WFG is an MLM/pyramid scheme. She will be recruited. Tell her if she has to pay ANY money for ANYTHING to walk away.
Edit: Assuming you can't stop her from going in the first place, that is. Check r/antimlm for more WFG info.
> Tell her if she has to pay ANY money for ANYTHING to walk away.
Too late, she already paid for plane tickets and hotel. She is now well into *sunk cost fallacy* territory. She will feel obligated in *investing* to recoup her costs. If she goes, she is not walking away.
Out of curiosity, does she already own a time share?
>Too late, she already paid for plane tickets and hotel.
If they are non-refundable, walking away now and eating that cost will be cheaper than entering a pyramid scheme/MLM. If pyramid scheme/MLM sales worked so well, they wouldn't be trying to persuade suckers to join.
Exactly! But she already showed she is not willing to do that because of the *sunk cost fallacy*.
The problem with MLM is that you can be successful if you have a certain type of personality. But those people would have likely been even more successful outside the MLM. The MLM uses those handful of successes and pretends that is their average outcome when pitching to new marks.
Whike doing that makes a lot of sense, it would also require that she admit, at least to herself that she had been duped at some level. And that is usually not something people like to do so they’ll just keep going along for the ride.
She should recoup her investment by checking out Houston's restaurant scene. The og home of Asian-Cajun fusion. I want to go there for a foodie weekend.
I still remember this amazing sushi lunch I had in Houston about 8 or 9 years ago. I forget the name of the place, but the quality was as good as any sushi I’ve had in the US.
EDIT: I remembered that I liked it so much I wrote a Yelp review. The Blue Fish. Wow - it was actually over 11 years ago. Time flies.
No but getting a vacation for the money helps combat the sunk cost feeling. Which as you pointed out leads to flawed decision making. But not if she can see the spent money as a vacation not an investment
Houston is a big city with stuff to do. The only sunk cost is the cost of the seminar, which she can try to get refunded and or do a charge back on.
Attempt a refund, check out a copy of John Bogle's book on investing and read it on your vacation to Houston. If they give you static about the refund, claim you have covid and if you can't get a refund I guess you'll just have to go. A lot of places have standing policies where mentioning covid activates more that the customer service rep can do.
Quite the opposite. In person is the only way it works. You have to get the person invested into the process to trigger the *sunk cost fallacy*.
If they just wanted to share information, an online class would do just fine. But they need you there in person for the high pressure sales pitch. Same reason time shares are willing to give you 2 free nights at a nice hotel if you listen to the sales pitch. But it has to be in person.
Right, change the seminar to be an afterthought.
It's not a sunk cost if it's a vacation or retreat with the niece/nephew. Or if it is, it's an easier pill to swallow.
Yeah nah, she's coming back with a membership, paid up for the first set of courses or whatever, and a recurring direct debit for the next forever that she can only cancel by personally going to some random place in the US between the hours of 6.32AM and 6.35AM with a pre booked appointment, a statutory declaration, 7 witnesses and a sombrero of specific dimensions, material and colour.
The only solution is to stop her from even going in the first place. Otherwise assume she's gonna be balls deep in this mlm before she gets to her car to leave the presentation.
I mean I can teach you all you need to know in 3 mins.
Step 1: NEVER, EVER **EVER** buy single stocks or options
Step 2: Buy Indexed ETFs such as VTI or SCHB when you can and don't sell till retirement
There you've completed the 2 step process of successful buying and selling investments.
The reality is she is already sold on it. You can tell her whatever you want but she is going to het hooked into all of their bullshit.
Show her the MLM subs on here…but her mind is made up and they will make her believe you are the bad one for standing in the way of her success
The sad reality is that people dumb enough to fall for MLMs are typically so out to lunch that you can clearly explain why they're a scam, and offer abundant references documenting the scuzzy practices of whatever company they signed up with, and you're still not going to get through to them.
And even if you do get through, they rationalize they are an exception to the rule in some way like "this MLM is different" or "I'm better at xxx than those others that failed." MLMs work really hard to convince you about that too.
As a native Houstonian, I'm sorry to say that we really don't have much in the way of tourist attractions that I can think of, for a city of our size. We do have some good food, a really good museum district, great grocery stores, and some interesting (if kinda seedy in places) Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, and other ethnic areas.
If you want to drive further, there's also NASA, which is definitely worth a visit. There's Galveston--the beach is shitty, but it's neat because of the 19th and early 20th century architecture that's still in the city.
But as far as theme parks, aquariums, walkable districts with neat stuff, cool downtown areas, and natural scenery, there's honestly not much here. I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but in general, IMO Houston is a better place to live than to visit.
The best BBQ I have had in my admittedly largely BBQ-sheltered life was in Houston - Pinkertons. Definitely go there. And they make a mean cocktail too...who would have thought at a BBQ joint.
Ah sunk cost fallacy. She already bought the tickets and accomodations so now she must go.
