Complaint Review: World Financial Group - San Jose California

Leo,

I was in an allied business that did work for WMA and WFG agents for over 10 years. The problem with their recruitment and business model is that people are being trained by people who are not trained properly themselves, either is ethical sales practices or proper customer service, before and after a sale.

The concept is pitched as an oh-so-easy "get rich quick" scenario that is so easy to do that even someone will little English knowledge can succeed. Some do succeed at MLM. Those are people that tend to be good to great con-men and women that are able to lure in and convince gullible, desperate and vulnerable people. People that a majority of the time are immigrants to this country in search of riches in this land of "opportunity". It is not a coincidence that they use the term "Business Opportunity" in their recruiting.

Here is what used to happen when I was affiliated with this organization back in the day;

• someone would be recruited and they would start to badger their brother's, sister's, parent's, aunt's, uncle's, neighbors and co-worker's to buy an over-priced and underperforming Variable Life Product. The lure of which, to the agent was a hefty commission. When I went to a presentation they were paying the new recruit just 21% of said commission. The up-line got the rest.
• The people would get so frustrated by being badgered 10 times a day to please be the first one to be the new agents first sale, that they would say yes just to shut the new agent up
• The new agent would neglect to tell the purchaser that this was a medically underwritten insurance product requiring a physical exam.

The person doing the physical exam would try to set an appointment with the policy purchaser with no return calls from the over 10 messages were left for the purchaser either because:

• they did not understand English,
• did not know about needing a physical,
• did not really want the policy to begin with.
• This led to a new policy after paramedical exam companies stopped accepting orders from WMA and WFG agents, forcing them to meet with clients at least 3 or 4 times before signing up a new client to buy a product. I may be wrong, but I believe one of the meetings, perhaps the meeting where the paperwork/ contract was signed had to have a "manager" present.

I could never understand why someone would want to pay into an organization like WMA / WFG to get "trained" in a profession, when you could get the same training for free by visiting your local Farmers, State Farm, Allstate or independent insurance brokers office and inquiring about a career with them? And get paid while you are training instead of the other way around!!!

If you are interested in a legitimate business opportunity, I would suggest you look up your local S.C.O.R.E. (Senior Corps of Retired Executives) a Small Business Administration program that mentors entrepreneurs for free. Just Google SCORE-SBA, attend a couple of low cost seminars, draw up a business plan and go into business, LEGITIMATELY, for yourself.

Good luck in all your business ventures!

db

The A.L. Williams Company was acquired many years ago by Sandy Weill and eventually was rebranded as Primerica Financial Services.  The only connection between A.L. Williams and WFG is the predecessor to WFG -- World Marketing Alliance -- that was created by a couple of renegade A.L. Williams agents, one of them being an individual named Hubert Humphrey (not the one who was a politician and vice president to Lyndon Johnson), who wanted to make more money selling Universal Life insurance instead of the "Buy Term and Invest the Difference" Art Williams promoted.  Trying to equate WFG and A.L. Williams is like saying oil and water are the same. Wrong.

As a former employee (recruit) of WFG, I had first hand insight to their business model.  My biggest take away from working there is that it is not truly a financial services firm, it is a recruiting business.  The number one thing promoted was how many new prospective recruits can you bring to the weekly rah-rah meetings.  The up-line people know that the majority of people will not get licensed to sell anything.  Out of those that do get licensed, the vast majority will not last more than a year.  So why recruit?  The number one way to make money at WFG is to outlast everyone else.  When a new recruit comes in, they need to complete a top 100 list.  That is a list of 100 people they know. The recruit then cherry picks the top 10, calls and sets appointments to meet with those top 10 people.  The new recruit's trainer then takes the new recruit on a sales appointment to see those people.  When sales are made, the recruit gets to see how the sales process works and the trainer gets to make all the commission since the new recruit does not have a license to sell yet. Then at the next rah-rah meeting the new recruit brings in their own new recruit, who in turn completes a top 100 list. Then the first recruit decides not to get licensed and both of the two new recruits leave. The trainer now has two lists of 100 people to call and set appointments to see. However, the trainer most likely will not make the calls, but hand the list to another recruit that has managed to drink the proverbial Kool-Aid and get a license to sell life insurance and  another to sell mutual funds. This agent may have managed to make some sells for himself and recruit a few people under him that have also passed their exams. This agent most likely has another full-time job, because of the fairly limited amount of income to be earned at this level. This agents manager knows that all he has to do is put some sizzle in the rah-rah meetings and coach recruits to recruit more new people and hang on long enough. Since the number of people that can make a full time career out of this job is almost nonexistent, every time someone in his down line quits, all of their clients and future income rolls up to him.  If you can hang on long enough, you will eventually have enough inherited accounts to make enough for a living. This can take a really, really long time to achieve.  So if WFG is a recruiting business, is it a scam. I would say it is not a scam in the true sense of the definition of scam.  It is a MLM business, which in the business model diagram looks like a pyramid. One person at the top has a few people under him, who in turn have a few people under them, and so on.

