L.L.
Denver,#2Consumer Comment
Mon, July 07, 2003
I was left a message by someone from Primerica, a division of Citigroup (I suppose the association with citigroup adds credibility), who wanted to talk about career opportunities. The answering machine identified the business as Primerica. I "googled" the company and found this response. Thanks to "rip-off revenge" and Andrew from Lorraine P.Q. for helping me to avoid a painful day. (p.s. Andrew your English is much better than my Francaise)
Inthegame
Montreal,#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, June 13, 2003
You were lucky to recognize the scam, I was sucked in for 3-4 years and lost 1 property and fought off bankruptcy to keep my principle residence. I was sucked in so deep that I lost some friends and not on speaking terms with some family members. Basically I was brainwashed. I was labeled a success in Crimerica; I recruited like a mad-person and won trips, not money, for the recruits. I cant believe I was so blind that I would subject others to this selfish-evil company. All the investment I sold in Crimerica did so poorly that I cant believe I did that to my family and friends; you know how Crimerica gets clients, they make the new recruit go after the hot market"family and close friends, after those sales, you're on your own. Im still in finance and have almost recovered all the losses that I have incurred onto my clients and feel great about it. Thats my story. Just in response to the article; when I first join this company there was a sting operations with some French TV news magazine show with hidden cameras and the whole works. As a result I recall that 3 or 4 offices closed in Quebec with multiple firings. Just to tell you the crookedness of this company In response to the last rebuttal, Crimerica does make money with recruiting. The years I was there, they boasted that they recruited 60 or 70 thousand new recruits; at $199 per recruit you are talking about tens of millions of dollars. And I know for a fact that not all new recruits get their financial services licenses,As a matter of fact most recruits don't get their licences; they leave way before any studying takes place.
TIm
Grand Haven,#4Consumer Comment
Wed, June 11, 2003
Andrew... kudos to you for having the sense to recognize a scam when you see one. You have, most likely, saved yourself alot of time and money by running away from your "opportunity meeting." While Primerica is a de facto pyramid scheme, they are not an illegal pyramid scheme as defined by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. IN order for an organization to be classiified as an illegal pyramid scheme at least 30% of its income must come from people who are inside the organization. What this means is that, if your products never make it to an end consumer more than 30% of the time, too much of your income is derived from the purchases of failed distributors who are never able to resell the product they purchased. Primerica avoids this classification because they don't require a product purchase of their employees. They do require a start-up fee, but this fee largely funds the necessary liscensing process and, as far as I know, does not represent income on the part of Primerica. Primerica has been pretty sucessful at closing their legal holes, and they run a legal and legitimate business. That is not to say that they run an ethical business, and many of us would argue that they don't. The only enforcement action that I know of resulting in the closing of an office was in Dearborn, Michigan a few years back. In this case, however, the agents involved were practicing illegal activities that went beyond their Primerica mandate.
Kim
Gilbert,Also file a complaint with the appropriate website if Primerica contacted you if you had your resume posted somewhere. These guys are pathetic and will stop at nothing to sucker people in. Be sure you have the name and phone number of the Primerica rep that contacted you. [email protected].