VillageEDOCS Subsidiary GoSolutions Introduces Web Communicator to Primerica Life Insurance Company
CNNMoney.com, April 18, 2008
GoSolutions, Inc., a subsidiary of VillageEDOCS, Inc. (OTCBB: VEDO), and a Solution as a Service Company, has just introduced Web Communicator to Primerica Financial Services, North America's largest financial services marketing organization, based in Duluth, Georgia.
Web Communicator is the latest service in a planned, two-phase communications upgrade for Primerica's field sales organization. In July 2007, GoSolutions introduced Listener to the Primerica sales force as a secure, web-based, integrated, voice message inbox providing Primerica an 'instant' network with broad reach to over 100,000 independent representatives. In the 10 months since its initial introduction, over 30,000 reps have signed up to 'plug in' and hear from leaders in the field and at the corporate level as well. Communications can be utilized in a variety of ways, including product testimonials, event announcements, education and field motivation — all of which are designed to help drive sales and agent recruiting.
Web Communicator goes one step further than Listener by allowing two-way communications between sales managers, their teams and the home office utilizing online, web-based messaging technologies to reply, originate and forward messages to individuals or groups.
"We are excited to now offer our agents an affordable, high-quality messaging solution that enables them to manage and grow their businesses with greater convenience and effectiveness than ever before. GoSolutions Web Communicator is the ultimate tool for empowering yourself ... for getting on the fast track to bigger earnings ... that direct link to breaking news, exciting from-the-heart testimonials and personal coaching from the most successful leaders at Primerica. It's a terrific way for our leaders to effectively and efficiently communicate with their teams — without wasting time playing phone tag," said Duane Morrow, Primerica's Executive Vice President of Marketing.
GoSolutions offers a wide variety of next-generation communications solutions well suited to organizations consisting of independent sales representatives separated by geography and time zones.
"GoSolutions has long recognized the challenges faced by independent business people who need to build their business both from within and from without. We've dedicated ourselves to providing cost-effective solutions to facilitate business growth — enhanced messaging services, promotion of opportunity, and team building," said Mason Conner, President and CEO VillageEDOCS, Inc.
Setting the Trend in Fund of Funds: Primerica is Mixed Asset Group Winner
2008 Lipper Fund Awards, April 3, 2008
Primerica Canada, a division of U.S.-based Citigroup, wins the Mixed Asset Award for 2008.
“We are very proud that Lipper, with its rigorous assessment process, has determined that Primerica’s performance has earned us this Group Award,” says Jeff Dumanski, president and chief marketing officer of Primerica Financial Services (PFS) Canada from his Mississauga office.
“Our goal is to create a fund family that appeals to the vast majority of Canadians and at the same time takes advantage of Canadians’ ability to invest their retirement savings around the world. We believe investing is more an educational process than a sales process,” says Mr. Dumanski.
The overall Primerica business model provides Canadian investors with the investment features required for long-term investment success: diversification (multi-layered by asset class, geography, management style, industry and company size); capital preservation (emphasis on steady growth and capital appreciation); and asset allocation (effective asset mix to achieve the best long-term results and manage risk).
While Primerica Canada provides overall management expertise, the company looks to outside advisors, too, including AGF and Legg Mason. Mr. Dumanski is keen to share the credit for the success of Primerica’s funds.
“Working with Primerica Canada, our task at AGF is to provide world-class underlying funds to choose from. With 50 years of experience, our global talent, and reach provides an abundance of fund selection for a number of Primerica’s portfolios,” says Andre Tieman, CFA, director of strategic accounts management at AGF.
David Gregoire is co-business head of Legg Mason Canada, a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest money management firms, Legg Mason, Inc. As the portfolio advisor for a number of Primerica’s portfolios, Legg Mason provides active asset allocation modeling for Primerica.
Primerica’s mutual funds can be purchased only through Primerica’s representatives; there are about 6,000 independent representatives across Canada.Credit Counseling Scam? Primerica is Different!