 WFG along the way will provide training so that the recruits know about the products they are selling.  The problem with this is that they only train on the specific things they want sold.  There is no all-encompassing training so that the recruits can make unbiased suggestions to a client's best interest. The only way the recruit can make any money is to sell the product the company wants them to sell.  If they try to sell a different company's product, the commission is dropped so low, there is almost no commission to bring home. Finally, say a recruit does pass the 6 & 63 licenses to sell securities.  There is no federal ruling in place to ensure that the recruit must put the client's best interest first, ahead of their own. In fairness, it is not just a problem with this company, but with all insurance based companies. The government has had to step in and pass a new federal ruling that all "Financial Advisors" by law must put the client's best interest first.  This law sounds good on the outside and probably had good intentions, but will hurt the middle income investor the most. The end result is that there will be fewer advisors that will be willing to offer unbiased true financial guidance to clients which have a limited amount of income and investable assets. Companies like WFG could be on the hook for lawsuits and federal fines if they don't change their business model.

In my opinion as a CFP, I would suggest there are much better places to seek finanacial advice and better places to seek employment.  I learned the hard way that if you must pay out of pocket to work for someone else, it is probably not the best place to be employed.

Sir: um, Ma'am:, um, oh, I know! Coward who uses a psuedonym!! Your terminology is right from their "Elite" training; if you can't debate on an intelligent basis, insult the opposition. I just ran away from WFG because of this as well as the fact that WFG hid their history as a derivative of A.L. Williams, an MLM company that was under investigation in the late 1980's and Art Williams himself ran away from it!I posted my open letter of resignation on 7/29/12. I suggest you read it. Notice I didn't insult you? Notice at the end of my post I actually gave a valid reference! Wow! One of the insults thrown at "Elite" training was " if you don't do this, you're a lazy loser!" See why I ran from WFG? If not, I feel sorry for any clients you may/may not have.

You have the typical WFG attitude: Do not attempt to discuss/debate with fact, instead insult the other person to try to deminish their impact. Then hide behind a pseudonym to obscure your identity like a coward. Try this fact: WFG is the current rendition of A.L. Williams. By their own deeply buried admission. For those who do not know/remember A.L. Williams, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20115997,00.html

Any legitimate financial services person cringes when that name is mentioned. 'nuff said.

