Complaint Review: Primerica Financial Services

First of all, Amy is right. I had personal experience with Michael W. I remember at the overview meeting we were told that if you came to work for him and then later decided it wasn't for you, that you would still have learned something. He was right. I actually DID pay my $199 to go to work with him for a short time.

(LESSON #1: If you have to pay to get a job, something's wrong!)

The company uses interesting psychology to pull people in who are in just that right vulnerable frame of mind. Don't want to make cold calls? (I didn't!) No problem! You won't have to! (No, instead, you call your friends to set appointments for your trainer and then your trainer makes money if they should happen to purchase the life insurance policy or any other services.) The list could go on here, but this was my first issue with the company and the one that really bothered me during my time with the company. My friends & family made appointments with me, but they realized I wasn't going to be making any money if they did buy the insurance so they didn't and they didn't give me any referrals either which is where the other side of that "No problem, no cold calls," comes into play.!

I was told that I would be my own boss and I could determine how much $$$ I would earn by my own efforts. (This is key in a later part of my rebuttal!)

When Mike stated he doesn't know how to operate a computer very well, it's sort-of true. He knows enough to look up how much of his down-line is keeping him in the money.

He doesn't do his own email, however...Mrs. Mike does that. He also doesn't return phone calls. Mrs. Mike does that as well. And she will tell you flat out that when it comes to answering his phone calls, she IS Mike. I had a confidential question to ask Mike for a client one evening. I needed an answer by a certain time or I would lose the client. I called Mike's office phone, his cell phone and another number trying in desparation to contact him to no avail. (I should mention, I witnessed him ignoring his cell phone on occasion when I was in training with him. LESSON #2: Don't bother trying to contact Mike.) His wife called me the next morning and demanded to know why I called the previous evening. When I told her I no longer required the information, the client had asked that I ONLY discuss my question with MIKE PERSONALLY, she informed me that as far as I was concerned she IS Mike and that I was to tell her right then what the business was. I informed her that I would not disclose the purpose of my call and hung up. She called right back, and when I chose to let the answering machine answer instead of getting into a verbal match with her she left the message that she was going to fire me if I didn't answer my phone right then and talk to her. (Wait! I thought I was self-employed! She didn't sign my paychecks!) Was I rude to her? I suppose, but by the time anybody had gotten around to returning my phone calls, it was too late. I had lost business and therefore, lost a potential paycheck.

This happened on more than one occasion with him, so I decided it was time to go back to the J-O-B. So, I'm "Just-Over-Broke". I'll take that over spending what little I did have to get nothing in return in the end.

There is one thing I came out of this experience with...I do have a small TERM life insurance policy on myself as well as one on my husband. Yes, Mike, I removed the part where it increases each year, so your commission WON'T go up on it. But I wanted to state that PFS does NOT sell cash value policies. LESSON #3: Cash Value policies can implode if you have them long enough. (This lesson was a valuable one.) I sadly witnessed this happen to a dear family member and couldn't help him. This was a positive out of my experience, but for the most part, the brainwashing that comes out of this company is unbelievable! BUYER BEWARE...

I couldn't agree with you more. It is because of my work in Psychology as well that led me to question my involvement as a trainee. I cannot fault my trainer, or any of the poor folks caught up with their time and money in this elusive dream. They really do believe the propaganda and are hoping and hoping that they will 'make it'.

I was in it long enough to get to know a few people and now I care about them. I care that they give up so much of their time, and money, to hope to discover the people they can recruit so those can make money for them. (I made money for the uplines, I know this. It took weeks for me to see this)Anyway, I care about them. The ones I think about have hearts and do care about people, but don't seem to have the personality to agressively market themselves, a concept, and the products. They seem to be brainwashed and show signs of it.

In all my soul searching of discovering if this was an opportunity that was the best for me, I came to the conclusion that the company had overpriced products, depended on manipulative presentations for recruiting, and required many hours with no pay. I decided if I had to hear that propaganda every week, I would not be able to respect myself. I began to question. How refreshing that was.

There are a few sites out there that deal with MLMs and there are links on those sites that take you to understanding how cults work. I found these very helpful as I questioned. Some of the best deprogramming is done by listening to your own thoughts and questions.

If an 'opportunity' is a very good thing, it will stand the test of lots of questions. If this was about real financial knowledge, the salesforce would be focusing on learning financial services as other companies do, not on how to recruit like crazy, and sitting through hours and hours of hoopla.

The heart of integrity is to 'know thyself'.

What psychology teaches is to listen to yourself and to basically own your own drives, doubts, fears and true inner person. When people who have been subjected to the constant repetitiveness of the Primerica phenomenon, they can take time out to listen to those questions within them, whatever they are.

I thought Amy's report was lucid and moving. Hey, it sounds normal for a presentation, someone wants you, they will say what you want to hear and sidestep what you don't.

If anyone said "Hey folks, this is a sales job and it is totally commission-based. And there are people above and below you that will have to be paid. And we will be correcting how you talk so you must be 'coachable', which for us is basically mind control. We just want you to know the facts (and then clearly stated the poor statistics on the percentages of people who do make a living in this....see Ken Young's message board for disillusioned ex agents.)

If anyone was clear and entirely truthful, like most who wish to hire people for a company, then the diehards would sign up for the challenge, and the ones who need legitimate jobs, with benefits an retirement to support their families would step back and say,"too risky".

