Being poor is very expensive.

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by gerald

starting own online business

Or in places like Florida, start a landscape business.

[Rick Lee]

Thought I'd update this thread with some recent stories.

Had a painful one today. I wrote this guy three mos. ago for $110/mo for $20k whole life coverage, immediate coverage. He called today, said he wanted to cancel, had an "agent from the VA" in his apt who was offering a better deal. The VA doesn't sell life insurance and certainly doesn't employ agents to sell third party stuff. I asked him what he had found. He said, "Well, it's more expensive than yours at $175/mo, but it's paid up in five years." I said, "Paul, that's over $10k. Ask him what the death benefit is." It was $6800. "So Paul, you're paying over $10k fro a $6800 benefit. Does that make sense to you?" He replied, "Well, he says it grows after I pay it off." I know this plan grows at .5% per year, not compounded. So I reply, "Paul, half of one percent of $6800 is $34/yr. You would need to live another 100 years AFTER this is paid up before it was worth what you had paid into it. I'll be over there after my last appt. today." He said ok. Didn't answer the door or my phone calls thereafter.

I have 30-40 other stories like this since my last post. This is why they're poor.

[Bill Douglas]

Some people are poor because they are stupid. It's best to leave them poor.

[svandamme]

it's proven that being poor results in lower IQ

They did tests with twins split up.. the ones raised in well off family were smarter as a result.
I think the difference was 15 IQ points

Which depending on the base level Genetic IQ potential can bring people down well below average.
And base level IQ will also be affected from yers of poverty and hanging out with other poor people.. that Genepool won't improve.

I'm a volunteer in an orphanage (not really an orphanage in modern days but kids in youth care).
For the most part I drive em to and from soccer games or other places they need to be..
Usually the company bmw.. but on occasion the Cayman, which makes me very popular.

I tend to end up with 7-10 year olds.. Most of them have plenty of problems from their parents being poor. But most also have plenty of other mental disabilities, because of their parents being poor and their parents having been kids of other poor people
These kids will never have the abilities to take the chances we have been able to jump on.. OR to generate chances in life by being proactive and sharp about it.

That's what you get ,if you leave the poor to be stupid for long enough.

Leaving them poor and "stupid" really doesn't help anybody.
They all vote
There are already a bigger pool of lower IQ voters then higher IQ voters.
Politicians actively work for the pool where they can get the most and easiest vote. eg the ones that are easier to lie too.


its not beneficial to the richer and "smart" people.

[fastfredracing]

Still miffed as to why they don't teach some basic money management skills in public schools .
I have never made big money , but have managed to get pretty far through life by making smart choices , and not flushing money down the drain over and over .
It would be a lot more useful to the average person than Egyptian history , or leisure reading classes .

[GH85Carrera]

Fred, you are right.

One of the guys I worked with was married and lived paycheck to paycheck. He talked about going to the local 7-11 to buy groceries. He was convinced he HAD to have a new car as his old car was starting to need repairs due to total lack of maintenance from him. His ONLY buying point was to find a dealer that would trade in his old car, and keep the monthly payment the same or lower than his current payment. He was upside down on his old car loan, and ended up owing over 12 grand on a car that was maybe worth 6 grand. He of course thought I was just really lucky to be driving an old car that was long paid for and it was just luck that kept it looking nice and running right.

[Rick Lee]

Here's another one from this week. The guy's daughter mailed in a lead card, I set the appt. and she gave me a different address than on the lead card, but said she'd be there with her dad. It was a Motel 6. I got there and the daughter wasn't there, had been called into work (bus driver). The poor guy was homeless, had afib and congestive heart failure, no bank account. I was sure it was a dead end. But I wrote him up a quote, took a photo of it and texted it to his daughter. She called to say she'd look it over and call me back a little later.

She called back later with her step-father, not the biological father I had met. Step-father introduces himself by saying, "I've been working in financial services for 40 yrs," which usually means to me he's a liar and/or an idiot. Step-father says, "I think I'm just gonna put $25k into a CD for him and that will cover it all." I was tempted to ask why a guy would do that for the biological father of his step-daughter and, if so, why not find him a place to live first? I told him the poor guy could only get a guaranteed issue policy that would have a two year wait. If he died in under two years, it would return all premium plus 10% (tax free), which was way better than any CD. If he died just after two years, the policy would pay $25k, while he'd only have paid in $4-5k in premium. The man insisted a CD was the better plan. I think his financial services career might be working a cash register and not being able to make change when there's an outage.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

Still miffed as to why they don't teach some basic money management skills in public schools .