One of the greatest priviledges of being an American citizen is the freedom of speech afforded to all of us by the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. Although very few of us have any real understanding of what it was like for the creators of this monumental document to have endured a time when that freedom was not available to everyone, and the exercise of that "right" was punishable by death. Being able to write well, or express your opinons with correct speech patterns, punctuations, and flowery prose is very poor indicator of knowledge or credibility. We have too many, past and present, prominent figures in our own government that illustrate that point all too well. Every organization, be it political, religious, business, or social, has its faults and failings; some due to the structure or organization itself, or to some of the individuals involved therein. That is just a fact of life. World Financial Group undoubtably, has its fair share of either incompetent or unscrupulous individuals, despite even the best efforts to screen them out. But it is not only unfair, but dishonest and irresponsible to use any generality that either disparages or reflects negatively on the majority of the agents, or questions the honesty and integrity of the company as a whole. You know not of what ye speak. There are without a doubt, disgruntled customers, and some of them write in, maybe even with valid complaints. I am truly sorry for them. But there are hundreds of thousands of grateful American citizens who gladly invest whatever they can each month into their future because they have been given both the knowledge and the means to take control of their financial futures by an honest and caring WFG agent. . . something that no other financial institution has given them before! I am one of those who was introduced to the opportunity to first invest in, and then help others to invest in, their own futures through the great line of products and service providers who work with WFG. WFG's I have never been a big fan of network marketing although I have been involved in it many years ago. But I must say that the more I learned about the mission , integrity, and family focus of this company, the more I came to beleive in them. I find it very curious and even humorous when people who have no direct involvement with World Financial Group offer their "educated" opinions and ramblings, however well expressed, about something that they "heard" about from so many other sources or researched on the internet and then write literary masterpieces about? Freedom of expression in America coupled with a very comfortable lifestyle, college education, and narrow mindedness provide far too many people the opportunity to pontificate on far too many subjects of which they know far too little. I find it even more humorous when sweeping statements are made alluding to the origins of the company, its officers, or the integrity of AEGON or any of the many affiliate companies that provide services for WFG. Using that rationale just about every major financial company, or for that matter every company period, is not to be trusted. And I guess that would include the people who work in those corporations as well. So who do these people trust? . . . Obviously themselves and their own opinions. World Financial Group provides some of the most of practical and valuable financial education, products and strategies available to the American public, period. WFG is not only succeeding in the face of arguably, the worst economic crisis in US history, but is prospering because it is teaching people to take charge of their own financial futures and to stop depending on Social Security, fast disappearing pension plans, "professional" stock brokers, so called "experts", "certified" financial planners, and other uncaring mainstream, investment companies that have sytematically drained virtually every middle American citizen of their financial security for decades! As far as this agent is concerned, there is no company on the planet who cares more about the financial future of the average US citizen. IF the so called "detractors" would take the time to actually become educated as to the real values, intents, and purposes of WFG, its officers, and its goals, they will come to the same conclusion if there is even a little honesty and intelligence in them. I for one, have never, nor do I intend to ever, caluculate my commisson before recommending a solution to a family. THE families' needs and interests are FIRST. PERIOD. If educating, providing solutions to future security, encouraging people to invest in their own future, develop the habits of saving,and avoiding debt is what the "detractors" object to, then let them continue to put their trust and future into the hands of their political leaders or some other un-named organization they choose. . . it is a free country. In the meanttime, I would suggest that they get the facts, become part of a solution, even if it is not WFG, be a part of America that is working to save America, and stop wasting their "free" time given them by this society, to find fault and criticize organizations and intents which you so obviously they know so very little about. HooRay for WFG! WWRohrer

It's very rare to come across someone logical and knowledgeable (who also knows how to spell and form sentences) across discussions of most MLM arguments, especially WFG. You not only address the technical issues of the business, which is unheard of on the part of WFG supporters, you put into perspective the necessity of due diligence when it comes to investment in general and life insurance. I learned a lot from your post and I want to thank you for that since I am new to the world of investment. Having said that, I want to address a few common propaganda tools (or perhaps flaws of reasoning) used by WFG advocates such as Leonidas. 1. "AEGON is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Why would they acquire a company that scams people?" Yes, formed in this manner this seems like a ridiculous suggestion. As Max points out as well, WFG is not a scam in the legal sense. What makes it a scam theoretically is the fact that they are not honest and upfront and often hesitate to answer all your questions before committing to the career. Is it not the biggest scam of all when a company gives you bits and pieces of information along with hopes of incredibly high income effectively clouding your abilities to make an informed life decision? This is your life we are talking about. They are playing a game with it and leaving it up to statistics to decide your fate. Also, AEGON like any other corporation is interested in profits. Its CEOs wouldn't exactly lose sleep over acquiring a company that makes multi million dollar profits if it means practicing poor business ethics. 2. "Just because you had a bad experience doesn't mean all WFG agents/branches are bad" - Ofcourse not, again no reasonable person would disagree with that. The problem is, the bad experiences aren't rare, they are a majority. I have come across hundreds of detailed experiences from all over this country and Canada describing a nearly identical flawed and misleading form of business and cult-like negatives. It wouldn't be so bad if many people detailed their success without proving themselves liars through their malformed logic. When 1 in 10 WFG supporters have a hard time forming English sentences and spelling words, it nearly depresses me to think those same people will be selling uninformed people products that might ruin their lives.

