Complaint Review: Primerica - Citigroup - New York New York

Dan, the problem is not THAT Primerica recruits people, it's HOW Primerica recruits people, and the original report was a perfect example. If you go into a jewelry store, you could expect to be sold a diamond ring and be pretty sure that it was a quality product. If you're pumping gas and some guy in a trenchcoat walks up to you with a handful of diamond rings for sale, you would be well advised to exercise a little skepticism. Did I just say that anyone selling diamond rings is a scam artist? No! Just that there's one sales method in which the consumer can have some confidence, and another where such confidence would be grossly misplaced. if I go to a job fair, or some sort of business opportunity convention, I would expect to be recruited and I would have some faith that the recruiting organization was somewhat legitimate. If, on the other hand, I'm out buying groceries and someone asks me if I'm happy with my current job, I would rightfully be a little suspicious. Let's go through some of your examples: 1) US Military - you're absolutely right, the military recruits, and they even use some of the sketchy methods I detailed above. The difference, however, is that the military exercises targeted recruiting, tells you the truth about what you will be getting into, and you still must pass a rigorous entrance exam, which weeds out the people who are not capable of performing military duties. Does Primerica do any of these things? 2) Church - I would advise steering clear of anybody who approaches you out of the blue and tries to "recruit" you into their church. 3) College (Does your college recruit?) - some colleges recruit, most good colleges are very passive about it, only the excessively profit driven colleges engage in aggressive recruiting, and none of them approach people at random offering higher educations. Additionally, college recruiting is targeted towards those who would actually succeed in higher education, otherwise it WOULD be a scam. 4) IBM does not approach people at random and offer them business opportunities. They recruit via job fairs, and target their recruiting toward people with a background in computer sciences. There is absolutely no parallel to the Primerica method here. 5) ANY and EVERY large corporation - This isn't even true. And for the other observations: 1. Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet. Who cares? That says nothing about the quality of the products offered by Primerica or the quality of the "opportunity." Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world, but we all know that Wal-Mart doesn't sell high quality products, and we all know that a Wal-Mart job is not exactly a stop on the road to riches. 2. Just because someone tried to recruit you for this business doesn't make it a scam. Partially correct, mostly wrong. There is nothing wrong with recruitnig per se, but there is something very wrong with deceptive recruiting, which is the kind used by Primerica. 4. You are a college student. From what I can tell, this is only relevant because it means that the reporter was probably too intelligent for Primerica. Primerica doesn't like people who ak questions and, believe me, somebody with some intelligence is DEFINITELY going to have some questions about Primerica.

The link is http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:B5721JHdLhgJ:www.innercitypress.org/citi.html+Primerica+fined&hl=en&lr=lang_en I excerpt the following: "...the Federal Reserve, which has fined CitiFinancial $70 million for predatory lending..." (dated 3/21/2005) What have you say to that, damage control?

Quoting: "Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet." Big deal, so was Enron. You're a poor salesman for Primerica. You're suggesting going to work for Citigroup instead of Primerica since you're emphasizing that company. I may have even gone to work at Citigroup. However being aware of the following lead me to cross them off my list (which I did with Scamerica a long time ago): Here are some websites you should check out about Citigroup: http://www.innercitypress.org/citi.html http://www.disclosure-us.org/disc-april2001/sharks-ftc-calls-citigroup.htm http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2002/02april/april02corp2.html A couple of excerpts from the websites (entering Citigroup predatory lending will turn up more): "There's a problem, however. Citigroup has been charged with predatory lending to the poor, not only by consumer advocates, but by the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission, and other governmental agencies. Citigroup's seeming capture of microcredit as-industry does not bode well." ""Citigroup has tried desperately to deflect the legal and public relations problems by suggesting that all the really bad practices had been the work of Associates First Capital before it became a member of the Citi family. The corporation feigned shock and dismay that such practices had been going on and urged the Federal District Court in Atlanta to dismiss Citigroup and its consumer finance unit, CitiFinance, from the FTC lawsuit. Instead of extricating Citigroup and its affiliates from the lawsuit, the dismissal motion dug the hole deeper for the corporation. FTC produced affidavits from a former employee charging that the corporation's consumer lending affiliate CitiFinancial had engaged in unethical lending practices long before Associates First Capital had been acquired. The court refused to sever Citigroup and its consumer credit affiliate, CitiFinancial from the suit. According to the FTC complaint, the Associates charged its customers prices that were substantially higher than those available to borrowers in the prime market. The FTC said Associates charged as many as eight points on mortgage loans each point equaling 1 percent the amount financed on top of inflated fees."

