I was first contacted by Countrywide via my careerbuilder.com resume profile. They initially touted their services as "financial services." Only during the initial one-on-one do you find out that it is primarily life and health insurance sales. Trouble is you will sit through a company sales pitch: telling you how great Country Financial is. After that you will find out that there are up-front costs that you will have to shoulder. These are your insurance and securities classes, testing, and licensing fees. In total, about $1500. Once you take these classes and get licensed, then they may make you an offer of employment. Then, they say, the company will cover half of those costs.
Then you will get more company pitch--how much money you could make $60K to $100K first year and all the company paid vacations to exotic locations. That's where the break out the pictures from Aruba or the Carribbean. Then you will get more warning flags; you pay the company for leads and advertising expenses (although they did say they would split the cost of those things with me). The recruiter also will insist on setting a meeting with your wife, because "spousal support is crucial to success in this industry. The final nail in this thinly veiled MLM company is they want the names, addresses, and phone numbers of two hundred people you know in the area. All in all, this is a MLM company that makes money by pulling people into its employ so they can market to your family and friends. Then they expects the employee to shoulder half of the operating expenses of starting a business.
