Complaint Review: Primerica - San Bernadino California

Dexter...who says he spent 5 years with primerica, states primerica's financial assets grew from $70 million to 800 billion in the 5 years he was there. He said if the products were so lousy that couldn't have happened. I thought Dexter's numbers sounded wildly optimistic. I went to the Standard & Poor Financial profile for insurance companies. It put primerica life's assets at $5.4 billion at the end of 2005. It said they were $4.5 at the end of 2001. Thats 20% growth achieved over 4 years. Its also a far cry from $800 billion. I don't know where Dexter got that number from. At first I suspected he was using Citigroup's financials and like many primericans, believes they are interchangeabel. They are not. Primerica is a subsidiary of citigroup. That means it has absolutely no legal obligation whatsoever to the policyholders of primerica life should primerica life ever run into financial difficulty. Something else interesting.......in direct contradiction to the claims of the primerica shills who populate this board...growth in sales was pretty modest in 2005.......a mere 2.5%. Using that good old Rule of 72 primericans like to throw around it would mean at that rate it would take nearly 30 years for primerica double its yearly sales.

I AM SURPRISED BY THE DATE OF YOUR COMMENT. I THOUGHT SURELY IT WAS 6 OR SEVEN YEARS OLD. AS WAS SUGGESTED BEFORE DO THE RESEARCH BEFORE YOU SAY IT HAS NO CREDIBILITY. MUCH MORE ACURATE TO SAY YOU DONT KNOW OF ITS CREDIBILITY. I WORKED WITH PRIMERICA FOR 5 YEARS. I WAS LUCKY TO BE IN THE RISE OF THE OFFICE TO THE LEADER IN SALES OF ALL BASE SHOPS. YES SALES. EVER SAW A COMPANY THAT DIDNT SELL A PRODUCT OR SERVICE? TRUTH IS YOU DONT HAVE TO SELL ANYTHING TO MAKE MONEY AT PRIMERICA, AND TRUTH IS YOU DO SELL EVERY DAY ALREADY. YOU SELL YOUR SERVICES TO YOUR EMPLOYER IF YOU ARE UNFORTUNATE ENOUGH TO BE EMPLOYED LIKE I WAS BEFORE PRIMERICA. IF YOU STUCK AROUND LONG ENOUGH TO GET YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED YOU WOULD FIND THAT BY GOING THROUGH THE LICENSING PROCESS YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO RECIEVE COMMISSIONS FROM PEOPLE THAT YOU SIMPLY REFERRED TO THE OFFICE. BUT LIKE MANY YOU JUDGED THE WHOLE COMPANY BY THE WAY YOU FELT ABOUT THE ONE MEETING YOU HAD. DIDNT YOU LEARN SOMETHING WHILE YOU WERE THERE? DIDNT IT CHANGE YOUR VIEW OF HOW YOUR MONEY WORKS? DIDNT THE RULE OF 72 BLOW YOU AWAY? IF NOT THEN YOU HAVE NO PLANS OF HAVING MONEY AND THEN YOU ARE RIGHT, IT WAS NOT FOR YOU IN MY OFFICE WE STATE CLEARLY THAT NOT ALL WILL BE ACCEPTED AND NOT ALL WILL APPLY. I STAYED FOR THE TRAINING WHICH I KNEW I NEEDED AND WOULD BENEFIT FROM. I WAS WORKING 70 HOURS A WEEK WHEN I STARTED. I WAS IN ARCHITECTURE. I OWNED NOTHING. I HAD NO INSURANCE AND WAS NOT MARRIED. I WAS NOT THE BEST CLIENT BUT I WAS INTELLIGENT. WHAT I GOT OUT OF PRIMERICA WAS EXACTLY WHAT THEY SAID I WOULD GET OUT OF IT. AN EDUCATION ABOUT MONEY AND THE CHANCE TO LEARN ABOUT RUNNING A BUSINESS FROM OVER 100 MILLIONAIRES AND BUSINESS GURUS THAT INFLUENCED MY BELIEFS ABOUT MY CHANCE TO GET OUT OF THE RAT RACE. IT LED ME TO READ 20 BOOKS I WOULD NEVER HAVE READ. IT FORCED ME TO LEARN THE FINE ARTS OF PEOPLE SKILLS AND MARKETING PRINCIPLES. NOW WHEN THE OPPORTUNITY CAME UP I DROPPED EVERYTHING AND MOVED TO MICHIGAN TO RUN A BUSINESS I WOULD NEVER HAVE ATTEMPTED BEFORE PFS. HOW MUCH IS THAT WORTH? 200 THOUSAND SO FAR. (I WOULD NEVER RETIRE IN ARCHITECTURE BECAUSE ITS JUST NOT SET UP THAT WAY) BUT TO GET BACK TO THE POINT PRIMERICA MADE CITIGROUP HEARD OF CITIGROUP? PRIMERICA WAS THE BASE COMPANY CALLED A L WILLIAMS. MERGED WITH AMERICAN CAN, NEEDED AN INSURANCE COMPANY, BOUGHT TRAVELERS, ALMOST BOUGHT H AND R BLOCK, BOUGHT CITIBANK INSTEAD. CHANGED HISTORY. NONE OF IT WOULD HAVE HAPENNED EXCEPT THAT INSURANCE WITH A WICKED SAVINGS BUILT IN IS A RIPOFF IN GENERAL. IF YOUR BROTHER KNEW ABOUT THE OTHER POLICY WHICH HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN FOR LESS THAN A PRIMERICA POLICY, HE WOULD HAVE BOUGHT IT! BUT HOW WOULD HE EVER KNOW IF YOU DIDNT SHOW HIM THE PRIMERICA POLICY FIRST? THE OTHER INSURANCE COMPANY WOULD NEVER EVER TELL YOU ABOUT THAT POLICY EXCEPT TO COMPETE WITH THE PRIMERICA PLAN, AND EVEN THEN THEY WILL TALK YOU OUT OF GETTING IT AND INTO THE RIP OFF ONE AGAIN!! IF IT WASNT A FANTASTIC PRODUCT THE COMPANY WOULDNT BE THE LARGEST ASSET COMPANY IN THE WORLD! I SAW IT GO FROM 81 MILLION TO 700 BILLION WHILE I WAS THERE. PLEASE RETURN YOUR COMMENT AND BEFORE YOU DO, VISIT THE WEBSITE WWW.PRIMERICA.COM FOR THE RESEARCH BEST OF LUCK TO YOU AND YOUR BROTHER, HOPE HE PICKED THE $600,000 POLICY CAUSE THE $100,000 POLICY WITH THE COLLEGE SAVINGS ISNT GOING TO PUT HIS KIDS IN SCHOOL WEATHER HE LIVES TO SEE IT OR NOT.