"Leonides" (the arrogant) has a wonderful way with words. Not very conducive to building a relationship. But to each his own. Someone who is "disinterested" needs to set the record straight about WFG, so I'll take a shot at it. WFG is the latest incarnation of the former World Marketing Alliance (WMA). WMA was started by a couple of renegade AL Williams Co (now, Primerica) agents who lost sight of the "Buy Term and Invest the Difference" credo that AL Williams/Primerica elevated to near perfection. Hubert Humphrey (not the one-time VP from Minnesota) believed he could make more money selling universal life than term. A number of years later, he tried begging Primerica to take WMA back into its system, but would not let go of his yearning for BIG universal life commissions. No way, was Primerica's reply. WMA continued to exist by marketing universal and variable universal life products, then expanded into the mortgage business, and began inviting people to refinance their mortgages to cash out equity and dump it into a VUL contract. Ultimately, WMA ran afoul of various state and federal regulators for poor supervision of agents and their marketing of unauthorized products, such as promissory notes the company had no knowledge of. Ultimately, facing corporate extinction, the business was shopped around the financial services industry and was acquired by AEGON, a well-respected insurance and financial services conglomerate headquartered in the Netherlands. But I don't think they really knew what they were getting. The resurrected WFG today does a good job of training their agents to address the "positives" of cash value insurance, but they don't do much training in the way their products actually work, and, as a result, most WFG agents simply recite what they've heard in sales presentation classes or by watching "experienced" agents present products to their friends. They take advantage of the financial illiteracy of most people in America (especially those with limited English language skills), and the fear of taxes, and speak of cash value life insurance is if it was the greatest gift to mankind short of our Lord. They tend to obscure the disadvantages of the two main products they market these days -- Equity-Indexed Universal Life (EIUL . . . for those who can't afford, or can't pass the exams for, a Series 6 securities license) and Variable Universal Life (VUL) for (those who are appropriately licensed) -- by pointing to the special treatment life insurance enjoys under our current tax code. The use poorly conceived cash value illustrations based on hypothetical rates of return not often possible to achieve with those products. WFG agents are taught to speak of EUIL as "All the upside of the market with none of the downside." Problem is, it's not true. An EIUL contrract is generally limited to 12% maximum interest crediting (rate cap), but even that is restricted by a "participation rate" of only 75% or 80% of the S&P500 gains in a 12-month period. The interest crediting necessarily lags the market, because it is not directly tied to it. The product comes with a minimum 0%-2% rate guarantee, which means that in a declining market the cash value would not be adversely affected . . . by the market. They tell prospects something like, "We represent (20 to 30) of the largest insurance companies in America," which most would believe means that the agent is going to check rates with all those companies and bring them a proposal from the one with the best product at the best price. That's what the Insurance Code requires them to do. But the reality is that they do the majority of their sales with Western Reserve Life or Transamerica, both of which are owned by AEGON. Many of their agents have never written an application for any company other than WRL. So what value is there in the words "We represent (20 to 30) . . ."?? But there's really a whole lot more that goes on inside a life insurance contract -- especially a cash value policy like EIUL. Monthly cost of insurance (COI) increases EVERY month based on the insured's age. By age 99, a $100,000 face amount would require $8,333/month in premium to keep the policy going ($100,000 in premium for a $100,000 death benefit in that year) if there was no remaining cash value. Why would there be no remaining cash value, you ask? Because, during the early years of the policy, most people don't have the capital or the desire to fully fund the policy for these later years. They don't even have the capital to reasonably fund the policy to age 85 or 90, let alone to age 121 (the age required by law for new policies beginning Jan 1 2009). So folks pay their $150 per month (typical for a $250,000 policy), which, according to the illustration is sufficient to grow to millions over time at a straight line 12% rate of return. A client's reliance on those mighty illustrations that show oodles of cash piling up inside the policy at 9%-12% rates is a big leap of faith. Problem is, most EIUL policies haven't come close to ever paying those lofty rates. Look at the S&P500 annualized returns for the last 10 years (from 1999 to 2008, in order, %): 21.11, -9.11, -11.98, -22.27, 28.72, 10.82, 4.79, 15.74, 5.46, -37.22. Averaged over those 10 years, the Index was -1.47%. Yes, a couple of good years, but an EUIL policy wasn't even available in 1998 or 2002. The products were created in the aftermath of the market losses in those early years of the 2000s and the beatings people took in their VUL policies. So in later years, if the market has been in negative territory (i.e., 2008) or not doing much of anything (i.e., 2005, 2007), cash value is not only not growing much, it might not be growing as fast as the cost of insurance. A person could be paying $150 per month, but $6-$10 is siphoned off as a "policy fee" (= insurer's pure profit), and, at age 45, for example, the monthly COI might be about $40 per $100,000, or $100 on a $250,000 policy, so only about $40 is actually availabe to go into cash accumulation -- not the whole $150. At 1%, those $500 per year are earning $5. Where will the millions come from? And what about a policy with a 0% guarantee? At age 65, the monthly COI is up to $160/$100,000, or $400/month for a $250,000 policy. But the faithful client is still paying the $150/month the agent told them to pay. Cost = $400, payment = $150, shortfall = $250. Cash value must be used to pay the cost of insurance, so instead of going up, it's heading in the wrong direction. The loyal WFG agent either (1) doesn't know this is the way their product works, or (2) knows it and hides it from the client with fancy illustrations and little discussion of reality. The first is inexcusable, because the agent is supposed to know what they're selling and how it works, and they're supposed to be able to explain it to their clients. The second is committing a criminal act worth $25,000 or more in California. It's called misrepresentation. Either way the client loses. Both agents walk away with fat commission checks (the higher up on the "Marketing Director" ladder, the bigger the commission), the client has a policy he or she doesn't understand, and the wheels of financial ruin are in motion. In a few years, when the money isn't piling up inside the policy, clients tend to do the wrong thing. They cancel their insurance without a replacement. They lose most, if not all, of the money paid to the insurance company because of another disadvantage that wasn't discussed, surrender charges, which can last up to 15 years in many policies. They are a penalty for doing business with the company and taking away their cash flow. How does this really happen? Too many people in America want something for nothing. And what they get is exactly the