Ripoff Report Needs Your Help!
X  |  CLOSE
Report: #118704

Complaint Review: Primerica - Newark Delaware

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: Wilmington Delaware
  • Author Not Confirmed What's this?
  • Why?
  • Primerica 1200 Peoples Plaza, Suite 30 Newark, Delaware U.S.A.

Show customers why they should trust your business over your competitors...

Is this
Report about YOU
listed on other sites?
Those sites steal
Ripoff Report's
content.
We can get those
removed for you!
Find out more here.
How to fix
Ripoff Report
If your business is
willing to make a
commitment to
customer satisfaction
Click here now..

It started in February of 2002. I was in my office with co-workers when a friend of mine started asking me how well I knew my personal finances and that he had a Financial Advisor who he thought I should speak to. I wasn't sure, but he invited me out to a 'Financial Seminar' one Thursday evening. He never mentioned Primerica or that it was an opportunity meeting and not a financial seminar. He never told me he had gotten token promotions from the RVP and had never done any business. He simply was in the business to recruit others to override their production.

I went to the meeting thinking I would learn somthing about personal finances. I was greeted by a smooth talking RVP, 'Rob'. He seated me at the front of this small office on the ground floor of the building. I listened to the presentation and admittedly I was intrigued by the info. Things like the Rule of 72 and how to save money etc. Then they started talking about an opportunity to work for them. I was caught of guard and thought imediatley that was the reason I was invited. I always told myself I would never get involved in a MLM-Pyramid thing, but I was looking for extra income and the thought of this busines seemed legit because they mentioned they were the largest company in the world with Citigroup and middle class were drowning etc. I'm middle class so what they were saying hit home. I wish I knew then what I know now.

You see they prey on the middle class because the wealthy won't touch them. That's how they suck you in by relating to your story. Well, with hesitation I took the bait. After the meeting the RVP invited me into his office. There weren't alot of people there, but out of everyone he chose me to talk to. Boy did I feel lucky. Haha. The RVP immediately began going into having me join under the guy that invited me. He said I could own my business (wrong) and they I could make lots of money. What a joke. I told him he would have to come over the house to meet my wife and we could discuss it then. Here's the irony. Remember above when I said that the guy who invited me never informed me of the reason I was really going? Well guess what I did the same thing to my wife. I told her the RVP was coming over to talk to us about finances and I never mentioned to her that I was interested in joining the business. She was caught way off guard as I was and she was upset at me. The point is that once exposed to Primerica, you immediaately begin to falsify things and come up with ways to get around telling the whole truth.

I'm a good hearted person who loves his family and would do anything for them, but Primerica trapped me into becoming something I was not. Some may say you'r free to make your own decisions, yes true, but when you have an RVP and his cronies feeding you lines to use on everyone you can't help but fall into their trap.

Anyway I joined for 199 and started off quickly. Lots of encouragement etc. I saw some family members, sold some insurance, recruited some people. The whole bit. The problem is when you join Primerica you are green to the industry and don't know any better or what's wrong or right. That's why they frown upon recruiting licensed agents or experienced agents in fear they may expose the RVP as a fraud who doesn't really know a thing about investing or insurance. They would say they would rather not recruit an agent because they would have untrain them and retrain them as to Primerica's way. Which is by the way the wrong way.

On my first couple of appts. the RVP came with me (not the guy who recruited me). He would sell the products, investments and insurance and told me he would pay me after he did the business with my family. It's been over two years and guess how much of the money I've seen. Yup, zilch. Things were going good so I thought. I finally got securities licensed and made decent money on selling people overpriced Variable Annuities, which I'm ashamed to admit because now I know.

I also sold the insurance, which I do think term is the way to go if you are investing. Here's the problem. Primerica preaches buy term and invest the difference in a Mutual Fund. Only a small percentage of the Primerica Sales force ever gets licensed to do securities. There are thousands of Reps out there preaching Buy Term invest the difference to their clients. They replace the clients cash value policies with lower cost term and tell them to invest. Then the client never invests any monay because once the insurance sale goes through the rep forgets about the client, plus the rep can't even invest because they aren't licensed. The client think they did the right thing but in 25-30 years when their policy expires they'll have little or no $ invested. Plus these reps talk about Mutual Funds and Investments even though they are ot licensed. That's a violation of SEC rules. The clients don't know that however so they get away with it.

So I made some money and never saw my family, until around the new year 2004. That's when I really saw the light. I was doing alot of refinances through Primerica and started to question the interest rates and the concept of simple interest charges on the loan. See the loan trainers would train us on selling the loans ans the simple interest question always arose. The trainer would say yes our loans charge simple interest which would reduce the clients overall interest paid. Then in the next breath the trainer would say not for us to mention that to the clients. What's that about? I would think that if we had a way to sell something that benifited the client and that was better for the client that we could use. I'll tell you why we can't. Because the interest savings is so insignificant that it's not a benefit. But I only learned that the beginning of this year when I started to do some research on the refi products. They are terrible and the reps are so uneducated as to the product itself. All we were told is to get the client to sign an application for a refi every time we went out. Even if we thought they didn't need one. We would then come up with a way to sell it by showing net difference savings etc. etc. etc. Meanwhile the client that we sold the refi's to could've went elsewhere and gotten a better deal. I wish I knew earlier, unfortunately I didn't. So you can see the training is terrible when it comes to product knowledge.

There are so many problems with the Products, the recruiting techniques and everything else that I'm making it may mission to make sure no one goes an where near Primerica.

We used to listen to tapes in the car and attend meetings and seminars and such. One SNSD (top of the chain) used to say to us that we must follow up with our family, friends and prospects until they buy, join or die. Isn't that crazy, sounds like harassment to me. Another SNSD and even my RVP would say that they wouldn't work with or train someone who didn't buy our products, especially the life insurance. In fact I witnessed on several occcasions my RVP with a new recruit in our office doing their FNA (Financial Needs Analysis). What a joke. They throw a bunch of complicated numbers together and the client thinks they're getting something special. After they went through and typed the FNA on the computer the RVP didn't even really explain the FNA to the new recruit. He went right for the life sale like a shark goinf after an injured seal. I used to think to myself, that poor guy doesn't know what's coming.'

I finally left for a lack of a market, because all my friends and family were tapped as either clients or they didn't want to hear about it anymore and the ultimate reason was that Primerica products just weren't ethical and I couldn't continue to sell them after I found out what I had.

Primerica is a place where lies and deceit are ramped, not only between with the rep to the client, but also between the RVP and his reps. The tension in the office was terrible. You couldn't trust anyone. That's the truth whether they admit it or not. You had no reason to help your coworkers because you were trying to beat them to RVP and knock them out of the game because they would take your market. It was terrible.

I say to all thinking about doing business with Primerica, DON'T DO IT. Don't end up like me with shame and regrets. Although now I feel a whole lot better for leaving.

Ron
Wilmington, Delaware
U.S.A.

Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Primerica

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 11/18/2004 03:04 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/primerica/newark-delaware-19702/primerica-ripoff-i-waisted-two-years-of-my-life-in-this-scam-newark-delawareupdate-prime-118704. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

Search for additional reports

If you would like to see more Rip-off Reports on this company/individual, search here:

Report & Rebuttal
Respond to this report!
What's this?
Also a victim?
What's this?
Repair Your Reputation!
What's this?
Featured Reports

Advertisers above have met our
strict standards for business conduct.

X
What do hackers,
questionable attorneys and
fake court orders have in common?
...Dishonest Reputation Management Investigates Reputation Repair
Free speech rights compromised

WATCH News
Segment Now