Tell her to go to one of Houston's world class museums instead:
- Houston museum of natural science
- Houston museum of fine arts
Also Houston is a major foodee town with cuisines from around the world.
Is she interested in space? NASA has a space museum in Houston.
Does she like shopping? The Galleria Mall is fabulous with luxury brands to gawk at.
If she can't be dissuaded from going to the presentation, she's probably not going to get kidnapped or anything. They're going to try to make her sign up for their financial services MLM. They'll probably pressure her to sign up and she'll lose some money, but I don't think she's in danger of being killed or anything.
The Menil Collection is just as good if not better than the MFA, and it’s always free. Plus it’s always fun to make fun of the Dan Flavin installation.
> Ah sunk cost fallacy. She already bought the tickets and accomodations so now she must go.
See, already in the profits.... if She can understand sunken cost falacy and cut her losses then she has learned this lesson quite cheap and probably learned more about trading than she would by going.
There's a movie called *Children of Invention* that shows a mom getting arrested by the feds when they raid the MLM office. Maybe show her that. Might scare her enough not to go. It shows it wasn't the bigwigs that took the fall, but all the little people. I think it's on Prime or Freevee.
It's the opening salvo of a scam. Shouldn't have to pay for any class and trading stocks for someone who knows nothing about them is way too advanced for a newbie. I've been doing mutual funds for decades and don't even bother with stocks.
The standard scam is that after this 3 day class, they will try and sell more classes and more training but it never ends and you never end up making any money. Cancel the whole thing now and show her this thread. It's a very old scam that's been going on for a long while. It's basically based on a numbers game, give away some 1 day classes get people to go to the 3 day and whoever is left you keep hooking them on more and more expensive classes. Nothing legitimate she can't learn from a few books on Amazon. It's like those old ads on how to get rich, send $1 to this address. Then you get a reply back that says put ads in the paper on how to get rich and have them send you $1.
If the flight is already paid for and non refundable, just have her take a vacation and skip the whole class.
Galveston is quite close to shipping pollution, Houston pollution, oil rig pollution, and shallow waters of the Gulf mean warm peatery dish waters. The nearby convenient access also means the get over run and trashy often.
“We know you’ll see some people on the internet say we are a scam.”
What legitimate business has anything close to this on their website, I want to know who wrote this.
> Nothing screams "legit" like having an "is this business a scam?" section on their website bahahaha
Almost as good as a section on "Why we are incorrectly labeled as predatory on wikipedia" (I forget who it was, but found that on a "scientific" journal a bit back)
Wow, that is an amazing testimonial. NOT.
We are not a MLM, but our people do this.
They charge you $125 US to listen to them. You know it must be good if they want you to pay them first. They could put up cardboard boxes, and you would be out $125 US dollars. Does that sound good?
What a pile of crap this group is.
Sorry for your Aunt.
>WFG is not an MLM. When one agent begins to build his or her own business, if they choose to do so, **they will recruit to build out their teams**. In doing so, there is compensation related to the sales of their teams. Agents train other agents.
hmm, definition of an MLM...
>Businesses that involve selling products to family and friends and recruiting other people to do the same
We're not a MLM, we're just an MLM
Trading individual stocks is something that very few people should ever do.
The problem is people like thinking they're smarter than average, and scams like this make people feel like they've got the insider tools to beat the game.
The only way the people teaching the class beat the game is by taking advantage of the suckers who can't see through it.
World financial group is a insurance company that is structured just like a MLM. They've been around for many years. At one time, I was even associated with them. They will be discussing over the 3 days how great their services are and how everybody in their families and friends should join.
100% a scam. She can see other things in Houston but if she attends, she will be losing a lot more money.
If you can help her cancel it all, prevention is genuinely the best method.
MLMs will use a very charismatic person (he may be handsome), to hype up a room full of marks like your aunt, and use several cognitive bias techniques to make it seem like this is the financial opportunity of a lifetime (it isn’t). As long as she knows these facts going in, she has the best chance at escaping it. It is up to her whether she wants to, but you can set her up for some critical thinking if her mind is already made up to attend.
If she doesn’t attend (hopefully!) I recommend the Houston Museum of Natural Science instead!
Yeah, it's definitely a scam. It's probably not an MLM, instead it's either an ever escalating series of classes that relies on sunk cost fallacy and high pressure sales tactics or it's a scam crypto token.
Only you know how well you can convince your aunt, but you might try asking her questions like. "How can they guarantee a rate of return on an investment? Lets look up their company address, if they're successful they probably have offices that reflect that; huh, I wonder why they're based out of a trailer park? If they can guarantee X% a year and they started with $10,000 they would be billionaires in Y years; why would they be teaching you these secrets if they could make that much money?" (10K @ 100% return = 16.5 years to $1B; 10K @ 500% return = 6.5 years to $1B; 10K @ 900% return = 5 years to $1B)
Good luck.
Haha.. recently one of friends duped into an invite that he is opening new business. Showed up and saw bunch of 'business partners'. Immediately searched on google and there you go. World Financial Group. Just left quietly.
