Primerica

[Stupid Youngin]

Earlier today, one of my friends contacted me about a potential job offer and wanted to know if i wanted in. We both work miserable jobs in retail so he knows I'll take the bait. He says he'll send in my contact info with his.

I get a call a few minutes later from a regional vice president of Primerica. Right off the bat, the guy wants to know how much i know about the company. Seems a little weird to me. When I tell him that all I know is that they're looking for people, and I hate my current job, he goes off on a story about how he hated his first few jobs when he came back from Iraq but then settled in with Primerica. The guy goes on about how hes been with the company for 15 years and how they're expanding with the recovery from the recession. Then he asks if I'm available on Saturday morning or Tuesday night. Tuesday night? What the crap? I tell him I work Saturday mornings at my god awful retail job and have class on Tuesday nights. So we work something out and schedule my meeting for Nov 9 at 9:00am.

After I get off the phone, I decide to check up on this company that just came into my life outta nowhere. The stock has had a steady incline over the past 5 years, okay that's good. Then I find out it's a "distributor of financial services and sells products through representatives." Fuck... I have to keep working with people... I hate people.... Still pretty vague though. What specifically does this company do?  Then I hit article after complaint after article about how this thing is some sort of a multilevel marketing scheme. But none of these people can tell me what the crap the company makes or does. Fuck it, im going to this crappy meeting to find out more.

[LMNO]

The company focuses on the sale of term life insurance,[1] as well as providing other financial products and services including mutual funds, annuities, segregated funds, managed accounts, long-term care insurance, pre-paid legal services, auto insurance, home insurance, credit monitoring and debt management plans.

So, I have a feeling it's cold calling people and asking them to give you money to put in financial schemes, some riskier than others.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Am I wrong in thinking this is weird for a first post?

[Stupid Youngin]

Am I wrong in thinking this is weird for a first post?

oh, dok howl frequents my site and i figured this was more appropriate than my home for fucktard gremlins

[Cain]

It's a pyramid scheme.  You have to pay $99 for your application to be processed and, if you should be successful (80% of applicants are not - no money back), you are then responsible for recruiting new applicants.

MSN Money:

    Primerica has built a profitable business by combining a financial-services firm with multilevel sales techniques, similar to companies like Avon Products (AVP +0.14%). In Primerica's case, sales reps are responsible for recruiting new applicants.

    Most of the company's 91,000 reps work part time, but 4,000 have reached the level of regional vice president, which entitles the worker to higher pay and bonuses, the filing notes.

    "I think they want you to make it, but they know you're not going to," Phillip Bowers, who left the company this year and never made more than $50,000, told Businessweek. "People would get into the business, bring their friends, and then after a while, the person who brought those friends would quit."

    Primerica's website is full of hype, billing its structure as providing "freedom from a boss" and the "freedom to dream big." It also promotes success stories, such as Brant and Adiris Vogt, who earned more than $100,000 and received a "power builder ring."

    That sounds great, until you notice the small print at the bottom of the page. It cautions that the average pay for a sales rep is just $5,513 per year.

You can tell these sort of companies after a while - they all use pretty much the same marketing techniques and promises.  The only difference in this case is that it seems to be attached to a more leigitmate insurance and brokerage firm.

[Golden Applesauce]

If no one seems sure what they do, but everyone hates them, that's probably a sign that you will have a hard time feeling proud of yourself working for them.

[LMNO]

It's a pyramid scheme.  You have to pay $99 for your application to be processed and, if you should be successful (80% of applicants are not - no money back), you are then responsible for recruiting new applicants.

MSN Money:

Primerica has built a profitable business by combining a financial-services firm with multilevel sales techniques, similar to companies like Avon Products (AVP +0.14%). In Primerica's case, sales reps are responsible for recruiting new applicants.

Most of the company's 91,000 reps work part time, but 4,000 have reached the level of regional vice president, which entitles the worker to higher pay and bonuses, the filing notes.

"I think they want you to make it, but they know you're not going to," Phillip Bowers, who left the company this year and never made more than $50,000, told Businessweek. "People would get into the business, bring their friends, and then after a while, the person who brought those friends would quit."

Primerica's website is full of hype, billing its structure as providing "freedom from a boss" and the "freedom to dream big." It also promotes success stories, such as Brant and Adiris Vogt, who earned more than $100,000 and received a "power builder ring."

That sounds great, until you notice the small print at the bottom of the page. It cautions that the average pay for a sales rep is just $5,513 per year.

You can tell these sort of companies after a while - they all use pretty much the same marketing techniques and promises.  The only difference in this case is that it seems to be attached to a more leigitmate insurance and brokerage firm.

Run.  Away.  Any company who wants you to pay a fee while as a member of their company, sees you as their customer, not the person you're selling term life insurance to.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Am I wrong in thinking this is weird for a first post?

oh, dok howl frequents my site and i figured this was more appropriate than my home for fucktard gremlins

This is true.

Banme, you are describing a scam.  A classic one.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Am I wrong in thinking this is weird for a first post?

oh, dok howl frequents my site and i figured this was more appropriate than my home for fucktard gremlins

My bad.

[Stupid Youngin]

The friend who tried to get me in on this thing has his meeting first so I'll wait to see what he has to say about what the company does. If he still doesn't know, I'm out.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The friend who tried to get me in on this thing has his meeting first so I'll wait to see what he has to say about what the company does. If he still doesn't know, I'm out.

Your friend is 75% likely to pitch you.

Telling you, man...This is a scam.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Just looked them up.  It's a "multi-level marketing" firm...Which translates out to, as Cain said, a pyramid scam.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yep. Ponzi/pyramid. Nothing personal, but your friend is a chump.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Yep. Ponzi/pyramid. Nothing personal, but your friend is a chump.

And is setting up Stupid Youngin as the next patsy.

That's how these places operate.  "Sell everywhere.  Family, friends, strangers, everywhere."  When you get sucked in, you magically lose all your friends.

Someone here wrote an experience with this sort of thing (V3X?  Rat?  I can't remember who.)  It was awful.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yeah. They want you to go LDS and hardsell your friends and family. And you have to pay THEM, and you make little or squat. Fuck that noise.