Or loss mitigation if something like losing a job occurs.

[oldE]

About 20 years ago, I read an article about speeches given by candidates running up to an election. Analysis showed one party was using vocabulary understood by persons reading at a grade 8 level. The other party's speaches were tailored to those reading at a grade 6 level. The campaign aimed at the underachievers won.
I was astounded by what I considered 'talking down ' to the electorate, but my wife, who taught for 33 years advised me most people aren't comfortable with language above that level.
Education is critical.

Best
Les

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by oldE

About 20 years ago, I read an article about speaches given by candidates running up to an election. Analysis showed one party was using vocabulary understood by persons reading at a grade 8 level. The other party's speaches were tailored to those reading at a grade 6 level. The campaign aimed at the underachievers won.
I was astounded by what I considered 'talking down ' to the electorate, but my wife, who taught for 33 years advised me most people aren't comfortable with language above that level.
Education is critical.

Best
Les

I believe every word of this. Hardest part of my job is not the squalor or riff raff, but trying to explain to someone my folks' age that 12 is greater than 10 and not sound like a douche while saying it.

[Rick Lee]

My second appt yesterday was with a very nice 76 yr old woman in a somewhat ghetto apt complex. Her place was spotless and she was on speaker phone hold with TitleMax when I got there. She owes $3k to them on a title loan for a car that was totaled with no insurance over a year ago. TitleMax wants her to pay $400/mo and she can only afford $100. I told her to walk. What are they gonna do? She has no car now, no assets, lives in SS only and is basically judgment proof. I figure TitleMax made their money back on her long ago. Not like her credit rating is gonna matter too much at age 76 with no job to drive to, no need for a car, living in Section 8 housing, etc.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Here's another one I just got off the phone with. Closed these two chain smokers a few months ago. Wife has a heart med (in addition to nitro and insulin) that most companies auto-decline. The cheapest company in AZ will take it, BUT they don't accept credit or debit cards. No prob. He gave me his bank routing and checking acct numbers. He keeps bouncing payments and called to cancel because of the NSF fees. He just told me I used the wrong bank account number. I asked how I could possibly have an acct number of his other than that which he had given me (and signed a form for). Turns out he has two checking accounts at the same bank and gave me the acct. # for the one he rarely has any money in. That's my fault? I even told him the insurance company would reimburse those NSFs, but he's so angry that he wants to cancel, told me he has appts with two other final expense agents next week. I told him he 1) will likely not find a company that will take his wife's heart meds, 2) if he does, they won't take card payments and 3) if they do take card payments, it will be far more expensive than the policy I wrote him. Again, this is why they're poor.

Update on this one. This woman passed away a month ago. Her husband got even with me by canceling his own policy, but he wisely did not cancel the one on his wife and it will probably pay out. He called last week to nag me about the payout taking too long (like it's my fault an insurance company wants to do some checking on a death claim seven months into a policy). Turns out he submitted a death claim without an original death certificate. I know it sucks to have to pay to get multiple original death certs, but I'd think someone would spring for the fee to get a life insurance payout. The insurance company won't lift a finger on the claim until the proper paperwork is submitted. Mind you, if these folks had quit smoking when I met them, they'd have saved more money by now than the face amount of this policy. But I knew that wasn't going to happen.

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by sugarwood

How old is he? Do you expect him to die within 12 years? If so, aren't you're just as much of a scammer as the other ones?

They're poor because they targeted by and are lining the pockets of middlemen salespeople such as yourself.

It is hard for most people to plan when they will die. I imagine this one's wife (below) did not expect to die so soon either. I bet the insurance company dd not either, yet they must pay out. Insurance bets you will live and you bet on dying. The house has to make money to be able to keep the game going. That is why a wise person chooses the best deal they can find.

