to begin with my mom told me about starting her “own business” and getting licensed as a financial advisor. At that time I didn’t think much of until she mentioned the whole recruiting part, which immediately set me red light off since it sounded so close to a pyramid scheme. Note that I have surface level knowledge on financial literacy since I’m still in high school. She would then go onto getting licensed and paying some sort of fee for WFG. When I tried talking to her about this potentially being a pyramid scheme or a scam she started called me naive and went onto saying that WFG could not be a scam since it’s “working” with the ministry of finance.
As of now she made a few thousand, and got a few recruitments. I’m sick to my stomach and worried about her talking to family and her friends and potentially damaging their relationship.
Finally, I need your guy’s advice on how I can prove her and talk her out of this since she’s already in so deep.
My mom is obsessed with WFG how do I talk her out of it…?
byu/AwardIntelligent4196 inpersonalfinance
Posted by AwardIntelligent4196
6 Comments
Pyramid scheme, not sure what else you can say to her given that you’ve already expressed this and she’s already made some money from it.
That probably reinforced her decision to move forward, on the silver lining part, at least she’s learning some skills and getting licensed so that she could maybe pivot to a legitimate company.
She hasn’t made any money, and never will. The cult has already convinced her that people like you (who are right and trying to help her) are jealous and trying to hold her back. The only advice I’ve ever seen work at all once she’s already fallen for the scam is to ask her to track costs/expenses and time spent on the scam, versus any income received. Her upline/“mentor” will try to prevent her from doing this since they also know it’s a scam.
Hi! I worked as a compliance officer for years.
I am sorry your mom has fallen into this. You are very smart for seeing through the nonsense.
Ask your mom if she is getting her FINRA 65, or her 66 and 7. The Series 65 costs $187 to sit the exam, And the SIE/66/7 series costs $557 total ($177 for the 66, $300 for the 7, $80 for SIE.)
– If she is being charged any more for these exams, she is being defrauded. This information as well as pass rates, etc is available on the FINRA site.
– Also, the 66 and 7 have to be “held” by a brokerage. She can’t just hang out a shingle as an advisor with those licenses- she is sort of stuck working for a bank or broker/dealer forever. The 65 allows her to practice independently, but doesn’t make her a fiduciary and limits her trading options.
Good luck, and I hope she sees reason!
I have little advice myself except try and keep your own finances safe, along with that of any minors in the family. I also recommend crossposting to r/antiMLM
Real finance advisors get paid to take those tests. Even in training programs.
Anyone asking for money is a joke
Here’s the tricky thing about MLMs – it’s suuuuuuper hard to use proof to dissuade someone because that makes them feel dumb. The human instinct for ego protection makes someone dig into the con stronger rather than admit they’ve been fooled.
Understand that your mom is doing this because it fills some kind of void – feeling meaningless after retirement, anxiety about finances, it makes her feel smart and clever, etc. So you have to come at it from an angle of what need it is fulfilling and find something else to slide in there.
The best things to do are
1) Get her to answer questions (or better start asking them) on her own. “Mom, I know you’re smart and you taught me how to investigate claims like this. How does XYZ work on that system? Huh, maybe you should verify that with am outside source.”
2) Keep her talking about hobbies and interests she had before this. If you have to grit your teeth and accompany her to quilt shows them by damn you grit your teeth and go. This can prevent the MLM from taking a chokehold. MLMs (and conspiracy theories) have algorithms that can be broken by disrupting them with other interests. Wordle was legitimately one of the more effective things at getting people out of QAnon.
3) Make sure she stays social with her friends. “Business opportunities are great mom, but even CEOs gotta golf! What are y’all reading for book club?”