First of all you can sugarcoat it and call it what you want! It's sales. If you aren't selling anything why is it that you need to be licensed? A Sales job to me is any job that says "Ours is better than what you currently have" I pay for something you're offering me aren't you selling me something? My concluclusion to Primerica being misleading is why would you go on Monster.com or any other job listing and say you're looking for mangers and say "interview" when I worked for an Insurance company the agent paid for my school and licensing for fire and casualty license. I was on a salary plus commission... I did the same thing Primerica did. We had loans we had life insurance, retirement plans, collage savings plans we had it all. We didn't always have the best deal but it was up to the Salesman, ME! to make sure I had every rebutle down so that I wouldn't lose the sale. The Crimerica agent as stuart likes to call, didn't take no for an answer, he just threw in all the "good stuff" for instance he flossed that he had a benz and how he and his wife were bringing in $148,000 a year, and how he wanted me to come to his business opportunity meeting and meet people who are making half a million dollars. He showed me a forbes magazine and pointed out that the top companies in the world were banking and insurance. But that could be any company, allstate, farmers, state farm, washington mutual, citibank, bank of america etc. Microsoft was there and he tried to say that banking is better than microsoft. Microsoft is a company not anywhere did I see Primerica as one of the top companies. A real estate agent gets licensed to sell, to sell cars you need to be licensed, to sell home and auto insurance you need to be licensed, to sell life insurance you need to be licensed. and Leroy has a huge point! Like I had stated before, you can get the service somewhere else. some for more money some for less, regardless you can get it somewhere else.

