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4.9
Updated by user Mar 24, 2017

World Financial Group is a marketing outfit under Transamerica. It is one of the biggest marketers of IUL and many other products like annuities, educational plans, estate and funeral plans.

Though there are many products that it sells the main focus of the company is IUL. What is IUL? IUL is an annual renewable term insurance coupled with investments in an indexed fund. A term insurance will become expensive at later years so people are forced to drop them.

This is the main issue. Many people who joined WFG do not know they are marketing a poor product. I will be joining WFG not as an employee but as an independent contractor.

I have a choice not to market a poor product since it's my reputation that's on a stake. I urge people who are working with or for WFG to understand and know the products they are selling before pushing them to their relatives and friends.

Original review posted by user Mar 21, 2017

I have been approached to sell and join WFG and study their products. I know I am not financially literate but I am trying to study finance which a found out a lot of Americans are.

A lot of Americans are buried in debt, they started their adult life in debt and they leave their heirs in debt. There had been a lot of negative reviews of WFG and I really want to know the issues. WFG has been on the market for 20 years.

If it really is a bad and scamming company why would state and federal regulators allow it to exist and do business? Why would respectable financial companies lend allow their name be associated with WFG?

Reason of review: Good customer service.

Location: 10700 Richmond Ave #111, Houston, TX 77042, USA

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Vishnu Hhf

gs, I'm sure the goverment never issued licenses to massive bigly scammers like Bernie Madoff, Enron, Arthur Andersen. Oh, uh, wait...

Please spare us your tired threadbare WFG Playbook tripe. Thanks.

Guest

no body has answer for these. Even you need a government issued license if you want to work with WFG.

I am sure government never issued licencse to scammers.

People who failed in life, always blame other.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1394379

Ahhh we see a resurgence of WFG agents coming around..Christmas time is coming and they need commissions to come in.

Thank goodness my friends are cooling off of the cool aid..took them 5 years but I think by the lesser facebook posts they are starting to realize that the 2004 gmc truck won't be paid with a measly 2272$/year wfg average agent makes.... 60k house is all affordable by 1 income from the husband.He works as a plumber and makes decent money while wife has been traveling to the brainwashing meetings all over the world.

FFIUL and other terrible products aren't worth it..Family and friends should come first.

Prudencio Zlt

@Dean , +Dean :

Dean, you definitely need to learn more about IULs. The retail IUL--including WFG's flagship product Transamerica's FFIUL--is one of the absolute WORST places anyone can put his money.

As currently structured and horribly overillustrated at 6, 7, 8% and higher--you can expect a long-term CAGR of 2.5--4% *tops*--few if any of these policy will survive beyond a few decades. The FFIUL is not a whole lot better than a basic low-return savings account, yet charges you hundreds of dollars per month in fees.

Dean, shoppers need to look past the FFIULโ€™s razzle-dazzle of index floors and caps, subaccounts, and WFG agent's claims of high-single-digit and double-digit returns. The shopper can never verify these claims. The shopper must ignore all salespeoples' claims.

Dean, that shopper needs to understand clearly that the FFIUL offers only *one* solid index crediting guarantee: the 0โ€“1% index floor. That's it Dean. Transamerica has no obligation at all to ever give your FFIUL's growth account a penny more. Meanwhile the carrier and the b/d, e.g.

WFG, rakes in massive profits, charging you a third or more of your premium in fees. The FFIUL is such low-expense huge-income cash cow, it's no wonder Transmerica is happy to pay fat commissions to unscrupulous unethical WFG sales rep-licants to flog these radioactive pigs in pokes to trusting credulous folks including friends and family members.

Dean, we can forget your nonsense about "tax free retirement income streams." The FFIUL is a "beast" all right--is a money-gobbling self-destructing monster that won't even survive to your retirement.

Thanks for reading.

Guest

You should learn more about IUL's and how they should be properly structured. They are a beast when funded properly an can provide tax free retirement income streams. When properly structured the premium payment period ends between 15 and 20 years.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1317635

By properly structured you mean you pay up for 20 years exorbitant amounts per month and hope you make 8-9% annual interest rate because the COI will skyrocket because you dared to live past 80.Better to have a term life insurance and put your money in a low cost low risk retirement fund..Why would you use a IUL as a retirement pension with the COI eating all your money? Doesn't make sense!