opposite, nothing for something. WFG trains its agents to tell clients that "investing" in a life insurance policy is more advantageous than putting it into their 401(k)s at work or their IRAs/Roth IRAs. Nonsense! Life insurance is not an investment. And it's not a retirement plan. Policies don't "pay for themselves" and premiums don't just "vanish" after seven years. Yes, you may be able to BORROW money from the insurance company, based on the "equity" in your policy, but it's not free money. And it's not necessarily tax-free either, as you might be told. Take the money out, more than you put in, and allow the policy to lapse, and you and the IRS will have a discussion about income tax due that you cannot win. Let me repeat: Life insurance is NOT an investment. It's insurance. It's intended to leave money to those you leave behind if you die before you achieve your wealth. If you're already wealthy, you either don't need life insurance, or you use it to shelter money from current income taxation. But there are better products for that than life insurance called annuities. But annuities have their own drawbacks, too. Life insurance is not a retirement plan. Talking about life insurance in the same breath as a retirement account is like talking about apples as if they were oranges. Absolutely no comparison. Those of us with securities licenses know that we can lose them if we go around talking about life insurance or annuities as an investment. See, if you need life insurance, you purchase life insurance. If you need a retirement account, you open a retirement account. Each does what it's intended to do. If you need a car to get to work, do you buy a kite because it looks pretty, instead? Of course not, because the picture is clear -- the kite cannot take you where you need to go. But when people don't know how insurance works, or how retirement plans work, and someone says, "I'm a licensed agent," they put their trust in them and expect to be treated properly. And to be presented with products and services that leave them better off than before they started. WFG agents, and some others at other companies, don't always abide by that standard. In the past several years, but especially so in these last 18-36 months, WFG has been pushing people hard to pour the equity in their homes into life insurance contracts. I don't know what could be worse, other than when Morgan Stanley was promoting securities margin accounts tied to home equity loans in 1999-2000. Stock market tanks, you lose your money and your home. In the current WFG promotion, in a worst case scenario, you lose your life insurance and you lose your home. But the agent got their commission and probably didn't lose any sleep. WFG is not a "scam." They are a multilevel marketing organization that offers a business opportunity (for a few hundred dollars) tied to financial products. McDonald's offers a business opportunity (for about $5 million) tied to fried dead cow parts. WFG recruits people by first selling them life insurance and then asking who they know that needs life insurance. Then they ask something like, "Well, would you want me to earn all the commission when they buy insurance, or would you like to earn some of it, too? You just have to go to class for about a week and get your license, and then we show you how to do it." If they didn't sell them their life insurance first, they all but require them to buy it in order to sell it ("You can't be a hypocrite and sell someone something you don't own," is a frequent rejoinder I hear repeated.) Sounds easy. Everybody should do it. But reread the words of "Leonides" who speaks rather condescendingly of those who don't sign up to be a part of WFG. His words are the true colors of WFG . . . if you're not good enough to be with us, we'll just rub your nose in it. WFG is not a "scam." But the methods they employ, the irregularities they teach their agents, the lack of respect some of their leaders have for the Insurance Code and Securities Law, is something they should not be proud of and they should not tolerate. If they don't exercise a little more control over their leaders and agents, AEGON and WFG will run afoul of the regulators just like its WMA predecessor did. Every time an insurance agent or a life agent does something wrong on behalf of a client, it gives all of the rest of us agents a black eye. I was first licensed as a life agent in 1980. I spent three years doing honorable things for honorable people, and left to go back to school and earned a BA and a Master's degree. I came back to the industry quite by accident, in 1997, and since September 2000, I've been teaching that "class" a person needs to take in order to sit for their life insurance license exam. Many of my students are WFG recruits. I don't indoctrinate them, WFG has already done that. I just tell them the truth about the various products, how they work, how they don't, which ones to use when, and which ones not to use in the wrong circumstances. Life insurance is an honorable product, whether it's term, whole life, universal life, EUIL or VUL. Each product has its advantages and its disadvantages. There is no single perfect policy. Used correctly, life insurance makes life financially bearable for survivors when an insured dies. Used incorrectly, life insurance makes agents rich and clients poor. Every insurance product has the potential to fail the client if they don't understand how it works and what their responsibilities to the contract are. But if you do what's required, insurance (life, health, homeowners, auto, business . . . it doesn't matter) will provide the kind of financial peace of mind in a way that no other product on the planet can. Yes, there are companies that sometimes fail to pay legitimate claims, and that's a different matter. That's not the discussion here. An insurance policy is only as good as the agent who markets it to the client. Inexperienced agents who market complex products without proper understanding is the discussion. WFG recruits lots of new agents, they throw them like wet noodles against the wall and wait to see who sticks. Most don't. They pay good money to join, more to come to a prelicensing class like mine, still more to apply for their insurance license. And then some don't even go to take their exam. I've had WFG students who were recruited into their organization who didn't speak a word of English. Not a problem, they might be able to help others who don't speak English. But I have absolutely no idea how they are expected to pass an exam that's only given in English. It's not like the DMV where you can take a driver license written exam in any of two dozen or more languages. If you're going to do business with a WFG representative, the questions you need to ask the agent are fairly simple and straightforward. How long have you been licensed? How much training do you have in the products you sell? How do you determine which product and which insurance company is right for me? Will you answer any questions I have about your products? If they can't or won't answer those questions to your complete satisfaction, turn and walk away. There is nothing to hide, nothing to fear, nothing to misrepresent. If I explain how a policy works and you don't like it, it's not the right product for you. But it requires that I truly explain how it works, positives and negatives. Every policy has them. Can't escape the fact. So the most important question, after you've heard all the good things the policy will do for you is this, "So, tell me, what are the disadvantages of a policy like this." If they can't, won't, or tell you there aren't any, you're looking at an inexperienced agent or a very accomplished liar. You make the call.

