I worked for United Benefits of America for approximately 4 weeks in March- April. Tim Thomas is one of the owners and has a rented office in Nashville where he employs approximately 30 independent contractor employees. He provides them with a carefully scripted sales pitch to call consumers whom are either uninsurable or in extremely ill health and can't afford conventional insurance premiums due to pre-existing conditions.
In theory, he walks a fine line between legitimacy and illegitimacy. However, in reality his script is misleading and incomplete at best. He encourages his independent contractors to "get tough with them", "beat them up", anything to try and sell them in a one-call close. He knows that if they take the time to research the terms and conditions of the membership benefits of the International Association of Benefits (IAB), they will realize his scripted pitch is less than forthcoming and actually misrepresents the AIG Drug Card coverage and the waiting period for pre-existing conditions, among other discrepencies.
After working for United Benefits of America a couple weeks, I began researching IAB's website and discovered that I had been misrepresenting and outright lying to people with Tim Thomas' phony medical bill examples, etc. Unable to resolve my personal conflict of misrepresenting our product to people whom were unable to buy their prescriptions or pay for their doctor visits because they had paid the exorbitantly high "one-time, lifetime processing fees" and their first month's premiums, I resigned.
Upon my resignation, United Benefits of America withheld my last paycheck for over a week. After threatening to report them to the Tennessee Board of Insurance, the Labor Board, and the IRS, I received a check for minimum wage. The irony was that Mr. Thomas not only cheats his customers, but he also cheats his employees out of their earned commissions.
All in all, in my humble opinion, Mr. Thomas skirts the IRS laws concerning employees/independent contractors, runs a telemarketing sweathouse, cheats people whom are already down on their luck and finally, cheats every employee whom realizes his scam out of their last paycheck. I now understand why he can brag about this $12k/mo mortgage and $100k automobiles. But if I was ashamed to publicly post the name of my business on my front door or had to hide it to keep from being discovered by unhappy customers, I'd be unable to live with myself, no matter how much money I made. I know I will never receive the rest of my earnings and I want to apologize to anyone whom I wronged. I just hope Mr. Thomas someday is held accountable for his less than scrupulous business ethic.
Former Employee
Nashville, Tennessee
U.S.A.
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