Primerican Idiot

[Sol-Blackguy]

So one of my best friends has been telling me about some insurance gig he was working on for a while. Already having a decent job, I would just change the subject. Eventually I caved and decided to go to one of his "meetings" to humor him. No more than 5 seconds in I could tell this was one of those Multi Level Marketing rackets and immediately went into IDGAF mode. Good thing I did too, because I was actually amused by the idea of a well-dressed Arabic man younger than me talking to a room of people who probably don't have an average credit score a over 380 about "selling" life insurance. Every red flag went off in my mind as he went on to describe the company:

-vague and overpriced product that is more of a luxury than a necessity
-having to pay for training and an out of state "license" to sell said product.
-complicated payment plan with incentives rewarded just for recruiting additional "employees"
-reliance on word of mouth, employees buying the product, and sales to friends and family instead of paying for advertising
-overrides awarded to higher level "employees" whenever lower level ones make sales

At this point I was 100% sure I don't want any part of this bullshit. But that's not the problem, my best friend is completely bought in and is almost brainwashed by this "companies" cult like tactics. He keeps trying to get me to go to more meetings, buy their shitty product, (which I still have no idea what the hell it is) and pay for training and their bullshit license.
So at this point I really want to stick it to these fuckers and prove to him that it's a scam. Did some research, and the company itself is legal. But, the practices of their pyramid structure are obviously questionable. I bet if I could corner the RVP (or whatever he's called) with some questions he can't answer, maybe my friend will see through his bullshit. Even better, if I ask about some serious shit that gets me "escorted out," I could get everyone else to realize it's a scam.
Anyone have some ideas on some questions that could piss of a pyramid scammer?

[Souj]

license

[Tajin]

Now why would you try to fuck honest scammers trying to make a living out of stupid fucks?

[Mazmaz]

All I gathered was "I went to this meeting, decided not to listen to much of what the guy said and come up with questions for him on my own, decided to hop on BG and hope you guys give me magical gotcha questions from the vague description of my experience".

Cool story bro.

[Kaelan?]

Think of it as an ignorance tax

[Xno Kappa]

Why you gotta hate? Let a hustler hustle. Your friend I'm assuming is a grown ass man.

[Seanr]

If he likes his new found religion, let him be... Just don't be too much of a dick when he comes to his senses...

[Omnipotent]

It's a scam, my gf did it, and a couple friends.... all never saw money and any sales they made went to their boss and they saw a small cut.

[ronin sparthos]

Funny you mention this, I had a friend do the same thing to me with a company he was sure was going to be a hit - YOR Health. Much like you, I entertained his request to attend a meeting and was amused by all of the posturing made by the members of the 'team' that were so interested in getting to know me. Part of the fun of watching these pitches is how much work they put into selling you the scam. Suits, Briefcases, Good Haircuts, Refreshments and what have you.

This young dude about say... 25 comes out and tries to sell me and two other people brought in the idea of making money fast, a path to success and if we're interested in a job to supplement our meager college income. He rails off his accomplishments as an entrepreneur formerly working 2 jobs and then for himself laying foundation for what would become his pitch - the often flawless delivery that make MLM scams so timeless:

-pictures of smiling couples who "made it" and rake in thousands.
-the founder of the company speaking directly to you in a video urging you to join him in his success.
-the idea of being your own boss.
-the rosy pictures of you being the only limitation on your path to millions.
-the image of being apart of a team being there to support you.

I had to laugh inside a bit because this was being held in the basement of an eatery in midtown - a far cry from the "luxury" the company was claiming to offer. Putting that aside, all of the typical MLM hallmarks were in place with emphasis on the convoluted as fuck payment system. You know something's wrong when you don't even understand how you get paid lol.

To seal the deal, they used an attractive Asian woman to secure the order forms claiming to have made her way through the success of the company. Kits ranged from 400-900 dollars and they wanted money up front along with information like an SSN - fucking lol, as if I'd just give that out to some people I met 20mins ago.

I never wanted to bail out of a place so fast but I do remember coming up with some bullshit. Much like you, I tried to talk my friend out of the organization but he believed it'd work until he realized the reference system employed by the company would only take him so far and that began his descent into being conned, forking out more money to keep the sinking ship afloat.

He dropped around 700 dollars in the start up kit, capped out on friends/family willing to buy the product and then got squeezed by the company when he failed to meet quota and eventually after obsessing over the whole thing a while finally realized he got scammed. We laugh about the whole thing now but when he was on the inside he really thought he'd go somewhere. He never tells me how much he finally lost though.