Quoting: "Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet." Big deal, so was Enron. You're a poor salesman for Primerica. You're suggesting going to work for Citigroup instead of Primerica since you're emphasizing that company. I may have even gone to work at Citigroup. However being aware of the following lead me to cross them off my list (which I did with Scamerica a long time ago): Here are some websites you should check out about Citigroup: http://www.innercitypress.org/citi.html http://www.disclosure-us.org/disc-april2001/sharks-ftc-calls-citigroup.htm http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2002/02april/april02corp2.html A couple of excerpts from the websites (entering Citigroup predatory lending will turn up more): "There's a problem, however. Citigroup has been charged with predatory lending to the poor, not only by consumer advocates, but by the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission, and other governmental agencies. Citigroup's seeming capture of microcredit as-industry does not bode well." ""Citigroup has tried desperately to deflect the legal and public relations problems by suggesting that all the really bad practices had been the work of Associates First Capital before it became a member of the Citi family. The corporation feigned shock and dismay that such practices had been going on and urged the Federal District Court in Atlanta to dismiss Citigroup and its consumer finance unit, CitiFinance, from the FTC lawsuit. Instead of extricating Citigroup and its affiliates from the lawsuit, the dismissal motion dug the hole deeper for the corporation. FTC produced affidavits from a former employee charging that the corporation's consumer lending affiliate CitiFinancial had engaged in unethical lending practices long before Associates First Capital had been acquired. The court refused to sever Citigroup and its consumer credit affiliate, CitiFinancial from the suit. According to the FTC complaint, the Associates charged its customers prices that were substantially higher than those available to borrowers in the prime market. The FTC said Associates charged as many as eight points on mortgage loans each point equaling 1 percent the amount financed on top of inflated fees."

Quoting: "Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet." Big deal, so was Enron. You're a poor salesman for Primerica. You're suggesting going to work for Citigroup instead of Primerica since you're emphasizing that company. I may have even gone to work at Citigroup. However being aware of the following lead me to cross them off my list (which I did with Scamerica a long time ago): Here are some websites you should check out about Citigroup: http://www.innercitypress.org/citi.html http://www.disclosure-us.org/disc-april2001/sharks-ftc-calls-citigroup.htm http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2002/02april/april02corp2.html A couple of excerpts from the websites (entering Citigroup predatory lending will turn up more): "There's a problem, however. Citigroup has been charged with predatory lending to the poor, not only by consumer advocates, but by the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission, and other governmental agencies. Citigroup's seeming capture of microcredit as-industry does not bode well." ""Citigroup has tried desperately to deflect the legal and public relations problems by suggesting that all the really bad practices had been the work of Associates First Capital before it became a member of the Citi family. The corporation feigned shock and dismay that such practices had been going on and urged the Federal District Court in Atlanta to dismiss Citigroup and its consumer finance unit, CitiFinance, from the FTC lawsuit. Instead of extricating Citigroup and its affiliates from the lawsuit, the dismissal motion dug the hole deeper for the corporation. FTC produced affidavits from a former employee charging that the corporation's consumer lending affiliate CitiFinancial had engaged in unethical lending practices long before Associates First Capital had been acquired. The court refused to sever Citigroup and its consumer credit affiliate, CitiFinancial from the suit. According to the FTC complaint, the Associates charged its customers prices that were substantially higher than those available to borrowers in the prime market. The FTC said Associates charged as many as eight points on mortgage loans each point equaling 1 percent the amount financed on top of inflated fees."