I have had great success with WFG. Just like every large company, you have a few bad people who don't know what there doing and make mistakes. You can look up any Fortune 500 company and find negative reports on them. If these people were criminals, why would Aegon still be in business, why would this company be bout by Aegon which that last time I checked was worth over $400 billion in assets. How can something so big and successful be a scam and still be in business. Why wouldn't the owners be arrested? The answer is it is not a scam and the only people that complain are newly recruited "employee minded" agents who never fully understand the concept. People always FEAR what they don't understand. If a company is expanding and growing then of course they need to RECRUIT more people to help them. The more people you have marketing the products the more products get sold. How hard is that to understand. I've read all these negative complaints and not one of them hold water. Pathetic negative people who don't know how business works. All you negative people are obviously employees and with that attitude you will work for someone else the rest of your lives. Entrepenaurs are rebels in this society, and you guys who are complaining about a legitimate business oppurtunity are obviously like sheep following the herd. I feel sorry for you that you don't see a good oppurtunity when you see one. Chris

I am posting this in order that people would be careful what they get involved with. The company WFG and their associates should be ashamed of themselves. They prey on middle income families and mislead them into purchasing their products. People who read this post, please do your homework. I have many friends who have had their savings and future earnings essentially stolen from them. Let me explain. Their pitch is one of two: one they will tell you your need for life insurance. This is true any family should protect their family with life insurance. However, they will ask how much you can afford and talk you into the advantages of buying their number one product, the VUL. They push this like crack on a street corner. All of their company recognition is based on the sale of this product. For those who don't know, it is life insurance with a savings attached to it. Sounds good right? Not so much. The cost is ridiculous. There is monthly policy charges, per unit charges, cost of insurance charges(that go up every year,its annual renewable term insurance), plus fees on the savings part of the contract. You never really know how much is going into savings each month. The scariest part is that your charges can become so high that it will start eating at your savings until you have nothing left, it will implode(lapse, terminate, expire). If thats not bad enough, lets explore number two. They will talk to you about saving for retirement. Guess what the best way to do that is. You got it the VUL. This time they hit hard on the ability, once you have millions saved in it, to take loans out on it tax free. Wow, can't beat that right. NOT!!! First of all the only reason its tax free is that it is a loan(can't tax loans). Why would you borrow your own money in the first place. Any ways lets explore another option. How about the Roth IRA. This vehicle can be funded $5000 a year or $10000 for husband and wife($416-$833 a month). This money does grow and can be withdrawn at retirement completely tax free. Wait what if I need money before retirement? Is there penalties? Glad you asked, the principal(money you put in, not the growth) you can take out at anytime no penalties..... So if over 10 years you have put in 100K and it has grown to 200K then you can access the 100K. This is almost never even discussed to the potential clients. I have also known people that were told by an agent of WFG, not to put money into their 401K and put it into their policy. This can be extremely painful come tax time at the end of the year. You see the 401K is funded pretaxed,it lowers your tax bracket. If you don't fund the 401K you can be paying more in taxes. The worst scenarios I have heard of is when these agents tell middle income families, doing their best to get by and build wealth, that they are house rich and not cash rich. They then tell the family to take all of their equity out of their home and fund a VUL policy. This is worst because they market the loan as well, they get these families into pick a pay option ARM loans that end up screwing the family on their insurance and their loan. There may be a few good agents that start out with good intentions with WFG, but you become who you associate with. If they have worked in that enviornment for 6 months or longer then they have no excuse. They have now bought in on the hype and are now peddling the same garbage. You can't be around those people pushing and cheering on the sales of those products and not start selling and believing the hype. Bottom line is that they make a ton of commission on these products, hence the need to market them. As you do your homework, checkout consumer reports, suze orman on youtube, dave ramsey on youtube, you will find that their products stink..... As far as their business opp. they might make a good chunk of change but at what cost..... just don't let me catch you peddling your trash in my neighborhood .... I will file charges and submit any and all notifications to the proper authorities(SEC, NASD, FINRA, Better Business Bureau...you get the hint)

