World Financial Group - coming soon to a friend near you

[surferguy]

So last night I get this phone call from a northern Alberta number and it turns out that it is a random old friend from high school.

We chatted small talk for about 15 mins before he dove into the meat and potatoes of why he was contacting me. Turns out he is a financial planner who "took control" of his work and life and went out on his own.

I said great good for you, as I generally repect those who build something of their own, but then he continued on...

He mentioned that he works with lots of guys who pull in over 100K a year, a few infact are in the 250K club. He also stated that he now wants to expand into the Calgary area and set up a branch, as he has branches in Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg and Ottawa.

At this point I was getting suspicious of his phone call. He went on to say that he currently has 60 people attending an "Open House" in his front office that are interested in what World Financial Group can do for them.

"It is like this every night, it is very exciting"

This is when I knew the phone call was sunk - he was basically looking to expand into Calgary via me attending an "Open House" on what WFG can do for me to help me attain hidden money ("$1500 a month in his case") that I don't know I have!

A few points from my view:

1. I felt completly ripped off that I had recieved a phone call from and old friend who was generally looking to BS, say hi and catch up. Nope, chuck testa

2. I felt even more ripped off that he felt I was a strong candidate for Financial Planning with WFG. For those that know me, I am on the complete opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to Insurance, investing and mortgage knowledge. For him to think that I would even be a viable candidtate for this position is laughable. Which shows me that he didn't do his research on me other than - oh he lives in Calgary now and probably knows a lot of people.

3. I did some research on these guys last night and and from what I found is that WFG is a Multi Level Marketing (MLM) scam that basically pays its Financial Planners on recruitment. Bear in mind i did very little research so I don't know if this is exactly true.

4. I feel a bit choked that he called me and offered me this "great opportunity to become a buisness owner". Some of you already know this but I will mention it again that I ALREADY am a hard working self employed buisness owner. I manufacter a product AND deliver a tangible service. I have a hard time respecting him now as I do not really feel that a person in a chain of MLM is a buisness owner. Maybe I just don't get it.

This really got under my skin that he felt he was doing me great service with this phone call. I've been busting my balls to for 3 years to get where I am and if he took all of three seconds to check out my page on the Facebook he would know exactly what I am up to, but he didn't and instead he just choose to exploit an old friendship to dig deep into his recruitment pool.

Long and short, I hate it when people get tied up into this #### and feel obligated to "help you too."

Be on the lookout for WFG - coming soon to a friend near you.

[Regulator75]

He should try contacting some folks from Nigeria.

[Puppet Guy]

surprise contact from old high school friends never means anything good.

[Regular_John]

Yeah we (the wife and I) have a friend who's involved with that group as well. From what I can tell they really, really pressure their members to call everyone they know & invite them to these open houses.

Said friend called me once and invited me, I said in no thanks, and told him in no uncertain terms that I don't mix business with my personal life, you're either a friend or a client/vendor. Which is true as when friends come to me with freelance web projects I'll offer some advice, but I always refer them to a colleague to get the work done.

But yeah, I was left with a similar bad taste in my mouth over the call, don't call me under the gist of socializing and then try to sell me something. Or at least be upfront (eg: tupperware parties) about it and don't use guilt "EG: I'd really like for you to come, I think it would be great for you" tactics.

To my friend's credit he hasn't brought it up again, I know he's still involved with the group, I have no idea if he's making money off it but he hasn't approached us again for these "open house" evenings. If he calls now it's to legitimately hang out.

[CaptainCrunch]

Not to different from the other billion financial services companies out there that base their business model around recruiting.

I must get 50 phone calls a year from Primerica telling me how my resume is inspiring and they'd like me to come in for a group interview.

Or I get 2 email invites a week.

Years ago it was air conditioners now its finacial planning, and to be honest I have trouble trusting someone who takes a two day in house course on their products and services and then puts a sign out that basically says ready to save.

[macker]

Tell him sure you will go check out the meeting but have him agree to come check out some meetings with you first :

http://us.gnld.com/en-us/home/

http://www.usana.com/dotCom/index.jsp

http://www.amway.ca/?cid=TC|23089|%2...%2Bamway&pmt=b

http://www.primericacanada.ca/


Tell him you heard these companies put on some great meetings from :
http://www.ripoffreport.com/

You can make a little money investing in :
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/usna/in...charttype=line

But you will always lose money in the longterm if you get involved with any of the above imo.

[sec304]

I had a friend involved in this back in the day, 2002 I think. Plus another girl invited me to the open house about 4 years ago, just ignore or say you are not interested and they will stop bothering you (eventually). I hadn't heard this name in so long I was actually suprised to read your story and see they we're still kicking around after the recession.

[macker]

Also mention that his MLM opportunity isn't even in the top 10 that you are considering

http://www.mlmrankings.com/

[Tron_fdc]

Tell him you'd go, but the meeting conflicts with your Visalus schedule.

[surferguy]

Yeah this was the first I had heard of it, but I can say that I will not be attending. I just sucks when people get pulled into these things and are blind to the fact that other usually do nat want to hear about it. He was asking about my friends and if any of them might be looking for a career switch. I had to laugh as a lot of my friends are like the average CPer 100K+ bread winners and great with the ladies.

I cant think of anybody that would be keen to give this a go. Its mind bottling

[Bean]

I work not too far from WFG's offices and we constantly have visible minorities with limited English skills come to our office by mistake. Initially I had heard that this business dabbles as immigration brokers however the MLM makes alot of sense.