Recently, BusinessWeek published an eye-opening article about credit counseling services. Many of these services are nothing more than financial scams. They advertise a “quick fix” for families in a financial crisis, but often, families end up even deeper in debt because of outrageous fees and high interest rates.
Primerica is different! With our FREE Financial Needs Analysis (FNA), our clients get a clear snapshot of their current financial status. Our competitive mortgage and debt consolidation products are designed to help families get out of debt faster – not punish them for past mistakes!
Read this timely article below.
Look Out for That Lifeline
Business Week, March 6, 2008
Debt-settlement firms are doing a booming business—and drawing the attention of prosecutors and regulators
Granville Jones knew he was spending beyond his means after he racked up $90,000 largely in credit-card debt — $10,000 more than his annual income. So last summer the Durham (N.C.) pharmacist turned to the Consumer Law Center for help. The firm told Granville that if he withheld payments from creditors, the CLC would have the leverage to negotiate a lump settlement on his debts and cut his balances by half in five years. So Granville stopped paying his bills and instead handed over a monthly sum to the CLC to cover an eventual settlement with creditors as well as the firm's fees. "When you are financially stressed, you hope for miracles," says the 47-year-old, who was current on his bills before reaching out to the law firm.
The miracle never happened. Instead, Jones gets daily calls from collection agencies. One lender has sued him in county court for the $25,000 it's owed. Frustrated, Jones cancelled the program in January. The CLC agreed to refund the $10,744 he paid, but only after Jones filed a complaint with North Carolina's attorney general in February. "All Consumer Law did was leave me hanging," says Jones. The CLC did not return calls for comment.
Jones' predicament is another by-product of the credit crunch. With individuals of all income brackets struggling to pay their bills, many are seeking help from the hundreds of debt-settlement firms that promise to reduce credit-card balances by as much as 70% over several years.
No-Bargain Bargaining Chip
Like credit counselors, debt-settlement firms generally collect a single monthly payment from clients. But rather than disbursing the money to credit-card companies to cover the borrowers' bills, they withhold it. The settlement firms then use the money as a bargaining chip in an attempt to negotiate a lump-sum payout with lenders. These programs have proliferated of late as credit-card debt has soared; the typical U.S. household now has more than $7,000 in outstanding balances, up 45% from five years ago.
The booming business has caught the attention of prosecutors and regulators, who say such programs can leave consumers in worse financial shape. Fees for the services run high. And when banks don't agree to settle — if the settlement firm contacts them at all — consumers get hit with late charges and penalized with higher interest rates, leaving borrowers with even more debt than when they started.
Wary of such pitfalls, seven states have already banned settlement activities. Others, such as Iowa, are considering similar rules. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in six states have recently filed complaints against debt-settlement firms. Four are investigating Hess Kennedy Chartered, an affiliate of the Consumer Law Center, including AGs in North Carolina and Florida, both of which filed civil charges against the Coral Gables (FLA) firm for allegedly deceptive practices. "There are more of these firms than we can handle," says Norman Googel, an assistant attorney general in West Virginia, which is investigating 15 settlement firms. "They are truly exploiting a group of consumers already in crisis." Hess Kennedy didn't return calls for comment.
The settlement industry defends its services, asserting that its payment plans can be more affordable than traditional credit counselors and provide consumers an alternative to bankruptcy. "Debt settlement is a boot camp for getting out of debt," says Nicolas de Segonzac, president of the trade group Association of Settlement Cos. Says Jenna Keehnen, executive director of U.S. Organizations for Bankruptcy Alternatives: "In any industry there are bad actors. But for every complaint, there are thousands and thousands of appreciative customers that have gone successfully through the programs."
