Where do I begin? It started when I was contacted by a Farmer's recruiter. He stated the base pay for an insurance producer is $35,000-$40,000 and with commission that can go as high as $75,000 a year. I knew they always exaggerate the achievable amount for commission in regards to sales jobs but even $40,000 was more than I was currently making at the time. Anyways he did mention I would have to pass a state exam so there were some courses and licensing fees (which totaled over $250+ not including the live scan service fee and other fees for signing up) but assured me they will reimburse me once hired.
So a couple of months later I finally became officially licensed and started going to Farmer's agency for interviews. The agents who interviewed me seemed very inexperienced and unprofessional (1 had their kids running around and crying in the back while I was being interviewed). Anyways I accepted an offer at one of these Agency's because they offered a couple dollars more than what was offered at the other agency. Right off the bat the recruiter blatantly lied, base pay was not $35,000-40,000. I was offered minimum wage then was able to get offered a measly $1 bump. Also, the agency owner as well as the district office stated they do not reimburse for courses they listed to complete nor the licence fee. The recruiter lied, this is misleading.
Once work actually started I realized that the agency owner already laid off the 2 other employees who were working there. For the entire 2 weeks it was just me and the agency owner at the office. The worst part is the owner would be gone half the time to do personal/family related things and expected me to take care of everything the job entails knowing I had no prior experience. Simple things I ran by the agency owner to confirm I was doing my job correctly and make sure there were no errors. This owner doesn't even know how to operate through the Farmers agency dashboard. On the very first day I was given the key to open/close the office. I had no clue it would be just be by myself opening/closing and trying to attempt to essentially run the business by myself. To make things even worse the owner had me do tasks unrelated to the job such as help people move a desk that was at least 300 pounds (the owner was selling old furniture from the office through Craigslist/OfferUp) and wanted me to help. Even worse, the owner had me process payments for another company, unrelated to Farmer's not the tasks that are expected of me. The last straw was when I was already clocked 10 minutes past 5pm and was still on the line with Farmers support to process a customer's payment. I told the agent that it is past 5 o'clock and I need to leave. The response was “A good employee does not look at their clock and leave right away” FUCK THAT, I am being paid a dollar more than minimum wage hourly. If I am working a minute extra with no overtime/compensation no wonder no one else is working at that damn office. I politely said “see you Monday” knowing damn well I'm not coming back to that hellhole again.
TLDR; Farmer's is the biggest scam of a company. Red flags everywhere starting from the recruiter lying and misleading that they reimburse the costs which add up, to the base pay. Owner expected me to run their business smoothly singlehandedly knowing I had no experience and was just learning how to navigate through the dashboard/system. The owner did not even know how to do simple things themselves like process a quote or change a customer's mailing address.