World Financial Group is claiming to be stable during times to economic turmoil. Ironically they are still trying to get "new employees" to sign up. Here's how it works, you pay them $299 for initial state insurance exam. There lies problem number one, most companies, such as STC (Securities Training Corp), AD Banker or other reputable firms only charge $150 for in classroom instruction. Okay, so you've paid your $300 and now you're ready to take your test. Well, not so fast, first you have to cough up five referrals before you start. It's just to keep your pipeline full, well when you cough up five referrals, your upstream, AKA mentor, contacts them and closes the deals. Then it hits you, because you're not licensed, they can't pay you commissions so you don't get a dime, nothing personal it's just legal. More importantly if you calculate what would make against the annual premium the person pays (referred to as payout in the insurance world), you find out it's about 25-45% depending on much they want to pay you. In reality most reputable companies have payouts in the 60+% range! Now for financial stability, well this is company that was founded by World Savings Bank. World Savings Bank was the creator of the negative amortization mortgage, or a mortgage where the difference between your payment and interest payment is added back to your mortgage. Not a bad deal if you've paid all cash for your house and only borrow 50% to finance a sure fire business that will cover an ever increasing mortgage balance. Oddly, they encourage you to take the money out of your house, pay huge sums of money toward an insurance policy that is indexed against S&P 500 then tell you that since the insurance policy will give you compound interest and mortgages are simple interest, you'll end up super rich and have your mortgage paid off in 20 years! Amazing..except that mortgages are compound interest (they try to fool you using the rule of 72). So what does happen, you get an insurance policy that has an insane cost of insurance (COI) which means most of your money gets eaten up the actual cost to the company of maintaining an insurance policy, and you have a mortgage that is well beyond anything your house would ever reasonably appreciate to; this also makes refinancing the property impossible. To add to all of that, you get a three year prepayment penalty, and an interest rate that is 2% higher than a 30 year fixed. What a shame that these people tout themselves as financial advisors, when they're mostly MLM con artists.