What many borrowers who sign on don't realize, though, is that fees can run as high as 30% of the total outstanding balance, or $3,000 on $10,000 in debt. It's also often unclear to individuals, say state and federal prosecutors, that the bulk of their initial payments — those made within the first year — go toward fees rather than the settlement. "The programs typically require financially strapped consumers to pay fees up front, so they make money whether or not any useful services are performed," says Philip Lehman, an assistant attorney general in North Carolina.
Although some consumers have found relief with debt-settlement firms, the programs do not have the same success rate as credit-counseling agencies. Credit counselors, which have long-standing relationships with issuers, work with lenders to lower interest rates and create a monthly payment plan for borrowers. According to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, which represents 1,500 counselors in the U.S., 60% of clients complete the plans.
By comparison, North Carolina prosecutor Lehman estimates that 80% of consumers drop out of debt-settlement programs within the first year. And the Federal Trade Commission, which has settled six cases against settlement outfits in the past four years, found that at one of those firms, just 1.4% of the consumers who entered the program finished it and settled with lenders.
Why? One reason is that some banks, including Bank of America (BAC) and Discover Financial Services, (DFS) refuse to negotiate with settlement firms. The programs, issuers say, only add to their pile of bad debt since consumers stop payment. "This is one instance where both creditors and debtors are worse off," says a credit-card executive who declined to be named.
Meanwhile, borrowers rack up late fees, over-limit charges, and other penalties for missed payments. Creditors may also pass the debts to collection agencies or sue for damages in court. Those blemishes inflict long-lasting damage on a credit report. All that can leave borrowers not only with more debt, but even worse, can force them into bankruptcy — exactly the situation many were trying to avoid.
Barbara Bautch knows what it's like to be on that slippery slope. Unable to manage the $12,000 tab on two cards, the part-time health-care aide in Silver Bay, Minn., signed up with settlement firm American Financial Services in 2006, forking over $233 a month to the Bakersfield (Calif.) company. After one of the card companies sued, Bautch learned that AFS hadn't contacted either issuer regarding a settlement deal. Between late charges, penalty interest, and attorneys' fees, her debt now stands at $20,000. AFS did not return calls for comment. Says Bautch: "AFS drove me into bankruptcy, and it was no sweat off its back."
Products vs. Opportunity: Finding the Right Balance
By Barbara Seale
Direct Selling News, March 2008
If the direct selling industry had a mascot, it would be an attractive, outgoing creature with two heads. One head would represent the industry's myriad of products and services. The other would represent the opportunity that changes the lives of direct selling's 15 million-plus distributors.
The key to maintaining the mascot's thriving good health is proper feeding of both heads. Literal translation: Thriving direct-selling businesses know that great products attract both customers and distributors, but business grows much faster when distributors effectively tell others about the opportunity. Neither can be ignored, and many companies begin their emphasis on that essential balance on a new distributor's first day.
ACN, which offers local and long-distance digital phone service; the customer's choice of dial-up or DSL internet access services; wireless services and rate plans; video phones; and will offer satellite television service soon, insists that its representatives sell service first.
"Nothing happens and no money gets paid out unless, customers are acquired," emphasizes Greg Provenzano, the company's President and Founder. "And no one can move up in the compensation plan without acquisition and retention of customers. Representatives can recruit as many people as they wish, but if customers don't come through the door, no money is generated for anyone. It's a great incentive for representatives to build their own company within a company, as well as to train other representatives in their organization on how to acquire and retain customers. Under this system, everyone has skin in the game to acquire a good amount and a good quality of customers who will be on our service."
Sell Then Recruit
He stresses that ACN doesn't want its compensation plan to be driven by upfront recruiting and believes that its approach creates businesses that are long lasting and sustainable.
"Were building a customer base with services that people use every day, and we're doing it through a network-marketing model," he says. "Recruiting is the means. Selling products and services is the goal."
While ACN's products and services are different than those offered by financial services company Primerica, each company's approach is similar. Primerica also leads with sales.
