World Financial Group
Reviews and Complaints
They never pay its all lies
World Financial Group Seminar Review from Sacramento, California
ANOTHER DECEPTIVE, WELL THOUGHT OUT MARKETING TECHNIQUE, LET'S USE WORKSHOPS TO RECRUIT NEW MEMBERS FOR OUR MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS. Then AT THE LAST WORKSHOP LETS PRESSURE THEM TO BECOME AGENTS, IF NOT PUT THEM THEOUGH ALL WORKSHOPS AGAIN.
when I saw the workshops I told myself that the company is now truly deceptive and I left. I said I'm going back to school and will work on my health (cause they transferred me under my cousin to complete his pyramid cause even he sucks *** at this. They literally have "a numbers game." They are told by their leader to recruit 10 to get 1 devoted leg, etc. They are told college is a waste of money. They are told you'll learn more financial knowledge here than anywhere else. They are PRESSURED INTO BUYING VACATION TICKETS TO GO ON 1st CLASS VACATIONS TO SHOW OFF TO THEIR FAMILY only to come home broke. After defending them on here at one point I decided to examine William3's comments to the T and have decided to join the force that will shine light on this company. Yes those "Educational" workshops are only there to eventually recruit you, look at CHAPTER 5, as a matter of fact I will post a whole workbook on here anonymously. (They told us not to because they're scared of the revelation) Chapter 5 clearly states how you become an agent with us... (Guess what, they probably pressured you to become a "member" already).
My question to you WFG-WSB folks...
1) Are these people really learning anything? Or JUST BUYING AN OVERPRICED PORTFOLIO?
2) Why do you stress RECRUITING MEMBERS if THE GOAL OF AN 'EDUCATIONAL' WORKSHOP is to EDUCATE THE USER 1st? On the HW of these workshops it says to BRING 1 PERSON NEXT TIME (MINIMUM!?!)
3) Why do you all make it sound like school will do nothing and JOBs will do nothing when clearly most of your agents are DEAD BROKE.. I don't care if x% makes 100,000$/ year because I checked that statistic, they don't earn it EVERY YEAR, that statistic counted how many earned it ONCE... Oh and DONT FORGET THE AMOUNT OF CHARGEBACK 60-70% of those people had... There's much more claimed losses.
I can't wait till the FTC gets you cause you overcharged my parent on an FFIUL policy when I'm already scratching for money for college and food... You did not require any financial analysis or DIME method and even if you did, THE AGENT DIDNT KNOW HOW TO USE IT! "Anyone can do this" NO, THEY NEED THE PROPER EDUCATION, LIFE EXPERIENCE, LICENSES, and SECURITY. I have all the literature they gave me and will start posting every week, BUT BY ALL MEANS, ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO SHOW THE LITERATURE THEY GAVE DO SO, BE brave!
How can I find my mom maiden name so I can sing in
People, it’s not “if” but WHEN the FTC cracks down on WFG...
...or at least high-profile WFG contractor-agents.
It’s not “if” but WHEN Aegon/Transamerica formally cuts its ties with World Financial Group and sheds it, like Citi did with Primerica in 2009.
We may well see more cause to pursue WFGers than Herbalife. Contractor-agents for both Herbalife and WFG clearly stress recruiting over sales. They clearly show pervasive--rampant--pyramid-scheme behavior.
In terms of product, WFG arguably fares worse than Herbalife. Herbalife sells diet, nutritional supplement, and personal care products and suffers only occasional and short-lived safety issues, such as metal shards in its Formula 1 nutritional shake five years ago. Meanwhile WFG’s flagship product, Transamerica’s Financial Foundation Indexed Universal Life (FFIUL) policy is, as WFGers typically configure it, a DEMONSTRABLY BAD and financially HARMFUL product that costs policyholders MUCH money. Thousands of dollars per year in premiums.
So why does the government pursue Herbalife first? In part, it’s because it sits back and lets the legal suits and grassroots outcry to grow strong enough and run their course. To pave their way enough for smoother regulatory action, or at least until the Feds can’t ignore the outcry any longer. Eg with Herbalife, it took years of high-profile actions by activist-investor Bill Ackman to force the Feds to act.