I know BG likes to think itself above these scams but people do fall for it. Lucky for me, I had family members who informed me of these things ages ago when my godmother first got involved in one back in the early 80s.

[Hyan]

Yah a relative of mine bought a vacuum cleaner for 3000mk back in the day (practically 3ke). Then when it broke in a year she bought another for 2k. We warned her both times but....

[miokomioko]

A huge one going around right now is MonaVie, a fucking Acai berry drink that the people selling it are claiming cures cancer, lol. My dumbass mom and her retarded husband were all about it for a while, constantly hounding me to "get in on the ground floor." In order to meet some sort of recruitment quota, they asked if they could make an account under my name. I said sure, got a few emails that I deleted, and then a few weeks later, MonaVie was required to send me a copy of an Arkansas class action lawsuit against the company. I found it amusing to read.

http://media.monavie.com/pdf/corpora...ction_Suit.pdf

Similarly, my father's adorable (but stupid) little Philipino girlfriend was part of a similar bullshit debt-consolidation/refinancing company (invested a lot of money in it too). All the employees would go to these parties at the CEO's mansion, where you would see all kinds of photographs of him with people like Bill Clinton and shit. One day, the cops showed up to her work looking for him when he wasn't there, the company accounts were emptied, he skipped whatever tax-evasion court date he had and was never seen again. The poor dumb Philipino women left behind by this douche decided to try and make a legit company out of what was left. One woman took the lead, got everyone else to help invest money to get it re-started... then pulled the same thing on everyone.

The moral of the story is: Philipino women are stupid and fruit won't cure your aids.

[Churchill]

flip women are pretty dumb, lol. good story

[Elvis]

sounds like

[Acevalefor]

Primerica isn't a pyramid scheme. It's the type of people the company attracts that fuck things up. It is all independent companies selling for Primerica just like individual insurance agencies sell insurance for big names like Farmers, Allstate, etc. The major difference is that Primerica encourages risk taking on their licensees' parts and that attracts the college/just out of college kids that haven't figured out that there is no get-rich-quick scheme that actually works. So these people set up their company and start recruiting only to find out they don't have enough friends and family to support them and don't know how to operate a legit business so they fail along with everyone they brought in.

Primerica does partake in questionable behavior regarding their sales tactics, but they are not scammers, just crooked wall street insurance/mutual fund managers. Sounds like every other company on Wall street...

[Jb1210a]

Primerica isn't a pyramid scheme. It's the type of people the company attracts that fuck things up. It is all independent companies selling for Primerica just like individual insurance agencies sell insurance for big names like Farmers, Allstate, etc. The major difference is that Primerica encourages risk taking on their licensees' parts and that attracts the college/just out of college kids that haven't figured out that there is no get-rich-quick scheme that actually works. So these people set up their company and start recruiting only to find out they don't have enough friends and family to support them and don't know how to operate a legit business so they fail along with everyone they brought in.

Primerica does partake in questionable behavior regarding their sales tactics, but they are not scammers, just crooked wall street insurance/mutual fund managers. Sounds like every other company on Wall street...

Sounds like you work for Primerica.

[Takedown3]

i have a friend that has been part of primerica high school (15 years) and has actually made a really good living by climbing the pyramid. 100k+ a year for the last couple at least.

[isladar]

Primerica isn't a pyramid scheme.

So these people set up their company and start recruiting only to find out they don't have enough friends and family to support them and don't know how to operate a legit business so they fail along with everyone they brought in.

What you wrote in the second quote there is a pyramid scheme.

[solanis]

@ above: no, that's not a pyramid scheme. it's how a pyramid scheme could begin.

that being said, this company does sound like a pyramid scheme

[Callisto]

Primerica's model is legal, but it's most definitely a pyramid scheme, lol. The majority of 'new hires' get their startup cash pocketed and drop out with a net loss because they can't get their friends and family to buy from them.

[BaneTheBrawler]

In theory, it's perfectly legitimate. In practice, however, no one wants to buy that crap and it ends up working like a pyramid scheme. The people at the top are well aware of this, which is why you have to pay stupid amounts for "licensing" and shit like that. So no, technically it's not a pyramid scheme... it only looks like one, talks like one, smells like one, and craps like one.

Another big problem is that the people who actually manage to sell enough crap to make money at it then decide to try to recruit their friends... who go from customers to competitors and now both of them are in the red.