"When we portray Primerica during opportunity presentations, we describe ourselves as being in the business of the distribution of financial services," explains Primerica President Glenn Williams. "For money to be made, sales must be made to an end consumer. We offer no compensation for recruiting, training or licensing. All compensation — either to the producer or through overrides — is focused at the time of the sale."
In fact, Williams says that Primerica must deliver its recruiting message "very loudly" so that representatives offer the business opportunity as well as term life insurance, mutual funds, variable annuities, loans, long-term care insurance and legal services. "In our business — the distribution of financial services — distribution is the critical part," he notes. "But the more people who are doing the distribution, the more money can be made. We use a variety of ways to convey that you can make a lot more money by having an organization than by doing it individually. It's obvious that money is made at the point of sale. The rewards are less immediate for building an organization, but it's ultimately in your favor to have a lot of people distributing."
Williams says that the company's sales-focused compensation plan requires Primerica to work especially hard in other areas such as recognition, awards and incentives, which must sometimes stress recruiting since representatives are paid only for sales. But Primerica seems to have achieved the right balance. It recruited almost 235,000 people and paid out $682 million in compensation to its representatives last year.
Exotic Opportunity
Five-year-old nutritional beverage company XanGo was created to offer a product featuring the mangosteen. They gave the small fruit the leading role in XanGo juice and now sell it throughout a network of distributors in 23 countries. Their product, the company notes, is XanGo's best recruiting tool.
"From our standpoint, you have to start with a credible, beneficial product that people have a good experience with or you won't have an opportunity," XanGo's Vice President of Public Relations Bob Freeze says. "We started with something that had been used for hundreds of years in Southeast Asia. Scientific research affirmed the anecdotal evidence we heard, and people have had a marvelous experience with it. That fuels the business opportunity because then they want to share it. We have a competitive compensation plan, and it grows from there." He adds, "The best direct selling companies have good products and also offer attractive compensation plans and business opportunities."
XanGo pays a 50 percent commission to its 800,000 distributors on the sale of products. As they advance in the company through sales and recruiting, they can grow through nine levels of the company's distributor hierarchy. The first of those is the Preferred Representative rank — basically the company's preferred customer program. Preferred representatives pay an annual fee to purchase XanGo juice at a wholesale price. Freeze says that a significant number of XanGo consumers are just that: Consumers only.
Bejeweled Business
Party plan companies have traditionally focused much more on sales than on their business opportunity and sometimes have fewer levels in their organization than traditional network marketers do. But some, such as fashion jewelry company lia sophia, have expanded their organization models to encourage business building.
"This is a numbers business, and it's always important to bring in new people," says Bonni Davis, Vice President of Sales for lia sophia. "People come into the business for many reasons, and they change frequently as things change in their lives. So sharing the opportunity is utmost. Without it, the company will slowly decline. But for a jewelry advisor [lia sophia's name for its distributors], it's important that she sells and enjoys sharing the products. When she does that, she'll show the opportunity, too."
As in many companies, lia sophia's jewelry advisors usually start as customers who first fall in love with the company's 400 styles of jewelry at an in-home show. Jewelry advisors share the opportunity as well as sell jewelry at the shows. Davis acknowledges that new advisors who are confident about organizing shows, selling jewelry and even finding hostesses sometimes have to reach a comfort level with offering the opportunity.
"But once they're comfortable, they run with the opportunity" she explains. "Some women run with it the minute they join. Some have to get their feet on the ground first. Once they're comfortable with what they're doing and they see how lucrative the program is, they feel proud to offer the opportunity, knowing that they're helping others."
She notes that advisors who describe the company's opportunity typically do so by explaining what it did for them — paying for college tuition, making a car payment or reducing debt, for example. Once they begin to offer the opportunity, they can develop an organization that is five levels deep.
Two Track Takeoffs
Lia sophia lets advisors start at their own pace but they show newbies how to fuel their business' growth, if that's what the advisor wants to do.