Fortunately YOU have the power to help solve this problem. These following firms and attorneys are some of the many who are actively investigating and/or have launched class-action suits against injurious and exploitative Universal Life (UL) insurance products. If you feel WFGers, and/or reps from another broker/dealer, abused you by selling demonstrably bad products like the FFIUL, you can contact them at the numbers below. They will be happy to examine your policy to see if you qualify to join in one of the upcoming class-action suits:
Lieff, Crabraser, Heimann & Bernstein: (800) 541-****
Zamansky LLC: (212) 742-****
Gerald Sinclair Flanagan: (310) 392-****
Travis Murray Corby: (310) 246-****
William Martin Shernoff: (909) 621-****
- Pricey
- High risk
- Cult-like environment
Ex Agent needing 2018 **** tax form
Cancelation my membership
T4A slip to file tax
Review in Financial Services category from Sacramento, California
Hey it's me Liquid, I'll be posting anonymously cause I am in one of their offices, I write my reviews when I'm in Sacramento to fool them. But I received this.
I'll let you guys decide about this. These are the MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS CHECKLIST. They are literally forcing membership now cause they're in hopes someone will become an active agent one day. When I get my workbook back I'll post every page...
@William3 I can't wait for you or anyone to dissect the pages. I even got a hold of an FFIUL agent guide.
**FREE** Analysis on your Insurance Policy and Other Financial Products.
I work as a Financial Advisor in the San Francisco Bay Area.
If you bought a product through World Financial Group, it’s urgent you seek a fiduciary to verify that:
- you paid and continue to pay a fair price,
- you bought a competitive product,
- you can reasonably expect your product to perform as illustrated and,
- your product does not expose your capital to unreasonable risk.
I’m willing, at NO COST, to give you BASIC first-line advice on your product. You remain completely anonymous because you remove all your personal identifying information from your contract before you post it here.
In exchange, you let the public see your product and to benefit from my analysis of it.
I especially encourage those people who bought annuities, especially variable annuities, and UL (Universal Life) policies such as Transamerica’s FFIUL, to upload their documents here for analysis.
Bear in mind I do NOT give you a comprehensive evaluation. I flag potential trouble areas in your product contract text and mathematical models. You'll still need to take your WFG product a reputable Fee-ONLY (not Fee-BASED) financial advisor to get a complete analysis and a clear action plan. However, I’ll give you a good start on this process. Because I do some of the key work for you, you’ll likely save money on the hourly fees you pay your Financial Advisor.
I will need to receive EVERY page of your document that contains contract language and text and numerical policy data. E.g. for Universal Life insurance policies, I will need the Illustration documents which includes your projected annual Rate of Return on your invested cash value, the main contract body including the Cost of Insurance (COI) charts, and the Riders.
Please scan each page of your document and save it as a JPG file in 100dpi format. If your document is faint or blurry, please save it as a JPG file in 200dpi or 300dpi format. Please choose the lowest resolution format you need to allow us to clearly read your document.
You can upload your product here as a review and/or in the comments section of the post at:
www dot finance-guy dot net/streetonomic/world-financial-group-review
If you bought a Universal Life (UL) policy such as Transamerica’s FFIUL, I also encourage you to contact one or more of these law firms and attorneys who are exploring or launched class-action suits against carriers and broker-dealers of UL policies:
Lieff, Crabraser, Heimann & Bernstein: (800) 541-****
Zamansky LLC: (212) 742-****
Gerald Sinclair Flanagan: (310) 392-****
Travis Murray Corby: (310) 246-****
William Martin Shernoff: (909) 621-****
Thank you for your interest and participation.
- Concerns about wfg products
No answered
E&Os and appointment with Transamerica.
Review in Financial Services category
Wasted money and time with this company (lol "company"). They suck you in by forcing your good friends to "see what im doing and if you think its a good idea".
They separate the new people from the well dressed but all completely broke (other than 5 out of every 10,000 "agents". Hold on let me do their little (***) rah-rah.....whoooooOOOOOOAAAAA WOOSH, BOOM, TAMPA (broke as ***). Dont waste your time. Not only is there no hourly pay, you have to give your firsr TEN SALES to you "trainer" what a crock of crooks.
Then they want you to pay 100.00 to get....hired? Its a scam. The main guy drives a Mazarati...the rest drive 10+ year old cars. If you arent in their click and sound like a used car salesman.
They taje your 100.00 and run. If you actuallt sell something (a miracle in itself) you have to split your 20% commission with your trainer.....oh the useless trainer. They will say anything to get you to join.