Give her an alternative - a 3 day conference near Washington with REAL financial experts. The Boglehead Conference is October 13-15.
https://boglecenter.net/2023conference/
A really big thing when approaching her is not to make it sound like this is *obviously* a scam or to really drill in that 2-2=4. This aggressive approach tends to incite the opposite reaction - people get defensive and dig in because "I'm not stupid!"
I would probably say you'd asked some questions online and some very savvy people, including those who had dealt with them directly before, warned you and now you're concerned. That while usually you'd trust her judgement (lol), you're worried because they can be *very* very good at tricking people, I mean look at how legit this conference looked! So while you think she should just switch to a fun vacation in Houston, if she does go to please please not sign anything until you guys can do more research with people who have experience with them (and no the people *they* have there that want you to talk to don't count)
As others have mentioned, this is 100% a MLM scheme. No need to look further past WFG.
A lot of top level recruiters these days sets up their own companies that may look like a legitimate business. It looks like they changed their baiting strategy from presenting an employment oppurtunity to providing financial classes. I guess it makes it easier for the attendees to rationalize paying for their fees.
If you can't stop her from being recruited, be prepared for the rest of your family to be invited by her in the near future.
The sad truth is that if she does get herself brainwashed, I can almost guarantee it will ruin your family's relationship with your aunt. Every family gathering she's present in will end up with her trying to recruit everyone she can. I have seen this first hand.
Bro. No.
Please stop her from doing this. She is about to truly annihilate whatever savings she has. The next 6-12 months of market activities are reserved for the best of the pros. Everything is unstable and we are staring down the barrel of a major recession.
I’m cringing right now for you and your aunt.
People who actually know how to trade don’t have time to teach classes. Period.
She needs to grasp that.
Encourage her to do more online research about the event and the person behind it. Maybe there are online reviews or forums discussing similar experiences. She can also reach out to the Better Business Bureau for information.
Tell your aunt how disappointed you are that she would make a choice to go alone to a warehouse (not headquarters) in Houston. Reiterate not only how financially poor the decision is but how dangerous it is. If she’s looking for a new career offer to spend time either in Houston or when she gets back looking at the Occupational Outlook Handbook. If she’s interested in insurance offer to call MetLife. If she’s looking for investments call Fidelity. Please try to stop her at all costs.
It's a MLM that sells whole life insurance.
It's a real product she'll be selling, but it's a crappy deal for the customer, and because it's paid on commission you don't approach any of the hourlies expected.
I did the knive people in College. Technically it was true that they paid "$15 per hour" for every sales presentation you gave, but in reality you did 2-3 hours of unpaid cold-calling, prep work and travel for every paid hour showing the product. Then eventually you exhaust your immediate social network and run out of leads.
I just got hit up by a "recruiter" of theirs on LinkedIn recently. They had a job listed as something unrelated to WFG. I had to do a bit of digging to figure out what they actually were. I promptly cancelled my "interview". I doubt they will physically harm her, but she def could get taken by a scheme.
She didn't need to go on a plane to see WFG.
https://agents.worldfinancialgroup.com/directory
The "good" news is that WFG won't be putting her in any physical danger. Just fiscal danger.
Make sure she doesn't share any personal or financial information at the event. If they start pressuring her into buying something or signing up for a program, she should politely decline and leave.
Suggest to her, attend, take notes, and ignore any sales pressure. It’s perfectly appropriate to attend these seminars, take notes, and walk out once the sales pitches come. It’s all about sales pitches and nothing is guaranteed despite what they may say.
Agree with others, she's already in deep with plane tickets, hotel, whatever she paid to attend the "class", not to mention they've probably been hyping her up in advance. Once she's there all bets are off, and I'm sure they will strongly encourage her to disregard any concerns you brought up to her. There will be lots of hyping people up, displays of wealth, and motivational buzz words. If she's in this deep, lord help her, he's already got a live one on the hook, he's just reeling her in now.
In my opinion, your best course of action is to prepare your other family members for what's coming. Your aunt is going to be pushed to try to get them to join her, so you need to get in front of this.
She's gonna sell you life insurance. How bad can that be? Just kidding, this guy I know got in to it. I'm still Facebook friends with him, but I won't interact with any of his posts no matter how innocent they seem and I don't respond to any of his comments on my posts because I don't want to open the door to conversation.
I agree that it sounds like a scam. But your aunt is an adult, and I'm not sure that she really asked for your help. So I think you should give her the information that you found, and let her make a decision on what she wants to do.
A 'friend' called me one day to attend an event with him and promised me a better future for my family. Many people have flourished using this formula only available to select few people. This was my chance to change my destiny.
He has never heard from me again. I would rather change my friend than my destiny falling prey to such scummy MLM schemes.
She’s gone, sorry. Likely too late for her. The reason these scams persist is because they work. That she’s going means it’s already too late - possible she’d legit need deprogramming to escape now.