"We keep it very simple with our Quick Start Guide," Davis says. "We don't overwhelm them with a 300 page manual. Instead, we give them the basics of how to sell and have a show. Basic show training gives them ideas on how to sell jewelry at shows and how to share information about trends of the season. The rest of the training is through other advisors and managers at monthly meetings. Once someone is comfortable, they begin to share their story of why they're doing this. That creates questions that let them offer more information on the opportunity."
Lia sophia advisors try to create connections with party guests as they share their stories. As guests and hostesses empathize, they begin to see themselves in the advisor role.
"By sharing their story with other women, guests can see, that's me. I can get to that level;" Davis says. "They realize that they can relate to this person. It isn't always a story about a stay-at-home-mom. It may be an empty nester or a career woman paying down debt. Were not always the same, and the opportunity means different things to different people."
New ACN representatives are taught to first gather five personal customers. Then recruit two people and teach each of them to get five personal customers.
"Representatives earn elevated income based on achieving that status, called Executive Team Trainer. All subsequent positions are all doing the same thing — building a company within a company, building a distribution network and showing new recruits the business," Provenzano explains. He adds that the company's recruiting advantage is two-fold: First, because distributors sell services; no inventory purchases are required; and second, the company offers services that people already use daily, so customers don't have to change buying habits. They simply buy service through ACN, which says it helps them save money while experiencing the same or better quality of service. Most customers, Provenzano says, say they'll give it a try.
They draw new recruits from among the ranks of their customers, but also at local and regional opportunity meetings. Sometimes interested prospects who want to see the company's big picture will even attend a convention so they can talk with numerous people who have been successful in building their customer base and their organization.
Start with the Story
XanGos new distributors start their education by learning about the mangosteen fruit and its benefits. Starting with the fruit itself was essential because five years ago, few people had heard of the exotic mangosteen. The idea of consuming little-known but highly nutritious foods has gained ground, but distributors still have plenty of opportunities to tell the story. So XanGo helps them learn it well.
"We've been very proactive in helping distributors understand the story behind the product first," Freeze says. "Once they understand the story and consume XanGo juice themselves, they're motivated to share the business opportunity."
The company's distributors carry an appropriate amount of inventory so that they can offer samples to prospective customers and recruits. The amount depends on the distributor's level of activity but is typically only two or three cases. XanGo's auto-ship program delivers products directly to consumers, so individual distributors carry a minimal amount of inventory.
Later this year XanGo plans to introduce its second new product, a new personal care line. Even it will include ingredients from the mangosteen, which traditionally has been used both internally and topically for hundreds of years.
"With personal care, we will enable distributors to go to a different segment of consumers who may not be interested in nutrition but may be interested in skincare," Freeze anticipates. "The great thing is that the explanation of the skin care line will still feature the mangosteen story."
Primerica representatives carry no inventory, though many use the company's financial services. Company data shows that between 30 and 40 percent of sales are to Primerica members, while 60 to 70 percent of sales are to the public. Representatives become customers because they have confidence in the products.
"We're concerned about the reputation of our business — both the products and the opportunity," Williams stresses. "Quality is critical on both fronts. We must have a legitimate, high-quality business opportunity with a track record of success. The financial services business is extremely competitive. It has many delivery mechanisms, from internet banks and branches to insurance agencies. All claim to have a high-quality product and high value. So competition ensures that we maintain high-quality products. We're constantly updating and improving to remain competitive."
Because financial advisors must be licensed to begin to sell and earn, a quick-start program wouldn't be appropriate at Primerica. But to help new representatives start to earn commissions as they pursue licensing, the company recently began to offer auto and homeowner's insurance, which don't require licensing to sell.
"They're one of our lowest commission products, but they're designed to open doors for representatives and let customers experience how Primerica solves problems. When we can get into a home and sit down, it opens the door for other product sales and lets customers see the value of the opportunity," Williams explains.