The primerica person said your job wasn't selling, its about helping people get out of debt and get them a good loan. Look at primerica's website. It says its rep are COMMISIIONED SALESPEOPLE. If he lied to you about something as basic as that what else will he tell you to get you to sign on the dotted line? Harry, what you would be doing with primerica is giving people a canned sales pitch designed to get them to buy too expensive term insurance, a too expensive loan, and to sell them on a dream that they too can sell expensive insurance and bad loans. Harry, do this 2-step test for yourself. Get a life insurance quote for you and your wife from primerica. Then take the same premium primerica quotes you and go to one of the nationallly advertised term insurance quoting services or get on the internet, and see how much more death benefit you could have purchased with the same premium elsewhere. Harry, have primerica give you a good faith estimate for a loan on yourself. Have primerica calculate how much your 26 payments a year would be for your loan. Then have primerica then calculate how long it would take to pay off that loan. Now go to any independant loan broker. Give him the credit score primerica came up with. Have him give you a good faith sheet for that loan. Have him calculate how long it would take to pay off your loan if you made the same payments primerica would require. What you will find is that could have bought $75,000-150,000 more life insurance for the same premium. You will find out the same house payment made to someone else will pay off your loan 3-4 years earlier than with a primerica $MART loan and its a bi-weekly payment plan. Once you have done this....ask yourself, would I want to sell my brother this plan? If the answer is yes.....you'll make a fine primerica rep.

The information I'm about to present is so important, it bears repeating on a daily basis at Ripoff Report: (1) Get licensed before going on appointments with your friends and relatives. (2) Get referrals from your prospects and don't share them with anybody else (not even your "trainer"). (3) Cut out your "trainer" who is the middleman. (4) Don't list the names of any references on the sign-up application sheet. (5) (bonus step) Try working off your referrals instead of going to shopping malls and job fairs. Your chances of selling would be far better when you use your referrals wisely." In general, the so-called trainers from Primerica aren't licensed to train nor have they taken courses on finance in general, the only license they carry is to sell. That's why your upline goes after your friends and relatives (your warm market) to fatten his commission at your expense. You can always learn how to sell for free from off the internet or read about it at the library. So protect your warm market as it's YOUR MONEY, YOUR COMMISSION that you're entitled to. Don't let others steal that from you as it represents your best opportunity to make commission at Primerica. Get your license and sell to your warm market as you don't need a trainer for that (if the trainer insists on training, let him find someone from his own clientele to demonstrate with). To G of Jacksonville in regards to Harry from Compton"s report, he didn't say that the agent was trying to sell him something. he said that if a customer can find a better deal elsewheres, then that agent/company is doing a good job of selling to that customer. When Harry told that agent he wasn't into selling, that dumb agent should have stopped right there as Harry said he wasn't interested. Instead the agent made an a*s out of himself by persisting and lied to Harry saying that no selling would be involved. As far as a "...few bad ones." go, Crimerica is overloaded with deception, dishonesty and misrepresentation as a study of Ripoff Report will show the nonsense that shillers have posted on here along with the victims' reports.

Harry, In answer to your question 'What are others saying about the company' Check out the Success Magazine July 2005 issue. Also, if I may ask, did you ask the representative you met with for creditability information? Also, you're welcome to visit www.primerica.com for more information about the company. With any company represented by people, you are bound to run into a few bad ones. Case in point: Prudential. One of their employees was caught selling thier clients information. Does that make Prudential a bad company or just that person? I said that to say that unfortunately Primerica is in the same boat. There are some good reps & then there are some that abuse the trust given to them by their customers. I'm also curious to know what gave you the impression that the company is 'misleading' (I noticed you mentioned the job interview/new office openings) and how did you come to the conclusion someone is selling you something if they're educating you on a product that they offer that is also offerred by someone else? Most people call it comparison shopping? In no way am I trying to be cynical or sarcastic, I'm just curious as to how you came to these conclusions. I look forward to your response.