This is where I see the company is not really for families as they say. If they pressure people already working hard to sign up with them, they are increasing the stress level and setting them up for the common disillusionment that so many have paid for. See the statistics about how many 'make it' in this group. See the average costs of keeping involved. The agent pays for everything and owns nothing.

To David, who says Amy embellished...nope...
don't think so. Her report sounds like the flavor of my experience as well, especially about the evading her direct questions about the bottom line of what her job would earn her. Disclosure is not a strong suit in this line.

C, I appreciate your reports, you are good. You sound like you know the company so well. Even as one who had a short lived experience, I can relate to so much of what you post. Thank God for people like you who are willing to expose and deal with such a problem.

As you put it, the people who are representing Prim are masters at deception and misrepresentation. I have seen this, it is like white lying. It is like not telling someone they don't look nice when you know they would be hurt. They do tell you what you want to hear, and evade dealing with your honest and exposing type questions. Anyone able to be in their right mind, which is hard as Fred so aptly described what is going on, should run for their friends, family and legitimate work.

I know entrepeneurial type folks who might salivate at the opportunity, but I say use your gift in starting your own real business, even financial services. There is no 'owning your own business' here.

Thanks for your post Amy.

If anyone has been ripped off by this scam, you need to contact Donna Guilmette; 800 666-7837 x8514. I got all my money back.

I have studied psychology, NLP, etc. for a while now and recommend a book entitled "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" to more fully grasp the influence tactics used by Primerica.

What they essentially do is target common weaknesses in the psyche based on our societal conditioning. The are sort of perceptual filters, which influence thinking. The conscious mind can only focus on a fairly small amount of information at once, so what we do is pay attention to what we consider most important and passively filter out everything else. We then continue to support whatever beliefs we have developed, especially if we are not given time to stop and reflect. They basically take advantage of fears. People fear making a mistake, wasting time, being unhappy, etc.

Our minds accept things in small stages, ideas which we may not accept at first. For example, have you ever wanted to get together with a friend to do something specific, then had those plans fall through, but the focus shifted to spending time with your friend even though you really just wanted to do that specific activity, then you end up doing something that you would rather not be doing just so you won't hurt your friend's feelings? Same basic principle. We accept, rationalize, and justify in small steps things that we would NEVER accept right away, and peer pressure and labelling "you're a LOSER if you don't do this" have a HUGE influence on our decision making process.

A classic example was at the end of the presentation I attended. They showed two conditions that were possible outcomes of the meeting: you could "do nothing" and be miserable, or you could join them and make a lot of money, be happy, etc. Not joining them is NOT "doing nothing", and there are a world of alternate options.

C from the great Midwest states that HE believes the original poster for whatever that is worth.

Logically, I'd say the truth lies somewhere in-between. Amy certainly presents herself as an educated young lady who has well-thought out career goals. It is somewhat improbable that she was as naive in her dealings with this recruiter as she would like us to now believe. I, for one, tend to believe she has greatly embellished her tale. On the other hand, I tend to believe this recruiter saw an opportunity to recruit and more than likely was purposefully vague in his responses. I think that he probably concentrated on saying the things he knew she wanted to hear.

My conclusion? An educated lady such as Amy needs to take responsibility for her actions and quit looking to blame others for her lack of due diligence and the recruiter needs to start conducting himself in a manner consistent with the professional he purports to be. As for C, well he apparently has personal issues with the company and can no longer see past his resentment. His judgement is more suspect than either Amy's or the recruiters IMHO.

Yeah right Michael..
First, primerica.com does NOT clearly state what you do. It is a typical MLM web site which obfuscates how the system works and hints at things like "owning your own business". Only if they read the fine print and disclosures can they get a picture - and the fine print links were BROKEN on primerica.com for months.

Second, there are other jobs in PFS that aren't commissioned MLM salespeople. The original RoR stated that you clearly misrepresented the position as one of the waged/salaried positions. I don't believe, and I think that most readers here wouldn't either, that you clearly stated upfront what was involved. That is typical in my experience with MLMs in general and PFS specifically. Why else would she take the time to write the report?

PFS salespeople are masters at deception and misrepresentation. I for one believe the original filer of the report.

What was actually told to Amy about the opportunity with Primerica was that I was excited about the fact that she enjoys interviewing and training new people, because that is what I am looking for in someone.

I am looking for people to develop into key leadership roles.

We do get paid on a per client basis.

I e-mailed the company site to Miss Handley several times, www.primerica.com, which clearly states what we do and how we are paid. (Including overrides)

Is it possible to make 60k in the first year? Yes. If you are coachable! Miss Handley was never once asked for a list of friends or family to go sell financial products to. She came to prelicensing class only, gathered her own opinion, and quit without even asking any questions.

She has several people that she respects working with us and yet only she could figure this out! How odd!! Maybe a career where she doesn't have to worry about getting paid what she is actually worth.

Amy,

You did not state whether you had any supervisory or managerial work experience. You may be very smart with high college grades, but I am pretty sure that recent college graduates with BS degrees in human resources don't get jobs as middle managers or district managers making $60k -$70k.

Computer engineers (software or hardware) are more likely to make $60k out of college. I was making $55k as technical support engineer for a now defunct internet service provider.

I worked my way up to that salary after many years of experience in the computer field starting with data entry and PC support. After graduation from college with an MIS with no experience, it was difficult to get a computer job.

If the job offer is too good to be true, then it probably is not true.