At that sit-down meeting, Primerica representatives use the company's unique Financial Needs Analysis to take a complete look at a client's financial needs and goals. Often, the analysis reveals that for a customer to achieve their goals or meet their financial needs, they require additional income. Primerica offers a solution to that need through its opportunity.
Consider Carrots
Because Primerica's basic compensation program emphasizes product sales, the company has learned that it can help drive the balance between products and opportunity through its incentive programs.
"We're in constant discussion about how to best drive and balance them," Williams says. "What you recognize grows. We adjust our incentive programs to recognize both sales and recruiting, building in an appropriate balance based on where we need the business to grow. We adjust based on where the business is strong or weak at the time."
Primerica typically runs both long- and short-term incentives concurrently. Monthly incentives allow the company to encourage representatives to achieve the balance between sales and recruiting that the company needs, adjusting long-term results along the way.
"We're always using a carrot rather than a stick," Williams emphasizes. "We hold out our rewards, recognition and compensation to pull our results in the right direction. We don't find that it adds anything to the dynamic to have quotas or production requirements."
ACN has a similar philosophy, beginning with its core compensation plan and continuing into incentives and recognition.
"Levels within our compensation plan are set up so that representatives must meet two goals," Provenzano explains. "They must have a certain element of legs or lines of customers, which require them to recruit people. We also require certain service points for them to move up."
Monthly incentives and trips are short-term encouragement, always designed to give the company's independent representatives a chance to achieve success.
"We can't be successful as a company if our people aren't successful," he adds. "Our products, services, compensation plan and incentives drive success from the bottom up. A new person can accomplish the goals we set for them. And when they do, the whole company wins."
Lia sophia also builds incentives to achieve the corporate goals it desires, using monthly, quarterly and yearly incentives.
"Some are just for sales. Some are for a combination of sales and opportunity," Davis says. "Those two behaviors are both very important. But we don't want the person who comes into the business only to sell to be left out of the awards, so our incentives recognize both. But greater rewards come when they do both together."
Davis says that ha sophia tries to recognize that women live complicated, demanding lives and may not always be able to participate in the business at the level that some companies expect.
"This is an industry built on women doing favors for women," she reflects, "Women's lives are busy and complicated at times. Advisors will always come and go because what they thought they could do six months ago, suddenly they can't do. So the simpler we keep the industry and our programs, the more we have a chance of it growing."
Recruiting Through Sales
XanGo incentive programs usually focus on attracting new recruits through product sales. Over time, the company has seen that such promotions also result in recruitment of new distributors. It recently promoted its auto-ship program in sales incentive programs, too.
"Last year we had an incentive program called Double Up," Freeze says. "It incented distributors to auto-ship two cases to themselves — one for their own consumption and a second to share with other people. It not only increased sales but spurred sharing with new prospective recruits and consumers."
He adds that while many consumers are interested only in using XanGo juice, others are open and interested in the business opportunity. XanGo uses its Web site, training and marketing tools to deliver a strong message to distributors that a balance between selling and recruiting is essential.
"If you look at some of the criticism of the industry, it's leveled at companies that are totally focused on the opportunity and have not balanced that with product sales," Freeze says. "That's where the accusation of pyramid marketing schemes comes in. Conversely, if people are just encouraged to buy products that stack up in their garage or basement, that's not helpful either. Many credible, responsible DSA members counter that stereotype. As leading companies in the industry, we need to tell that story. There have been bad players, like in any industry. But the lion's share of companies that care about a long-term strategy are those that achieve that balance."
The Escalating Mortgage Crisis: Questions, Answers & A Company You Should Know About
By George Boelcke, FCI
American Chronicle, February 17, 2008
There is a great line from Homer Simpson that often comes to mind, as more and more of the mortgage crisis continues to develop, and to seemingly get worse: "for once in my life I’m confused." And here are some of the reasons:
Why hasn’t there been legislation passed to mandate income verifications, simple plain-English disclosure and banning mortgages where the payments don’t even cover the interest, and the balance actually goes up? It would have prevented many kinky brokers getting millions of people confused between "you’re approved" and "you qualify for this loan and these payments."
