# Primerica



## wiggy (Aug 4, 2011)

Hey I was also curious if anyone has experience with primerica? My gf's dad is a rep and I seem to be getting some pressure to invest with him. He claims they always have 10% or more return a year. Then with the common sense account your money is protected and you cannot lose more than 25% of your investment.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

wiggy said:


> I seem to be getting some pressure to invest with him.


IMHO, that is all you will ever get from them (i.e. pressure) and no returns.
I have past experience with Primerica advisors sales pitch and my strong recommendation is to stay far, far away.
Pressure from close friends and relatives is their modus operandi, no surprise there whatsoever.
It is unfortunate for you but you need to deal with the relationship side of things.
You have to try and keep relationship and money separate.



> He claims they always have 10% or more return a year


BS.
Just pull up any of their mutual funds on morningstar.ca and look at the returns.
The stuff they are buying is the same as what other mutual funds are buying.
They are not protected from the market gyrations at all.
If anything, it is worse for them because of the huge management fees and trailer fees.

If you believe the guaranteed 10% annual returns your GF's dad's pitching to you, then my friend, I have some prime beachfront property in Arizona that you MUST buy TODAY 



> Then with the common sense account your money is protected and you cannot lose more than 25% of your investment


It is probably some sort of PPN or other such s*th.
25% BTW is 1/4th of your portfolio and I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to consider that possibility 
Your returns on this PPN or whatever it is will be zilch...at the end of the term you will have somewhere between 75% and 100% of your portfolio intact with 0% returns.

If principal protection is important to you, take that 25% and put in a HISA or GIC and invest the other 75%.


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## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

It a scam targeted at naive "investor".

Primerica is actually worst than Investors Group.


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## Max (Apr 4, 2009)

Its basically a pyramid scheme of contacts, using family pressure to lure in money. If you ever attended one of their presentations to become an advisor, they always ask for a list of names to go make sales calls.

I am sure they are not all bad, but ask them how the client gets their money out of the fund. They will invariably answer that they need to go through the financial advisor and that there is no other way to do it without contacting someone who makes a commission off of the client's invested money and has a direct conflict of interest in allowing the client to withdraw it. This is where things go wrong. Financial advisor won't return calls, doesn't know anything about the forms and paperwork, etc.... (my parents are experiencing this now).

Just invest in ETFs if you are going this route and save yourself the overhead expenses (look around on this site for more advice on ETFs).

Your GFs dad is not managing the funds, or making any investment decisions. Probably he has the best of intentions, but in the end, he is only a salesman for the fund.


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## Max (Apr 4, 2009)

Agree with Larry. Primerica is worse than investors group.

Investors group will have promotional events for you to go to and other gimmicks like that to make you feel more valued and loyal to the fund. I don't think Primerica ever offered anything like that.


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## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

I personally have no sympathy for people who get scammed in purchasing 3% MER mutual funds through primerica or group investors.

I simply dont understand people who shop 3 months for a 500$ dishwasher but handle their whole life saving to the first crook who come at them with nices looking charts on glossy paper or give in due to 'peer pressure' (whatever that mean).

serve them right for being stupid imho


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Sadly, I can vouch for everything that was written above based on personal experience. I can't find anything inaccurate in the above. As to why people are "stupid", I don't really know Larry. You make a good point that we'll sit there and scrutnize fruit in the bin at the grocery store or fuss with complicated cellphone contracts but won't give the same scale of attention to things like mutual funds. I don't think I chalk it up to stupidity so much as apathy and a desire for the "easy button" so many people want these days.

When I first signed up, it was at the suggestion of a family member and when I got there they immediately wanted me to fork over names of friends and family to "continue" with the investing process. I don't think the employees of that company are bad. I think they're just average people who want an income and a job, pay their own bills like the rest of us. What I always found odd was the weird pyramid-like structure they seem so fond of, when they make plenty on their funds.

Harold's right (as usual), I wasted years paying their fees out of my patry returns and ending up with $0 for my efforts. I blame that on my own apathy but companies like this aren't helping matters either.

Awaiting company spin doctors....*start stopwatch now*.


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## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

My sympathy pal, at least you turned things around and figured out it was actually a bunch of leeches trying to profit from your savings.

When it come to investing, I think everyone eventually make mistakes, it is just that some mistakes are more costly than others.


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## Causalien (Apr 4, 2009)

Their biggest income are from immigrants who are not aware of the law and investing information environment in Canada.

Oh and most of the people at the presentation you go to are their own agents.


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## wiggy (Aug 4, 2011)

Ok thanks I will checkout other funds on morning star. I will just have to weather the storm at home for doing it lol


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

Looking at an "exit strategy" for this situation, you'll need to tread carefully.

If you're serious about this girl, then I'd tell her Dad that you just don't feel comfortable mixing money with family. Be firm on the point, but be kind. 

Don't tell him (or your girl) that he works for a shady company. It puts food on the table, you can't blame him for making ends meet.

He may try to set you up with one of his coworkers. You could even go and ask your questions, and decline. Tell dear old Dad you just didn't connect with the other person. And leave it at that.

Or you could always just plead poverty.


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## coptzr (Jan 18, 2013)

Thanks again to this forum. Unfortunately this company y is still working hard to sign people up. I came across someone I know talking about life insurance and retirement details several times over the past month. I just caught wind of the company name and had to do some searching. I agree, most of the sales people are just those who paid a couple hundred bucks to learn something new and try to make their own small business. Preying on every contact you know to buy products you and they know little to nothing about is something I don't agree with.


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## milhouse (Nov 16, 2016)

larry81 said:


> I personally have no sympathy for people who get scammed in purchasing 3% MER mutual funds through primerica or group investors.
> 
> I simply dont understand people who shop 3 months for a 500$ dishwasher but handle their whole life saving to the first crook who come at them with nices looking charts on glossy paper or give in due to 'peer pressure' (whatever that mean).
> 
> serve them right for being stupid imho


I've had a Primerica account since the early/mid 90's around the time I was in university. I was new to investing and knew I wanted to get into it but didn't really know how. The sister of one of the guys I went to school with was working for Primerica, gave me a bit of a spiel (dollar cost averaging, rule of 72, blah, blah, blah) so I think I invested somewhere around $300-400 (??) dollars with her, split between an US growth fund and an emerging markets fund and haven't touched it since. Over about 20-25 years, it's only grown to about $900 and I've been too lazy to pull it out and reinvest it into something more relevant. She eventually dropped out of the financial biz and I've only spoken to the new guy once in the last 15 years or so. 

There is so much more information today. You've also got more access to self managed investment accounts, etf's, etc. But some people just aren't financially inclined or they rely on someone through assumed good reference to have their best interest in mind.


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