Prudencio Zlt
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1317635

Dean, please see my response above. Thank you.

Prudencio Zlt

+ibisquera , @ibisquera : Hi ibisquera. I'm glad to read the review update you posted yesterday.

It looks like you've begun to see the light on the profoundly awful deal that is WFG's flagship product, Transamerica's FFIUL. Indeed since I left WFG and started to work as a fee-only financial advisor, I've not reviewed a single IUL I could recommend to anyone, though the FFIUL is among the most poorly configured of those. Many of my clients are former (and even current) WFGers who themselves didn't understand the time-bomb that is the FFIUL until I showed them the damning Cost of Insurance (COI) math you can find in the three COI charts near the back of the FFIUL's main policy contract, starting around page 25.

ibisquera, my question to you then is: How do you hope to earn much or even any money at WFG?

This B/D's Compensation plan heavily favors the "WRL" products (Transamerica bought the FFIUL from Western Reserve Life or WRL) and even then your portion of the commission is only 35% as an Associate, 25% if you sell other products. Also, the commissions on most products are much lower than those on the xULs. Plus, as you may have noticed by now, whatever "mentoring" you get at WFG is mainly to sell and recruit, very little on product knowledge. You could sign up with a dedicated agency and get up to 80% of the commission right out of the gate AND get very good product mentoring too.

Just wondering this ibisquera. Maybe you prefer to recruit like crazy rather than sell a lot of product? The enormous push to recruit way more than sell is the worst kept secret at WFG and will land folks in serious trouble sooner or later with the FTC.

I signed with WFG because Aegon owns Transamerica and thus WFG, so my thought was that this very large multinat would improve this very troubled MLM, formerly named World Marketing Alliance (WMA).

But in the 16 years in its current incarnation as WFG, I quickly learned it remains as low quality and deceptive as ever, and Aegon sufficiently isolates itself from this biz unit of a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-subsidiary of Transamerica--in essence enjoying the enormous profit margins while staying largely free of legal responsibility and reputational risk. So ibisquera please, when you get a chance, Iโ€™m curious to read your rationale for why you will sign up with WFG. Also your review's star rating of 4.9 out of 5.0 is way way higher that one would expect for a company whose main product is uniquely terrible!

Maybe you will post another review with the properly adjusted star rating. Thanks for considering and thanks again for your update making clear you now understand the FFIUL as the truly awful policy that it is.

Prudencio Zlt

Friends, "ibisquera" may truly be Ireneo Bisquera of Lafayette Louisiana. Google turns up only one Bisquera in that city whose given name starts with an "i."

OR...

"ibisquera" may be introducing us to a new scam: Find the name and city of an actual person and pretend to be him, on the hope that no-one will actually bother to contact the actual Ireneo Bisquera to verify. Meanwhile "ibisquera" pretends he doesn't really work for WFG, that he's still researching it" or somesuch, so no-one will ask him what office he works out of or for his email and phone #.

And what if someone does actually call the real Ireneo and we learn this "ibisquera" is a fraud? No big deal--the scamster can simply disappear and resurface here under another alias.

Gotta hand it to "ibisquera." If he's bull*hitting us, he's doing it with a new twist, in a way I haven't seen before.

So far, he hasn't even claimed his given name is Ireneo. So we can't even charge him with unambiguously impersonating another person.

Remember friends, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." :-)

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Prudencio Zlt

William3 yes I am Ireneo Bisquera I'm not a scamster as you said. Now who are you William3?

You seem very against FFIUL? Are you an insurance agent whose company is losing out to FFIUL?

I asked you a question Feller brought a lawsuit to Transamerica. Is there a lawsuit against WFG?

Nikolas Tqa
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1306418

I did not log when I replied to William3. Now I am logged I will repost what I said above my full name is Ireneo Bisquera from Lafayette, La.

Now, who are you William3? You accused of being a dog. Are you a real person?

