primerica financial services

A Former Primerica Representative’s Story

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This woman says that Primerica Financial Services representatives lie and misrepresent the business opportunity to others  in order to get them to join and stay an active part of the plan (even if they’re not making any money).

Hi. My name is Anne and I was a Primerica representative (full time) for about 7 months (from May ’07 to December ’07).  I ended up in a multi-level marketing job in Primerica as a young adult.

I like what the company stands for and stuff (as far as helping families with their products), but it’s such a difficult position to be in.  A lot of your success is based upon how many people you know.  I knew the products backwards and forwards, became a decent sales person, was able to conquer most objections, but because I didn’t have a big warm market to start out with, I sucked.

When I first joined into the company, I was promised that everything was easy and I’d be making as much if not more than I was at my full time steady desk job… so I quit my regular job because at the time when the opportunity was presented to me, it was a “regular” paying job just with very flexible hours. Continue reading

Primerica Financial Services: The Fake Job Interview

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primerica-pyramid-schemePrimerica Financial Services is a multi-level marketing company that sells life insurance and investments. I’ve written about Primerica in the past, questioning whether Primerica is a pyramid scheme, and whether PFS is a scam.

The bottom line is that Primerica sells legitimate products and services (life insurance and investments), but sells them at inflated prices to generally unsophisticated consumers. So consumers are overpaying, and likely buying the wrong products. Additionally, the MLM structure sucks for the Primerica representatives. Because there is recruiting with so many levels, the distributor who sells the products receives much less money than if he or she sold similar services through a traditional insurance agency or investment company.

A typical recruiting ploy in Primerica is the job interview. Representatives of PFS troll the internet for job seekers, harvesting resumes from job sites. They contact the job seekers with an offer of an interview for an opening. They give the job seekers very little information about the “job” (it’s not a job at all… rather it is a position in the MLM pyramid), con them into showing up for an interview, and telling them if they have the right skills, they may be invited to stay for an information session. Continue reading

The Pyramid Scheme Aspect of Primerica Financial Services

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I ran across a blog that did a series examining Primerica Financial Services, a multi-level marketing company that purports to sell financial products. While the company does offer life insurance, investments, and other financial products, like a typical MLM… they’re really out there selling the opportunity. The name of the game is endless recruiting.

The Financial Blogger did several nice posts about the company, but this explanation of the pyramid scheme aspect of Primerica was exceptional: Continue reading

Primerica Financial Services a Scam?

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Over on my consumer awareness site, Pink Truth, I have put together a few articles about Primerica Financial Services.

Like Mary Kay, Usana, and Mannatech, Primerica is a multi-level marketing company (MLM). The big difference, however, is that these other companies have a tangible product for sale, and many of the abuses come from loading participants with inventory they won’t ever be able to sell.

Primerica sells insurance (mostly life insurance), mutual funds, mortgages, and debt consolidation services. It appears that “debt consolidation” is the cash cow for the company, and it’s questionable whether consumers are really better off with the Primerica products than without. (i.e. The representatives are incentivized to push these products, even if it may actually cost the consumer more money!) Continue reading