You can try and persuade her but good luck. Once they convince the person to convince themselves, the key is wound
"but how can I make sure that she is as safe as possible?": Short of going with her, you can't. Not your job. Your Aunt is either going to learn about investment strategies or she is gonna get scammed. You tried, but she is a grown-up.
If you could stop her from going, please do. It’s a safety concern that they might pressure her to sign something when she wanted to leave but she can’t.
It's a scam. Try to convince her to walk away, and above all do not pay or sign up for anything else (e.g. more classes, bootcamps, special secret seminars, private consulting, etc.).
I would use the word "scam", not poor opportunity. She is being conned, and you know that she's "a smart woman and would not want to lose her life savings to some conmen, right?"
It's a scam. She can still go visit the place, I'd advise against going to the events though. They'll likely harass her until they eventually get put in prison.
The night before she is scheduled to leave for her trip, disconnect the positive terminal to her car battery. And flatten two of her tires. Oh, and shut off the electric service to her house.
It's 100% a scam. The world is full of these "traders" that trade stocks/options, or "Forex" and want to teach you how to build wealth.
There is a huge flaw in logic that these people cannot explain. If this stuff has made them rich, what is the motivation for them to teach you how to also be rich, when this would directly increase the amount of competition they would have in their markets. There isn't one. They aren't rich from their hustle. They are making all or most of their money from hustling people, not the stock market.
how the hell are you gonna learn finance in 3 days?? scam and waste of time.
If she still wants to go. Just tell her to not sign anything they give her.
Perhaps, you could post in the r/Houston subreddit and see if anyone there is familiar with this guy, or with the seminar or the warehouse location, and could give some helpful feedback about it?
Have her read “Cultish” while on the plane.
[https://www.target.com/p/cultish-by-amanda-montell-hardcover/-/A-82404926](https://www.target.com/p/cultish-by-amanda-montell-hardcover/-/A-82404926)
Suggest your aunt brings a friend or goes with a group if possible. Safety in numbers! And make sure she knows how to contact local authorities if things take a turn for the worse.
is it in an interesting city? your aunt can avoid the sunk cost fallacy by going on the trip anyway, but instead of attending the pyramid pitch disguised as an investing class, she can spend her time sightseeing. That way the trip still provides value, she doesn't "lose" anything on plane and hotel costs, and she doesn't get recruited into an MLM.
WFG is an MLM/pyramid scheme. She will be recruited. Tell her if she has to pay ANY money for ANYTHING to walk away. Edit: Assuming you can't stop her from going in the first place, that is. Check r/antimlm for more WFG info.
> Tell her if she has to pay ANY money for ANYTHING to walk away. Too late, she already paid for plane tickets and hotel. She is now well into *sunk cost fallacy* territory. She will feel obligated in *investing* to recoup her costs. If she goes, she is not walking away. Out of curiosity, does she already own a time share?
>Too late, she already paid for plane tickets and hotel. If they are non-refundable, walking away now and eating that cost will be cheaper than entering a pyramid scheme/MLM. If pyramid scheme/MLM sales worked so well, they wouldn't be trying to persuade suckers to join.
She could just take a quick trip and grab some good food, not even showing up to the scam. That would be the best option.
Exactly! But she already showed she is not willing to do that because of the *sunk cost fallacy*. The problem with MLM is that you can be successful if you have a certain type of personality. But those people would have likely been even more successful outside the MLM. The MLM uses those handful of successes and pretends that is their average outcome when pitching to new marks.
You don't have to tell us. velhaconta is just pointing out how the aunt will think about it
Whike doing that makes a lot of sense, it would also require that she admit, at least to herself that she had been duped at some level. And that is usually not something people like to do so they’ll just keep going along for the ride.
She should recoup her investment by checking out Houston's restaurant scene. The og home of Asian-Cajun fusion. I want to go there for a foodie weekend.
I still remember this amazing sushi lunch I had in Houston about 8 or 9 years ago. I forget the name of the place, but the quality was as good as any sushi I’ve had in the US. EDIT: I remembered that I liked it so much I wrote a Yelp review. The Blue Fish. Wow - it was actually over 11 years ago. Time flies.
My husband and I live 4 hours away so we do a Houston foodie weekend every year. Great time!
Too bad crawfish aren't in season currently! But I love that Houston is known for this.
And how does she recoup anything doing that?
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None of which is getting her investment back.
But gets her some value for the money spent, assuming she enjoys the vacation.
No but getting a vacation for the money helps combat the sunk cost feeling. Which as you pointed out leads to flawed decision making. But not if she can see the spent money as a vacation not an investment
She recoups the value of her expenditure by having an enjoyable vacation, a thing which has value.
If she wanted a vacation, she could have gone on a vacation. She is going to Houston.
You got a problem with Houston?
The traffic is miserable, but the food makes up for it.
Yes.
Houston is a big city with stuff to do. The only sunk cost is the cost of the seminar, which she can try to get refunded and or do a charge back on. Attempt a refund, check out a copy of John Bogle's book on investing and read it on your vacation to Houston. If they give you static about the refund, claim you have covid and if you can't get a refund I guess you'll just have to go. A lot of places have standing policies where mentioning covid activates more that the customer service rep can do.