Are you an agent whose company is losing out to FIUL? Reveal your full identity and background so we may have an honest to goodness discussion of the pros and cons of FIUL and WFG.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Prudencio Zlt

Hi William3,i think you caught Ibisquera with his pants down...He is an WFG agent which he now is walking a fine line because he tells us he's NOW being approached to SELL and JOIN wfg and study the products...while already being an WFG AGENT...lol..Now we know how honest these agents are and how we can trust them with our money?

Also to add another layer..remember those 2015 official wfg numbers which stated they had 197,000 recruits and only 53,000 agents..the turnaround which is close to 92% by those numbers are probably why they are squeaking by the 3-3-30 rule for the pyramid scheme rule..but can they keep recruiting at that level every year? There's only so many gullible people in a town and they will only be caught once in this scheme!!

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1306631

Another anonymous commenter. John43 why don't you reveal yourself? Be forthcoming since you're accusing me of dishonesty.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1306643

I'm not an WFG agent or recruit..my family tried to sell me one of those and I crunched the numbers and they fail miserably if i dare to live over 65...

As i posted further on the tread i will by a FFIUL from you if you GUARRANTEE the fees won't skyrocket when i'm 85 and if so you will pay the difference which could be 15-20k a year? I've asked 8 different WFG agents and none have replied with a phone # and address..The GUARRANTEE is impossible to have but you a newbie can probably tailor a nice FFIUL which will not collapse if i dare to live?

Think about this...What is WFG incentive in giving a product and a return of your investments when and if they fail and don't give you a nice 8-9% return on your investment WFG gets to not only KEEP YOUR $$$ BUT also not pay the insurance policy? WIN-WIN for wfg and mom is broke and little Nick needs to find the $ for mommy's funeral cost!

Nikolas Tqa
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1306643

John43 firstly, let's not hide behind anonymity. If you want an honest to goodness discussion reveal yourself.

You're accusing me of dishonesty at least be honest with your full name and city where you live like I did. Quoting William3 "in the internet nobody knows if you're a dog." Are you a dog John43?

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1306631

Another anonymous commenter who I think is an insurance agent losing out to FIUL

Prudencio Zlt

In his "review" Ol' "ibisquera" here rhetorically asks: "...If it really is a bad and scamming company why would state and federal regulators allow it to exist and do business? Why would respectable financial companies lend allow their name be associated with WFG?..." Well "ibisquera" that goes right to WFG agent Lie/misrep #4: "If WFGโ€™s such as scam, why hasnโ€™t it been shut down?"

Reality: Itโ€™s only a matter of time before we see more formal action against WFG and/or some of its agents, which could result in prosecutions and shutdown.

Sooner or later, the regulators and the courts will catch up to them once their collective malfeasance rises enough to grab the authoritiesโ€™ attention. Starting in 2007, lawyers and regulators have had their hands full with biz titans like Lehman Bros, Enron, and Arthur Andersen, all of which fell from grace due to massive fraud and systematic gross wrongdoing. Recently Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $5B to investors to whom GS admitted it deliberately sold shoddy investments to clients. Letโ€™s not forget bad behavior from Transamerica, the carrier that issues the Financial Foundation Indexed Universal Life (FFIUL) policy, WFGโ€™s flagship insurance product.

Google โ€œFeller vs Transamericaโ€ Youโ€™ll read about a major class-action suit launched last year against that insurer. Thousands of Transamerica xUL policyholders will have, or already had, to cough up massive premiums or lose their policies.

Even if a companyโ€™s very big and been around a long time, it can still offer you a poor and even harmful deal and even act fraudulently.

See the 18 May 2016 review here called "World Financial Group - 10 Lies and Misreps That WFGers Tell You--And Themselves" for more details. Thank you.

Nikolas Tqa
reply icon Replying to comment of Prudencio Zlt

William3 Feller brought a lawsuit against Transamerica and not WFG. So are there lawsuits against WFG?

Prudencio Zlt
reply icon Replying to comment of Nikolas Tqa

"ibisquera" please reread my comment above more carefully. You will see I already answered your question. Thank you.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Prudencio Zlt

You did not answer the question. Feller brought a lawsuit against Transamerica.

Feller is not suing WFG. Are there lawsuits against WFG?

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