Primerica
Shady practices, exhorbitant fees, preying on the il-informed Ripoff

Recently a Primerica cell began growing here in our little town and has gotten into my church. I was approached to listen to the pitch and grudgingly submitted myself in order to help a friend who was going through training. The pitch was poorly done and mildly interesting and my wife and I were immediately struck by their repititious mantra that "the rate doesn't matter". (Why is it the the whole rest of the financial world understands the power of compounding interest but the folks at Primerica feel that an interest rate is meaningless?)

By the end of the presentation, which took far langer than promised, we elected to allow them to work up one of their "simple interest" mortages for us. While they were running their numbers over the next few days I ran a few of my own. The results were nothing short of astounding.

Yes, their new 20 year fixed mortage would get paid off far sooner than my current 30 year mortgage; but the costs were astronomical. The Primerica rate was far higher then ANY other mortgage provider on the market even though they were charging us $1,600 up front to "buy down" the rate. Additionally their closing costs were just under $4,000 when every other broker in our area charged between $1,200 and $1,400.

On top of that I easily found three other mortgages with lower monthly payments, FAR lower closing costs and that got paid off sooner by simply paying an extra $100 per month (even with the extra payment it was still lower, on a monthly basis, than the Primerica loan). Overall the Primerica loan would have cost us over $47,000 more than our current mortgage since we did wind up refinancing, just not with these folks.

When I shared my findings with the local rep she immediately had me contacted by her manager. Getting nowhere, they conferenced in the regional manager, out of Michigan I believe. To each of them I said the same thing; Here are my numbers and they seem to blow yours out of the water. If I've made an error please point it out, otherwise it appears you're trying to pull a fast one on me... Silence. Then one of them said that they were sorry that I felt that way to which I replied that this isn't about feelings it's about math. This is a simple right or wrong situation. Are my calculations correct? They agreed they were. Then where is the benefit of the simple interest mortgage I asked? They had no response.

Just last night another young guy who'd been suckered in started telling me about Primericas amazing term life insurance program. So I asked what the cost would be for $500,000 policy for a non-smoking guy my age. I almost fell over when he told me about $150 PER MONTH! I currently pay $352 A YEAR for my $500,000 policy with a guaranteed annual premium that is renewable until I turn 100! Now, there may be some benefit to the Primerica plan but it would cost me (over its life) an extra $28,000 to get it - what a joke! If I were to apply all of that with my current provider I'd have $2.5 MILLION in coverage. Obviously, I'm an idiot for not being able to understand the Primerica logic!

Company: Primerica
Country: USA
State: Wisconsin
City: Waukesha
Site: primerica.com

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