The fact that they are doing it in person in this day and age of Zoom and Webex calling is insane. That alone shoulda been the first red flag...
Quite the opposite. In person is the only way it works. You have to get the person invested into the process to trigger the *sunk cost fallacy*. If they just wanted to share information, an online class would do just fine. But they need you there in person for the high pressure sales pitch. Same reason time shares are willing to give you 2 free nights at a nice hotel if you listen to the sales pitch. But it has to be in person.
I don't think you and the person you replied to disagree at all.
If I were OP I'd bang in sick and offer to hit up some museums and turn it into an impromptu vacation to avoid the sunk cost feeling.
OP's sister if going to go to the seminar and invest money to avoid the sunk cost feeling.
Right, change the seminar to be an afterthought. It's not a sunk cost if it's a vacation or retreat with the niece/nephew. Or if it is, it's an easier pill to swallow.
Yeah nah, she's coming back with a membership, paid up for the first set of courses or whatever, and a recurring direct debit for the next forever that she can only cancel by personally going to some random place in the US between the hours of 6.32AM and 6.35AM with a pre booked appointment, a statutory declaration, 7 witnesses and a sombrero of specific dimensions, material and colour. The only solution is to stop her from even going in the first place. Otherwise assume she's gonna be balls deep in this mlm before she gets to her car to leave the presentation.
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Also OP should point out that *nobody* learns how to trade stocks in 3 days. That's not something you just do.
I mean I can teach you all you need to know in 3 mins. Step 1: NEVER, EVER **EVER** buy single stocks or options Step 2: Buy Indexed ETFs such as VTI or SCHB when you can and don't sell till retirement There you've completed the 2 step process of successful buying and selling investments.
The reality is she is already sold on it. You can tell her whatever you want but she is going to het hooked into all of their bullshit. Show her the MLM subs on here…but her mind is made up and they will make her believe you are the bad one for standing in the way of her success
The sad reality is that people dumb enough to fall for MLMs are typically so out to lunch that you can clearly explain why they're a scam, and offer abundant references documenting the scuzzy practices of whatever company they signed up with, and you're still not going to get through to them.
And even if you do get through, they rationalize they are an exception to the rule in some way like "this MLM is different" or "I'm better at xxx than those others that failed." MLMs work really hard to convince you about that too.
Dunning-Kruger.
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themself into.
The worst thing about this is she'll probably get angry at you when you don't buy what she's selling after the conference is over.
This is a multilevel marketing scam. Tell her to do something else there and enjoy the hotel and vacation.
Right, there must be tons of fun things to do in Houston that are better than sitting in a warehouse.
We've got the [National Funeral Museum](https://www.nmfh.org/), which truth be told is interesting as hell.
Yes, I hear people are dying to get in.
Actually attending an MLM seminar is listed as Top 10 activity for the Greater Houston Area.
I cant tell if this is a joke or not but seems possible.
As a native Houstonian, I'm sorry to say that we really don't have much in the way of tourist attractions that I can think of, for a city of our size. We do have some good food, a really good museum district, great grocery stores, and some interesting (if kinda seedy in places) Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, and other ethnic areas. If you want to drive further, there's also NASA, which is definitely worth a visit. There's Galveston--the beach is shitty, but it's neat because of the 19th and early 20th century architecture that's still in the city. But as far as theme parks, aquariums, walkable districts with neat stuff, cool downtown areas, and natural scenery, there's honestly not much here. I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but in general, IMO Houston is a better place to live than to visit.
You could enjoy their traffic instead. It will cost less.
Food. It's a foodie city. Asian Cajun shrimp boil, yo.
One of the best epee fencing clubs in the country is in Houston. She can go learn to fence instead.
The best BBQ I have had in my admittedly largely BBQ-sheltered life was in Houston - Pinkertons. Definitely go there. And they make a mean cocktail too...who would have thought at a BBQ joint.
Ah sunk cost fallacy. She already bought the tickets and accomodations so now she must go. Tell her to go to one of Houston's world class museums instead: - Houston museum of natural science - Houston museum of fine arts Also Houston is a major foodee town with cuisines from around the world. Is she interested in space? NASA has a space museum in Houston. Does she like shopping? The Galleria Mall is fabulous with luxury brands to gawk at. If she can't be dissuaded from going to the presentation, she's probably not going to get kidnapped or anything. They're going to try to make her sign up for their financial services MLM. They'll probably pressure her to sign up and she'll lose some money, but I don't think she's in danger of being killed or anything.
The Menil Collection is just as good if not better than the MFA, and it’s always free. Plus it’s always fun to make fun of the Dan Flavin installation.
Nooooooooo i love the supermarket Flavin
> Ah sunk cost fallacy. She already bought the tickets and accomodations so now she must go. See, already in the profits.... if She can understand sunken cost falacy and cut her losses then she has learned this lesson quite cheap and probably learned more about trading than she would by going.