Dont make my mistake. Scale of 1 to 10 i give it a ZERO
A story about how people at WFG are a bunch of snakes
I remember a couple months ago when I was going to a BPM, a guy in a suit approached me as I was walking down the street and asked me " Are you here for the consulting position?". Then to myself I'm thinking wow this guy is getting deceived like crazy.
I told him I was a member of the company, but my brainwashed self didn't just tell the poor guy to just leave and not waste his time here. He was telling me how some girl named Michelle(who is an *** , contacted him to come for an interview. He told me that he drove all the way from Palmdale to come to the West LA office!! I felt really bad for the guy because he sounded like he needed a job really bad.
This is not an interview for a job position, this is some boring seminar talking about how WFG is supposedly the "Costco of Financial Services". The funny thing is the SMD's look down on people with actual jobs and careers. They say that people with jobs are limited and they even have an acronym for the word job. The say the word JOB stands for "Journey of the Broke".
Who the *** do they think they are saying *** like this? Then they have the nerve to make this false advertisement for a job position when it is basically you paying an "administrative fee" to be an "independent contractor" that is bossed around by a trainer. What a bunch of hypocrites!
I regret not telling that guy that day to turn around and leave.Thank god I left this *** "company" ! I feel so liberated!
This could be WFG's future if they are not careful.
What happened to Herbalife could be in WFG's future.
The Federal Trade Commission has determined that Herbalife is not a pyramid scheme, but the nutritional supplement marketer will still be required to pay $200 million to consumers and "fully restructure" its "unfair" business in a comprehensive settlement, the FTC confirmed Friday.
The settlement comes after a two-year investigation by the FTC, which has probed Herbalife over accusations that the company focuses on recruiting more sales people instead of selling its products.
The multi-level marketing company "deceived consumers into believing they could earn substantial money selling diet, nutritional supplement, and personal care products," the FTC said.
The $200 million payment will include compensation for certain consumers who purchased Herbalife products, but details of that payment structure will be determined later.
Herbalife was not particularly contrite.
"While the company believes that many of the allegations made by the FTC are factually incorrect, the company believes settlement is in its best interest because the financial cost and distraction of protracted litigation would have been significant, and after more than two years of cooperating with the FTC's investigation, the company simply wanted to move forward," Herbalife said in a statement.
Herbalife executives had told investors in a conference call in May that they were close to a deal with the FTC that would cost an estimated $200 million.
The settlement marks a significant loss for hedge fund investor Bill Ackman, who publicly accused Herbalife of being a pyramid scheme. The Pershing chief Square Capital Management invested $1 billion in a short bet against Herbalife's shares in 2012 when they traded around $47.
Herbalife stock (HLF) rose 6.6% in pre-market trading Friday to $63.25.
Still, the FTC blasted Herbalife for exaggerating the earnings most of its sellers reap and said Herbalife agreed to pay for an independent auditor to monitor its business practices.
"Herbalife is going to have to start operating legitimately, making only truthful claims about how much money its members are likely to make, and it will have to compensate consumers for the losses they have suffered as a result of what we charge are unfair and deceptive practices," FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement.
Only a "small minority" of distributors make "a lot of money" on Herbalife sales, the FTC said, and most abandon the business within the year.
Owners of Herbalife's Nutrition Club brand invested an average of $8,500 to launch their operation, but 57% broke even or lost money, according to an internal survey revealed by the FTC.
Dishonest and unethical practices
To whom it may concern,
My name Francisco Villalobos former agent id with WFG 26ZYW. I received an email from you, not an official letter, informing me that according to your records I did not hold an active insurance license, an active insurance provider appointment and have an outstanding debt of $2106 and needed to be settle by March 31 otherwise would result termination from World Financial Group.