There is a huge amount of blame to be shared in this fiasco. But I haven’t heard any company take any responsibility for anything. Nobody has stepped forward and acknowledged their role in millions of families now living a financial nightmare. Hearings aren’t the same as solutions, and "ought to help families" has no connection with tangible actions. What a relief and blessing that the FBI has stepped in to do some serious digging and an extensive criminal investigation. I just hope it goes far enough to investigate individuals and not just the 14 firms currently being looked at.
Everybody got rich beyond belief while throwing millions of families under the bus and killing their financial hopes, dreams and credit. I don’t know who should do what, if anything, but I do know that any decisions, or help, need to have a whole lot more urgency. Every month that goes by, it’ll be too late for more and more families who will have their life altered for years to come.
But here’s what I do know:
Experts say pre-pay your loan when you can. I disagree: Once it starts raining, don’t fix the roof – get an umbrella! Get some emergency savings in place, instead. If you do run into a problem, need the money to refinance, or to avoid going into arrears and dropping your credit score where there’ll be no way out, you’ll have some savings. Once money is pre-paid on your mortgage loan it’s spent and can’t be accessed anymore. If and when you’re out of the woods, you can always apply the savings to your balance at that time.
There are currently huge inconsistencies in what lenders will work with, won’t consider, refinance, do on a forbearance, or consider for workouts. Remember that lenders will lose over $70,000 on an average foreclosure, and they’re just as scared as you are. Half the people who start getting into trouble don’t even call their lender and just give up. THAT is never a solution.
On the other hand, what your lender wouldn’t do last week can change this week. Don’t give up, keep asking, and make sure you get to the right people with your lender. You do have to fight harder for this than they will! It’s your life and your home. In these volatile times your lender doesn’t know any more than you do. Just make sure that a solution is really a solution you can live with for some time. Ask a lot of "what if" questions of your lender AND of yourself, something you likely didn’t do before you signed the loan you’re in now.
Isn’t it funny, in a sick way, that almost every lender is now advertising fixed rate loans? These are many of the same lenders who are waist-deep in the nightmare they were instrumental in creating. Now a bunch of them are the "good guys" that want to help you?
For most people, the most important criteria of who gets their business should be the credibility of a lender. Just because someone pays money to be on TV or the radio does NOT make them credible. It only makes them advertisers. Credibility is measured by what a company does – not what they say, and there is now ample evidence of what the cost has been to ignore that difference.
Yet there is a huge company, Primerica Financial Services, a division of Citigroup, that has made vast numbers of refinance mortgage loans through a product they call SMART. NONE of these are adjustable rate mortgages. Read that again: Primerica has never originated any ARMs with their refinance products (done through Citicorp Trust Bank). Their clients are watching the mortgage crisis from the sidelines and the safety of a fixed-rate term and consolidation, thinking: "that could have been me in a foreclosure…"
Because they refuse to do false, misleading, or gimmick advertising, they need to work harder to make themselves known, in spite of doing the right thing, in the right way, all the time. How sad that credibility can so often be bought by simple advertising. But if you’re looking for a second opinion, some options, or perhaps a way out, it might be worth your time to get in touch with them.
Oriental Financial Group, Primerica Form Mortgage Alliance
By Jennifer Hodson
Dow Jones Newswires, January 29, 2008
Oriental Financial Group Inc. (OFG) and Citigroup Inc.'s (C) Primerica Financial Services formed an alliance in which Oriental will supply a mortgage platform and related services for Primerica's program to market home loans in Puerto Rico.
Oriental Financial, a San Juan financial holding company, said the Primerica deal will provide a new distribution channel for its mortgages.
Oriental Financial said it doesn't own or originate subprime single-family home loans.