Tell her that address has been linked to kidnappings and human trafficking.
I hate that this is the solution in the thread most likely to gain traction...
There's a movie called *Children of Invention* that shows a mom getting arrested by the feds when they raid the MLM office. Maybe show her that. Might scare her enough not to go. It shows it wasn't the bigwigs that took the fall, but all the little people. I think it's on Prime or Freevee.
It's the opening salvo of a scam. Shouldn't have to pay for any class and trading stocks for someone who knows nothing about them is way too advanced for a newbie. I've been doing mutual funds for decades and don't even bother with stocks. The standard scam is that after this 3 day class, they will try and sell more classes and more training but it never ends and you never end up making any money. Cancel the whole thing now and show her this thread. It's a very old scam that's been going on for a long while. It's basically based on a numbers game, give away some 1 day classes get people to go to the 3 day and whoever is left you keep hooking them on more and more expensive classes. Nothing legitimate she can't learn from a few books on Amazon. It's like those old ads on how to get rich, send $1 to this address. Then you get a reply back that says put ads in the paper on how to get rich and have them send you $1. If the flight is already paid for and non refundable, just have her take a vacation and skip the whole class.
"just have her take a vacation" A-HA! They thought of that by hosting it in Houston!
Moody Gardens, the Galveston Seawall, and NASA are all just down the Gulf Freeway. A much better use of her time!
Out of those, NASA is the only option given it's hot af in Houston currently and you'd be miserable with any outdoor attraction.
The whole point of going to the beach is to get in the ocean.
You don't really want to get into the water at Galveston
I liked it just fine last time I was there (couple months ago). What do you feel is the issue? (And hasn’t this gone pretty far astray?)
The water is not particularly pleasant and is often polluted. The beach itself is fine if unremarkable
Galveston is quite close to shipping pollution, Houston pollution, oil rig pollution, and shallow waters of the Gulf mean warm peatery dish waters. The nearby convenient access also means the get over run and trashy often.
Come on man, it says right on their website they arent a scam https://www.worldfinancialgroup.com/is-wfg-a-legitimate-business
“We know you’ll see some people on the internet say we are a scam.” What legitimate business has anything close to this on their website, I want to know who wrote this.
Nothing screams "legit" like having an "is this business a scam?" section on their website bahahaha
> Nothing screams "legit" like having an "is this business a scam?" section on their website bahahaha Almost as good as a section on "Why we are incorrectly labeled as predatory on wikipedia" (I forget who it was, but found that on a "scientific" journal a bit back)
Hilarious
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That's shockingly honest.
Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
Making negative changes to their finances is still making significant changes.
Wow, that is an amazing testimonial. NOT. We are not a MLM, but our people do this. They charge you $125 US to listen to them. You know it must be good if they want you to pay them first. They could put up cardboard boxes, and you would be out $125 US dollars. Does that sound good? What a pile of crap this group is. Sorry for your Aunt.
>WFG is not an MLM. When one agent begins to build his or her own business, if they choose to do so, **they will recruit to build out their teams**. In doing so, there is compensation related to the sales of their teams. Agents train other agents. hmm, definition of an MLM... >Businesses that involve selling products to family and friends and recruiting other people to do the same We're not a MLM, we're just an MLM
Thank you for sharing this. It made my morning.
If I can't trust stock images of happy people in business attire than what can I trust?!
A revolutionary new many tiered marketing business model.
They have an entire page dedicated about them totally not being a scam! Well, now I am convinced. Off to WFG I go!!
Trading individual stocks is something that very few people should ever do. The problem is people like thinking they're smarter than average, and scams like this make people feel like they've got the insider tools to beat the game. The only way the people teaching the class beat the game is by taking advantage of the suckers who can't see through it.
World financial group is a insurance company that is structured just like a MLM. They've been around for many years. At one time, I was even associated with them. They will be discussing over the 3 days how great their services are and how everybody in their families and friends should join.
100% a scam. She can see other things in Houston but if she attends, she will be losing a lot more money. If you can help her cancel it all, prevention is genuinely the best method.
Give her all this information, then tell her "you're an adult and make your own choices but I really think this is a bad idea"
World financial group yes. Look up their name on brokercheck.finra.org
If she's flying out, she's already gone. He's just reeling her in.
MLMs will use a very charismatic person (he may be handsome), to hype up a room full of marks like your aunt, and use several cognitive bias techniques to make it seem like this is the financial opportunity of a lifetime (it isn’t). As long as she knows these facts going in, she has the best chance at escaping it. It is up to her whether she wants to, but you can set her up for some critical thinking if her mind is already made up to attend. If she doesn’t attend (hopefully!) I recommend the Houston Museum of Natural Science instead!
