and that insurance exam is no fun at all).

What Primerica does is they 1) hire anybody (and I do mean anybody). All other firms will only hire people who they think can make a serious go at it. Even though it is rare for a financial advisor to make a salary, an office does not want to train somebody who is not making money. 2)They offer blanket advice to customers. Term insurance and invest the rest is good advice for most people, but not everybody. Primerica likes giving the impression to people that anybody selling Universal/Variable/Whole life insurance is crooked and corrupt.

I would argue with giving them the MLM label (it is to an extent), but that company is very unethical in many other ways. The biggest thing is that they will hire anybody who can fog up a mirror. That means that they are convincing people who have steady jobs to leave their job and make money in a field where they might not succeed. There is a lot of hype involved with recruiting and retaining sales reps, but most of those people are not really cut out to do that type of work.

Blaming those who lose money on such business schemes is not a meaningful response.

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is plagued with complaints, lawsuits and financial losses.

It is most often the system itself and not the participants, which causes failure within many MLM schemes.

See [www.vandruff.com]

This research paper explains the inherent structural and marketing flaws that cause so many MLM participants to lose money.

Also see [www.mlmwatch.org]

This is a Web site that monitors such schemes.

I don't think "oyster" is right about the "hire anyone" policy;

When I was being given the spiel for Primerica, I was told we would be required to agree to and pass an FBI criminal background check, as well as go to a lot of training, and I think it cost lots of $$, but I don't really remember how much.
(I think you had to get bonded?)

So, you can see, there is a screening process, though perhaps not a very intensive one.

Ok, after screening applicants, they will take anybody. Most reputatble financial firms will first interview somebody and then determine if that person will have a chance at success. Primerica will get you all excited telling you about the opportunity one has at Primerica and then encourage you to shell out a lot of money. In the meantime, you may be working another job and raising a family. A more ethical practice would be to realize that most people will fail in the industry so you try to find the ones who will be able to tough out the first few years (yes, it takes that long to make a living with as a financial professional with any company).

Sounds like denial along with rationalizations and a bit of blaming the victim.

Isn't this just another MLM.

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rrmoderator
Sounds like denial along with rationalizations and a bit of blaming the victim.

Isn't this just another MLM.

If it functions the same way as when it used to be called A.L. Williams then, yes, it is. While we were expected to sell the product, they really tried to pushed our greed buttons by saying that if we had x amount of downline we could just sit home and the money would "roll on in," and if those people had x people and so on... And there was plenty of guilt/anxiety/disapproval manipulation designed to make us sell sell sell and recruit recruit recruit.

And thanks for calling that guy on the carpet, for many would tend to take all the blame upon themselves inappropriately like I did once before I got my M.A. and Ph.D. in B.S. the hard way. Honestly most of the people I've met who excel in sales are intolerably condescending, smug, conceited @$$e$.

Thanks.

CNFT