FoIB Rick Byrne tips us to this story from Hamilton, Ohio:
Apparently, Mr Armstrong would hold a "class" with no actual instruction, but would have agents sign-in and out as if they had been in class, and would receive much-needed Continuing Education credits.
Here's the thing: I've been to a few classes over the years that turned out to be nothing more than sales shpiels for a particular product or carrier. And I've been to my share of "snooze-fest" classes, too (full disclosure: as regular readers know, I'm also a licensed CE provider and instructor). But the sales shpiel classes were free, and the snoozers were, at least on paper, legit. Mr Armstrong, however, had a somewhat different business model:
"As part of his scheme, Mr. Armstrong established the “Friends of George” program where, for a fee, he would provide an agent with educational credits."
Shoot! Why didn't I think of that?!
The news isn't much better for those agents complicit in Mr A's little scheme. For one thing, those "classes" won't count toward the state's CE requirements, so they'll have to be made up [ed: couldn't you find a better choice of words there?], which means a triple whammy: first, they paid George whatever fee he charged; second, they'll have to pay a real provider for the make-up classes; and third, they face substantial fines by the state.
Ouch!
What strikes me as perhaps the most stupid aspect of this is that we have a paltry 20 hours to complete over the course of two years. That's less than an hour a month, and most classes don't have any kind of test or participation requirements. It's just not that hard to find legit classes, and a lot of them are free to the agent. How lazy are Mr Arnstrong's clients that they felt it appropriate to participate in his little scheme, and why would anyone trust them for their insurance needs?
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