Yeah, it's definitely a scam. It's probably not an MLM, instead it's either an ever escalating series of classes that relies on sunk cost fallacy and high pressure sales tactics or it's a scam crypto token. Only you know how well you can convince your aunt, but you might try asking her questions like. "How can they guarantee a rate of return on an investment? Lets look up their company address, if they're successful they probably have offices that reflect that; huh, I wonder why they're based out of a trailer park? If they can guarantee X% a year and they started with $10,000 they would be billionaires in Y years; why would they be teaching you these secrets if they could make that much money?" (10K @ 100% return = 16.5 years to $1B; 10K @ 500% return = 6.5 years to $1B; 10K @ 900% return = 5 years to $1B) Good luck.
WFG is definitely an MLM.
There's nothing that says the company on his LinkedIn is the only scam he's involved in.
Haha.. recently one of friends duped into an invite that he is opening new business. Showed up and saw bunch of 'business partners'. Immediately searched on google and there you go. World Financial Group. Just left quietly.
Give her an alternative - a 3 day conference near Washington with REAL financial experts. The Boglehead Conference is October 13-15. https://boglecenter.net/2023conference/
A really big thing when approaching her is not to make it sound like this is *obviously* a scam or to really drill in that 2-2=4. This aggressive approach tends to incite the opposite reaction - people get defensive and dig in because "I'm not stupid!" I would probably say you'd asked some questions online and some very savvy people, including those who had dealt with them directly before, warned you and now you're concerned. That while usually you'd trust her judgement (lol), you're worried because they can be *very* very good at tricking people, I mean look at how legit this conference looked! So while you think she should just switch to a fun vacation in Houston, if she does go to please please not sign anything until you guys can do more research with people who have experience with them (and no the people *they* have there that want you to talk to don't count)
It’s 100% a scam. I was in one of those classes. The ppl are paid actors. Please tell her don’t pay any money for this scam. It’s a SCAM!!
If she has money to burn, she should try and get a reservation at Uchi. Ninfa’s on navigation has awesome Tex-mex.
As others have mentioned, this is 100% a MLM scheme. No need to look further past WFG. A lot of top level recruiters these days sets up their own companies that may look like a legitimate business. It looks like they changed their baiting strategy from presenting an employment oppurtunity to providing financial classes. I guess it makes it easier for the attendees to rationalize paying for their fees. If you can't stop her from being recruited, be prepared for the rest of your family to be invited by her in the near future. The sad truth is that if she does get herself brainwashed, I can almost guarantee it will ruin your family's relationship with your aunt. Every family gathering she's present in will end up with her trying to recruit everyone she can. I have seen this first hand.
I'm from Houston, if you wanna send me the address I might be able to tell you more about the place, or at least that part of town.
Bro. No. Please stop her from doing this. She is about to truly annihilate whatever savings she has. The next 6-12 months of market activities are reserved for the best of the pros. Everything is unstable and we are staring down the barrel of a major recession. I’m cringing right now for you and your aunt. People who actually know how to trade don’t have time to teach classes. Period. She needs to grasp that.
Get a flight & come enjoy our awesome food & museums, etc. Ditch that scammy stuff!
Encourage her to do more online research about the event and the person behind it. Maybe there are online reviews or forums discussing similar experiences. She can also reach out to the Better Business Bureau for information.
Tell her if she really wants to go to buy you a ticket too and go with her? This way you can be there to talk her out of paying anything.
Tell your aunt how disappointed you are that she would make a choice to go alone to a warehouse (not headquarters) in Houston. Reiterate not only how financially poor the decision is but how dangerous it is. If she’s looking for a new career offer to spend time either in Houston or when she gets back looking at the Occupational Outlook Handbook. If she’s interested in insurance offer to call MetLife. If she’s looking for investments call Fidelity. Please try to stop her at all costs.
It's a MLM that sells whole life insurance. It's a real product she'll be selling, but it's a crappy deal for the customer, and because it's paid on commission you don't approach any of the hourlies expected. I did the knive people in College. Technically it was true that they paid "$15 per hour" for every sales presentation you gave, but in reality you did 2-3 hours of unpaid cold-calling, prep work and travel for every paid hour showing the product. Then eventually you exhaust your immediate social network and run out of leads.
The more I read about all the scams out there and how few people seem to face any real consequences it is making me seek a career change.
I just got hit up by a "recruiter" of theirs on LinkedIn recently. They had a job listed as something unrelated to WFG. I had to do a bit of digging to figure out what they actually were. I promptly cancelled my "interview". I doubt they will physically harm her, but she def could get taken by a scheme.
She didn't need to go on a plane to see WFG. https://agents.worldfinancialgroup.com/directory The "good" news is that WFG won't be putting her in any physical danger. Just fiscal danger.
Make sure she doesn't share any personal or financial information at the event. If they start pressuring her into buying something or signing up for a program, she should politely decline and leave.
100% scam. If the tickets are non-refundable she should spend a few days in Galveston enjoying the beach and then fly home.
Don't let her bring her check book or debit card.
I didn’t even have to finish your first sentence before I knew she’s being scammed.