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Update on this one. This woman passed away a month ago. Her husband got even with me by canceling his own policy, but he wisely did not cancel the one on his wife and it will probably pay out. He called last week to nag me about the payout taking too long (like it's my fault an insurance company wants to do some checking on a death claim seven months into a policy). Turns out he submitted a death claim without an original death certificate. I know it sucks to have to pay to get multiple original death certs, but I'd think someone would spring for the fee to get a life insurance payout. The insurance company won't lift a finger on the claim until the proper paperwork is submitted. Mind you, if these folks had quit smoking when I met them, they'd have saved more money by now than the face amount of this policy. But I knew that wasn't going to happen.

One does not have to buy life insurance. I have none myself...just like collision on any of my cars. I accept the risk. Some cannot/will not.

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

My second appt yesterday was with a very nice 76 yr old woman in a somewhat ghetto apt complex. Her place was spotless and she was on speaker phone hold with TitleMax when I got there. She owes $3k to them on a title loan for a car that was totaled with no insurance over a year ago. TitleMax wants her to pay $400/mo and she can only afford $100. I told her to walk. What are they gonna do? She has no car now, no assets, lives in SS only and is basically judgment proof. I figure TitleMax made their money back on her long ago. Not like her credit rating is gonna matter too much at age 76 with no job to drive to, no need for a car, living in Section 8 housing, etc.

Send her this video if you can.

https://youtu.be/MaAlc4YjAoc

[Seahawk]

Sugarwood has decided that he needed two weeks vacation. I deleted his post where he bought his ticket.

As always, PM if you have a point to make I may have missed.

Best and thanks.

I find this thread absolutely fascinating...the absence of basic money management and the consequences, the window Rick provides, is valuable.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by fintstone

One does not have to buy life insurance. I have none myself...just like collision on any of my cars. I accept the risk. Some cannot/will not.

It's a cultural thing. IME out there, Asians and Cubans self insure, will almost never buy life insurance. Black folks have a fanatical belief in life insurance, many of them had parents or grandparents who took out policies on them as small children. They grow up with it and think it's an absolute must-have. Mexicans are the next best demographic. But, like in the subprime mortgage business, where a lot of the shops are ethnic, people go to providers who speak their language, thinking they'll be treated right. And they couldn't get more screwed if they looked.

When I was in the mortgage biz in NoVA, there were lenders who were 100% Korean or Somali or Vietnamese or Russian or whatever and they so gouged their customers, I couldn't believe some of the deals I saw. Pretty similar in life insurance too. Some of the messes I unwind are so bad, the customer thinks I'm scamming them because the deal I find for them is so much better than what they had and thought was a good deal, they just can't believe it. And I have had to walk away from plenty of those because they simply lived in denial and wouldn't listen to reason or let me compare paperwork for them.

[asphaltgambler]

...............and denial is not a river in Egypt.............badda bing

[Rick Lee]

The daughter of a local customer called me last night. She lives in SoCal, where I'm not licensed, wanted to run her deal by me. I was able to beat it by about $40/mo. She was stunned. But then she told me she did four yrs in the joint for a double stabbing (bar fight). She has since found the Lord and has kept her nose clean. No prob. It was over five yrs ago and she's not on parole or probation anymore. Whew! This one is big enough to warrant getting my non-resident license for CA and I might consider riding my bike out to her for signatures and to see some SoCal buddies this weekend. And as long as I have a CA license, I'd consider buying some aged leads in the middle of nowhere and working them, since those areas are probably totally underserved. Only catch is that I don't speak enough Spanish to get by in some of those areas. But I know it's a gold mine out there.

[svandamme]

Why is that state licensed? What does that license really do? or is it some kind of tax /fee you have to pay?

I mean What if she were to come to AZ and could you sort out her stuff there?
Or are you not allowed to do anything if the customer is in CA?

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Why is that state licensed? What does that license really do? or is it some kind of tax /fee you have to pay?

I mean What if she were to come to AZ and could you sort out her stuff there?
Or are you not allowed to do anything if the customer is in CA?

Insurance is very state-specific and not all companies do business in all states. NY is the worst for life insurance, AZ is one of the best. If this woman came to Phoenix to visit her dad, I could probably write her and use his address. But that's shifty. Once your policy is issued, it doesn't matter if you move abroad or die elsewhere. AZ has a new law that lets any other state's professional licensee who moves here, work here on day one, provided they get an AZ license within XX days or months. But I'm not moving to CA, so I'd need a non-resident license. They want their fee. I renewed my AZ license today for $132 for four yrs. CA's would be $188. My E&O insurance is $450/yr.