World Financial Group is claiming to be stable during times to economic turmoil. Ironically they are still trying to get "new employees" to sign up. Here's how it works, you pay them $299 for initial state insurance exam. There lies problem number one, most companies, such as STC (Securities Training Corp), AD Banker or other reputable firms only charge $150 for in classroom instruction. Okay, so you've paid your $300 and now you're ready to take your test. Well, not so fast, first you have to cough up five referrals before you start. It's just to keep your pipeline full, well when you cough up five referrals, your upstream, AKA mentor, contacts them and closes the deals. Then it hits you, because you're not licensed, they can't pay you commissions so you don't get a dime, nothing personal it's just legal. More importantly if you calculate what would make against the annual premium the person pays (referred to as payout in the insurance world), you find out it's about 25-45% depending on much they want to pay you. In reality most reputable companies have payouts in the 60+% range! Now for financial stability, well this is company that was founded by World Savings Bank. World Savings Bank was the creator of the negative amortization mortgage, or a mortgage where the difference between your payment and interest payment is added back to your mortgage. Not a bad deal if you've paid all cash for your house and only borrow 50% to finance a sure fire business that will cover an ever increasing mortgage balance. Oddly, they encourage you to take the money out of your house, pay huge sums of money toward an insurance policy that is indexed against S&P 500 then tell you that since the insurance policy will give you compound interest and mortgages are simple interest, you'll end up super rich and have your mortgage paid off in 20 years! Amazing..except that mortgages are compound interest (they try to fool you using the rule of 72). So what does happen, you get an insurance policy that has an insane cost of insurance (COI) which means most of your money gets eaten up the actual cost to the company of maintaining an insurance policy, and you have a mortgage that is well beyond anything your house would ever reasonably appreciate to; this also makes refinancing the property impossible. To add to all of that, you get a three year prepayment penalty, and an interest rate that is 2% higher than a 30 year fixed. What a shame that these people tout themselves as financial advisors, when they're mostly MLM con artists.

Do not trust WFG. I personally lost tens of thousands dollars with the "HELP" provided by WFG. WFG claims on its mission is to help the families. Instead they advice you to buy the products that they can make the most for their commissions. WFG and its security group World Group Securities (WGS) are notorious. WFG regularly commit security frauds and has been subjected to multiple class action lawsuits. Why would you like to associate yourself with a company like that, no matter as an employee or as an investor. See the SEC publication yourself. http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2008/lr20768.htm http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2008/lr20768.htm SUMMARY Throughout 2005 through 2007, defendants, five registered representatives affiliated with World Group Securities ("WGS"), a broker-dealer registered with the Commission, fraudulently sold unsuitable securities, primarily variable universal life policies ("VUL"), financed through adjustable rate sub-prime mortgage refinancing. The refinancing generated two sources of funds: short term savings in the difference between the old mortgage payment and the new mortgage payment, and equity removed from the investors' homes.... INVESTIGATION OF WORLD FINANCIAL GROUP CLAIMS Greco & Greco, in conjunction with local Ohio counsel, is currently investigating alleged claims of individuals sold securities and real estate related investments out of the Ohio and Florida offices of World Financial Group and World Group Securities, specifically including sales made in relation to refinancing of mortgages. http://www.securities-lawyers.net/blog/index.php/site/comments/investigation_of_world_financial_group_claims/

You're very right. This company has a fantastic buisness model, and a wonderful opportunity. I, along with my wife, have had a very successful experience with this company, and we have helped the finacial situation of many families. Thank you for speaking out.