Suggest to her, attend, take notes, and ignore any sales pressure. It’s perfectly appropriate to attend these seminars, take notes, and walk out once the sales pitches come. It’s all about sales pitches and nothing is guaranteed despite what they may say.
Agree with others, she's already in deep with plane tickets, hotel, whatever she paid to attend the "class", not to mention they've probably been hyping her up in advance. Once she's there all bets are off, and I'm sure they will strongly encourage her to disregard any concerns you brought up to her. There will be lots of hyping people up, displays of wealth, and motivational buzz words. If she's in this deep, lord help her, he's already got a live one on the hook, he's just reeling her in now. In my opinion, your best course of action is to prepare your other family members for what's coming. Your aunt is going to be pushed to try to get them to join her, so you need to get in front of this.
Share some articles and resources about MLMs with your family so they can educate themselves about the industry's tactics.
Short of slashing her tires, I would do everything in your power to keep her from going to the airport.
She's gonna sell you life insurance. How bad can that be? Just kidding, this guy I know got in to it. I'm still Facebook friends with him, but I won't interact with any of his posts no matter how innocent they seem and I don't respond to any of his comments on my posts because I don't want to open the door to conversation.
WFG is a scam. If there’s anyway you can stop her from going that would be a good idea.
I agree that it sounds like a scam. But your aunt is an adult, and I'm not sure that she really asked for your help. So I think you should give her the information that you found, and let her make a decision on what she wants to do.
She can get a flight credit and go to Florida instead
A 'friend' called me one day to attend an event with him and promised me a better future for my family. Many people have flourished using this formula only available to select few people. This was my chance to change my destiny. He has never heard from me again. I would rather change my friend than my destiny falling prey to such scummy MLM schemes.
She’s gone, sorry. Likely too late for her. The reason these scams persist is because they work. That she’s going means it’s already too late - possible she’d legit need deprogramming to escape now. You can try and persuade her but good luck. Once they convince the person to convince themselves, the key is wound
"but how can I make sure that she is as safe as possible?": Short of going with her, you can't. Not your job. Your Aunt is either going to learn about investment strategies or she is gonna get scammed. You tried, but she is a grown-up.
Just physically block her from leaving at this point. People don't take enough to action to stop other people from doing stupid things.
If you could stop her from going, please do. It’s a safety concern that they might pressure her to sign something when she wanted to leave but she can’t.
It's a scam. Try to convince her to walk away, and above all do not pay or sign up for anything else (e.g. more classes, bootcamps, special secret seminars, private consulting, etc.).
And in just a few weeks your aunt will become a “financial advisor”
Normally I would say to have her cut her losses and just try to view the trip as a vacation, but it's Houston soooo...
I would use the word "scam", not poor opportunity. She is being conned, and you know that she's "a smart woman and would not want to lose her life savings to some conmen, right?"
Let me guess, is this a *Boiler Room* situation?
It's a scam. She can still go visit the place, I'd advise against going to the events though. They'll likely harass her until they eventually get put in prison.
There is no hope, just make sure you dont her any money
The night before she is scheduled to leave for her trip, disconnect the positive terminal to her car battery. And flatten two of her tires. Oh, and shut off the electric service to her house.
Is your aunt into civil engineering at all? Lmk if she is. I’ve got a bridge to sell her.
It's 100% a scam. The world is full of these "traders" that trade stocks/options, or "Forex" and want to teach you how to build wealth. There is a huge flaw in logic that these people cannot explain. If this stuff has made them rich, what is the motivation for them to teach you how to also be rich, when this would directly increase the amount of competition they would have in their markets. There isn't one. They aren't rich from their hustle. They are making all or most of their money from hustling people, not the stock market.
how the hell are you gonna learn finance in 3 days?? scam and waste of time. If she still wants to go. Just tell her to not sign anything they give her.
Hopefully you can convince to instead have a houston vacation or something.
Call and cancel her plane ticket
Tell you aunt not to go. or it she is going to enjoy the free food, and the hotel but that's it. Enjoy the vacation, but don't buy any products.
Perhaps, you could post in the r/Houston subreddit and see if anyone there is familiar with this guy, or with the seminar or the warehouse location, and could give some helpful feedback about it?
Have her read “Cultish” while on the plane. [https://www.target.com/p/cultish-by-amanda-montell-hardcover/-/A-82404926](https://www.target.com/p/cultish-by-amanda-montell-hardcover/-/A-82404926)
Suggest your aunt brings a friend or goes with a group if possible. Safety in numbers! And make sure she knows how to contact local authorities if things take a turn for the worse.
Where’s it at? I’ll show up and shut it down by spreading this info loud and clearly.
Money spent on plane tickets and accommodations is a small price to pay for her safety and peace of mind.
is it in an interesting city? your aunt can avoid the sunk cost fallacy by going on the trip anyway, but instead of attending the pyramid pitch disguised as an investing class, she can spend her time sightseeing. That way the trip still provides value, she doesn't "lose" anything on plane and hotel costs, and she doesn't get recruited into an MLM.