First of all, I have held an active license for the last 12 years and I have never lapsed or canceled and I have been appointed with several insurance companies through other agencies, I have been doing business with other FMO's. I informed my up line Shirley King 14ASF more than 2 years a go that other FMO offered me a higher commission rate and that I was leaving and was not going to write any more business with WFG, she acknowledged and that was the end of it. I called her and asked her about this letter and amount charged to me and she said that corporate WFG was responsible for it. She asked me to write and explain that I was inactive and unaware of the conditions outlined in the letter. I was not notified by mail nor email of any conditions such a minimum production of $2000 which I did not sign these terms in my agreement, I was not notified about any requirements whatsoever and I was charged this amount without any explanation. I tried to get appointed with Equitrust and they notified me that you had reported a vector to the corresponding authority. A vector is a charge back from a commission not an internal policy that was added to me by a policy that I was not aware nor notified by anybody, you just added to me without further investigation nor communication by your company. I do not wish to reactivate my insurance licenses and appointments with WFG and I do not wish to position myself to meet the $2,000 minimum production requirement because I don't want to represent WFG at all. Please furnish a signed copy of this Associate Membership Agreement where I agreed to these conditions.
You are hurting my livelihood by reporting something that was unethically added to me without me being notified except by one email letting me know that I needed to settle an amount owed to the company. Please I need you to remove this bogus charge and a letter that indicates that the charge has been removed from my record. I write insurance for a living and WFG has viciously hindered my career. I am writing you so you can fix this and clean my record as I was not aware of these conditions nor there is an agreement where I signed.
I would like to fix this in a friendly matter. I know my rights as an agent and I will do what it takes to clean my honorable record and if necessary, I will write the insurance commission submitting a formal complaint and get the media involved so they can do a further investigation.
Thank you for your assistance on this matter, I am sure that we can work something out for the best.
Respectfully,
Francisco Villalobos
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Yes please post every page of every workbook, manual, guide, worksheet, contract, etc...so we can all see the inner workings of this group and confirm what we already know...they are only there to help themselves on the backs of unsuspecting families.
Yes please post every page of every workbook, handbook, contract, etc....you can get your hands on. It would be wonderful to finally expose them for who they really are....a MLM scheme with no regards for helping anyone but themselves.
Although I've only been at WFG for only a year and subsequently quit of course, I'm going to try to answer some of those questions and I apologize if it's not all too helpful but I still would like to contribute since I lost important relationships and money due to this terrible company. For the first question, those people aren't really learning anything in all honesty.
I believe it's mainly just to make them FEEL like they're learning something when they're are NOT. I was almost dragged into a workshop by my former WFG upline and just judging from the book he tried to push on me (stating it was 'informational' and written by Xuan Nguyen I believe), it's nothing of real content. It's basically a finances for extreme dummies. Even the 'For Dummies' books teach more.
Now a business major, I can safely say that it teaches nothing about real finance and investment. The book merely states rather basic terms and how some investment plans work, but never in real detail despite this topic being extremely complicated in the first place. Despite other types of investments such as government bonds and low cost S&P index funds being much safer, they repeatedly push you to buy an FFIUL under the guise of it being a "stable 'foundation' for money growth and that it is savings put under the life insurance umbrella to avoid taxes". He was also unable to answer my questions about costs and fees.
I say that verbatim from my former WFG upline by the way. For the second question, like I said before, WFGers stress recruiting in workshops to trick people into thinking/feeling that it's the path to riches and then gain new agents because of that to fulfill the pyramid. As for the last question, I can say it's so joining would sound more enticing. For my WFG branch in Houston, they mainly target uneducated or poor folk (mainly minorities) who are vulnerable or perhaps even desperate for some money.
By stating that college and jobs do nothing, it keeps new recruits uneducated and less likely to ask questions, making WFG appear viable since 'anyone can do it'. In addition, it would also keep those who fell for this ruse under their wing because many of them, once joining, refuse to educate themselves further in proper business finance. That's why some of my former 'friends' have failed to educate themselves in business. They make the argument that learning business or finances in college is useless yet they can't understand basic economic concepts.
They put down legitimate business programs and would listen to business advice from hacks. Even some of them who actually went to business colleges listen to their upline despite the fact that they barely scratched the surface in what finances are.
Thanks for reading this and I hope this somehow helps. I might be able to find some WFG documents and post them if I can find them (or still have them for that matter), but thanks for joining the battle to spread the word.
They try to get more people into the company by telling them to become members and "get educated" instead of just using the word recruit. Obviously another form of deception from this company.
That's the girl.. Be brave...
So this foolishness will stop. I am waiting for that moment to happen.
Oh, it's me again, I forgot to mention... I DONT WANT ANY NOOBY CONVENTION GOERS TO RESPOND, I WANT VETERANS WHO WILL GIVE NON BIASED POV.
-Liquid