Of the people that wander into our building by accident; they are never given the unit number to find WFG's office. (From whomever they are meeting with that is) Talk about smoke and mirrors from the start.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by surferguy

Yeah this was the first I had heard of it, but I can say that I will not be attending. I just sucks when people get pulled into these things and are blind to the fact that other usually do nat want to hear about it. He was asking about my friends and if any of them might be looking for a career switch. I had to laugh as a lot of my friends are like the average CPer 100K+ bread winners and great with the ladies.

I cant think of anybody that would be keen to give this a go. Its mind bottling

Sorry I couldn't hear you over this chick calling me god over and over again. Once she falls asleep, I'm grabbing my $500.00 shoes, leaving a $100 on the bed stand and sneaking out to my porche, so no I don't need any financial planning.

[Bobblehead]

I fully expect to see someone join CP simply to explain how misinformed everyone is and extol the virtues of this opportunity.

I'm actually kind of surprised it hasn't happened before since I think these guys have come up in discussion before.

[macker]

Originally Posted by surferguy

Yeah this was the first I had heard of it, but I can say that I will not be attending. I just sucks when people get pulled into these things and are blind to the fact that other usually do nat want to hear about it. He was asking about my friends and if any of them might be looking for a career switch. I had to laugh as a lot of my friends are like the average CPer 100K+ bread winners and great with the ladies.

I cant think of anybody that would be keen to give this a go. Its mind bottling

I was a GNLD rep back in the late 90s Also attended a USANA meeting with someone I met at a chamber meeting about 10 years ago

[CarlW]

Basically the same as Primerica. It's unfortunate that they make their victims pressure friends and acquaintances to these odd open house things to get you to become a "Financial Planner". If that's what they always push their "Planners" to do, where are all the damn clients and the planning? One would think they'd spend more time actually helping people with financial planning rather than inviting people to these open house things. Also I would surmise that their training is subpar if anything similar to Primerica.

From what I know the company's parent company, Aegon, is a large legit Financial company (They are Transamerica Life) it's too bad they also have their foot in this type of business.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Not to different from the other billion financial services companies out there that base their business model around recruiting.

I must get 50 phone calls a year from Primerica telling me how my resume is inspiring and they'd like me to come in for a group interview.

Or I get 2 email invites a week.

Years ago it was air conditioners now its finacial planning, and to be honest I have trouble trusting someone who takes a two day in house course on their products and services and then puts a sign out that basically says ready to save.

I had those guys tell me that I would be much better off if I dropped out of law school to work for them.

Sadly, some days I think they were right

[macker]

Originally Posted by CarlW

Basically the same as Primerica. It's unfortunate that they make their victims pressure friends and acquaintances to these odd open house things to get you to become a "Financial Planner". If that's what they always push their "Planners" to do, where are all the damn clients and the planning? One would think they'd spend more time actually helping people with financial planning rather than inviting people to these open house things. Also I would surmise that their training is subpar if anything similar to Primerica.

From what I know the company's parent company, Aegon, is a large legit Financial company (They are Transamerica Life) it's too bad they also have their foot in this type of business.

Yep and Primerica used to be under the Citi umbrella and push AGF funds and also used to push a lot of term to 95 policies that were a big rip off as the premiums would go up annually after 30 years and this was typically not properly disclosed. What are the chances of that rep even being in business in 30 years These companies don't properly train or regulate things and for that matter aren't being properly regulated themselves as there is a lot of non-disclosure that goes on. Even worse though are those group RESP plans It frustrates me that there are companies out there jerking around with peoples RESPs


Also they get you to sell first to family and friends as it helps in retention when you want out.....

[ranchlandsselling]

I dated a bombshell who worked for WFG. She was incredible, 5'10" - 6', in great shape, looked enhanced, was friendly, nice, honest, but I couldn't handle the sales crap, koolaid drinking and tolerate the comments about WFG all the time. What a great company it was, how she was landing all these deals, talking about the principals etc. I really wanted to blow my brains out when work came up. What was worse was the recruitment of me, I was working for one of the biggest companies in NA at the time and it was a really good job.

From my interpretation of what they were doing, during the boom, not sure they could do it as easily now Their biggest business was HELOCs. They'd set you up with a broker or bank to do a HELOC and take all your money and buy mutual funds.

Likely getting a commission on the HELOC and commissions and trailers on the Funds sold.

That's it. No "financial planning" no understanding of real estate or investing. Just a printout with some return figures and HELOC costs. I'm sure all those funds have done fantastic in the last 5 years.

OH - and the sales meetings that sounded like nothing but a bunch of circle j#$ks. I'm not sure how the kickbacks worked from recruitment. Probably just a cut of the persons commissions.

Sadly I had to rid-myself of her.

[Slava]

I just think its frustrating because as a financial advisor who is educated, licensed and has worked in the field for a number of years. It gives the whole industry a bad name and recruiting people who are butchers by day and financial advisors by night (with apologies to any butchers out there), just irritates me and makes it seem as though anyone is capable of doing this job with little in the way of training or education.

[surferguy]

Originally Posted by Slava

I just think its frustrating because as a financial advisor who is educated, licensed and has worked in the field for a number of years. It gives the whole industry a bad name and recruiting people who are butchers by day and financial advisors by night (with apologies to any butchers out there), just irritates me and makes it seem as though anyone is capable of doing this job with little in the way of training or education.

That is just the thing, my better half is partway through the CFA and I understand the amount of work that is required to truely understand the financial world. I know this guy was working stocking shelves on the nightwatch at a warehouse before he left and "tripled his income".

I will give you one guess who I would trust with my financial planning and it is not the guy who used to work at the company that started with H and ended in ome hardware.