Quoting: "Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet." Big deal, so was Enron. You're a poor salesman for Primerica. You're suggesting going to work for Citigroup instead of Primerica since you're emphasizing that company. I may have even gone to work at Citigroup. However being aware of the following lead me to cross them off my list (which I did with Scamerica a long time ago): Here are some websites you should check out about Citigroup: http://www.innercitypress.org/citi.html http://www.disclosure-us.org/disc-april2001/sharks-ftc-calls-citigroup.htm http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2002/02april/april02corp2.html A couple of excerpts from the websites (entering Citigroup predatory lending will turn up more): "There's a problem, however. Citigroup has been charged with predatory lending to the poor, not only by consumer advocates, but by the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission, and other governmental agencies. Citigroup's seeming capture of microcredit as-industry does not bode well." ""Citigroup has tried desperately to deflect the legal and public relations problems by suggesting that all the really bad practices had been the work of Associates First Capital before it became a member of the Citi family. The corporation feigned shock and dismay that such practices had been going on and urged the Federal District Court in Atlanta to dismiss Citigroup and its consumer finance unit, CitiFinance, from the FTC lawsuit. Instead of extricating Citigroup and its affiliates from the lawsuit, the dismissal motion dug the hole deeper for the corporation. FTC produced affidavits from a former employee charging that the corporation's consumer lending affiliate CitiFinancial had engaged in unethical lending practices long before Associates First Capital had been acquired. The court refused to sever Citigroup and its consumer credit affiliate, CitiFinancial from the suit. According to the FTC complaint, the Associates charged its customers prices that were substantially higher than those available to borrowers in the prime market. The FTC said Associates charged as many as eight points on mortgage loans each point equaling 1 percent the amount financed on top of inflated fees."

Please note the Time and date of the rebuttal to this post, also not the close to same time/date posted rebuttal to the response to my article which was the one Jan made reference to in the one you just read. Also note the similar use of language and tone of the two writings. And how both of them failed to produce very significant followings, and failed to acknowledge many They were most likely posted by the same indivual, and it has been suspected that Primerica has employees who's specific job is defending the company on sites like this. I cannot verify this though. Also note how the responses "cherry pick" from the original post. What is stated in the post, never responding to complete ideas/concepts and in many cases even to complete sentences. Thanks Jan for making not of my post. As you can see Primerica PO'ed me pretty bad... lol and that is really tough to do.

There is not much to say here: 1. Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet. 2. Just because someone tried to recruit you for this business doesn't make it a scam. 3. The link you provided says nothing of the sort. 4. You are a college student. Other organizations that recruit - MUST be a scam according to this woman: 1. US Military 2. Church 3. College (Does your college recruit?) 4. IBM 5. ANY and EVERY large corporation Get real girl! Maybe you ought to see what Primerica Financial Services does for families! If you want to call something a scam, you ought to have real information about it - not just make something.

There is not much to say here: 1. Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet. 2. Just because someone tried to recruit you for this business doesn't make it a scam. 3. The link you provided says nothing of the sort. 4. You are a college student. Other organizations that recruit - MUST be a scam according to this woman: 1. US Military 2. Church 3. College (Does your college recruit?) 4. IBM 5. ANY and EVERY large corporation Get real girl! Maybe you ought to see what Primerica Financial Services does for families! If you want to call something a scam, you ought to have real information about it - not just make something.

There is not much to say here: 1. Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet. 2. Just because someone tried to recruit you for this business doesn't make it a scam. 3. The link you provided says nothing of the sort. 4. You are a college student. Other organizations that recruit - MUST be a scam according to this woman: 1. US Military 2. Church 3. College (Does your college recruit?) 4. IBM 5. ANY and EVERY large corporation Get real girl! Maybe you ought to see what Primerica Financial Services does for families! If you want to call something a scam, you ought to have real information about it - not just make something.

There is not much to say here: 1. Citigroup is the largest Financial Services Company on the Planet. 2. Just because someone tried to recruit you for this business doesn't make it a scam. 3. The link you provided says nothing of the sort. 4. You are a college student. Other organizations that recruit - MUST be a scam according to this woman: 1. US Military 2. Church 3. College (Does your college recruit?) 4. IBM 5. ANY and EVERY large corporation Get real girl! Maybe you ought to see what Primerica Financial Services does for families! If you want to call something a scam, you ought to have real information about it - not just make something.