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I recently took the LTC class. A good amount of time was spent listening to a sales pitch for a legal defense program. Sales guy starts out telling a story of some guy that shot someone and ended up broke defending himself in civil court and now lives with his daughters. Said he spent $500,000 , etc, etc.

I would say that more than 75% of the class signed up for it. Basically on fear is what I think. Anyway I don't have a problem with them selling it but it should be after the course and not waste my time listening to what some might consider a snake oil salesman.

During a break or after is fine. Taking up class time is not. The instructor should be reported. The DPS would take a very dim view of this conduct.

Unfortunately, lots of instructors allow that - or promote such themselves for pretty hefty commissions. If it was presented as a part of what should be considered "minimum classroom hours", you could certainly report it to DPS and maybe help drain that part of the swamp.

Glock4ever wrote:I recently took the LTC class. A good amount of time was spent listening to a sales pitch for a legal defense program. Sales guy starts out telling a story of some guy that shot someone and ended up broke defending himself in civil court and now lives with his daughters. Said he spent $500,000 , etc, etc.

I would say that more than 75% of the class signed up for it. Basically on fear is what I think. Anyway I don't have a problem with them selling it but it should be after the course and not waste my time listening to what some might consider a snake oil salesman.

Did you take the class at The Arms Room? I'm pretty sure that they have a marketing agreement with the pre-paid legal service where they will promote it whenever and wherever possible. My guess is that they require their LTC instructors to go along with it. The instructors of course could go elsewhere and teach the course but TAR is a pretty big draw and the instructors don't have to do any of their own marketing.

I took the course there last year from Tom Estep. He allowed them to do their shpiel during a break and they ended up going for what seemed like an hour telling story after story of how people went bankrupt paying legal fees to fight bogus charges. He did mention before they took over that he normally is skeptical of these types of businesses but that that particular business seems to be the best one around.

Anybody know the status of the law suit about these sorts of practices?

doncb wrote:During a break or after is fine. Taking up class time is not. The instructor should be reported. The DPS would take a very dim view of this conduct.

Wasn't announced as a 'break'. Anyway I won't be reporting anyone to the DPS for this I don't roll like that.

Scott B. wrote:Anybody know the status of the law suit about these sorts of practices?

What lawsuit? Do you have a link?

I had the opportunity to observe a class recently - good instructor and he clearly said it was a break and feel free to stay or take break.

But funniest thing said was that pre-paid legal service is who the legislature calls to get advice on all gun bills as they write most of them.

rtschl wrote:I had the opportunity to observe a class recently - good instructor and he clearly said it was a break and feel free to stay or take break.

But funniest thing said was that pre-paid legal service is who the legislature calls to get advice on all gun bills as they write most of them.

They are effective in their sales pitch for sure... Between the scare tactics and groupthink mentality they built up in the room they had a huge conversion rate.

rtschl wrote:I had the opportunity to observe a class recently - good instructor and he clearly said it was a break and feel free to stay or take break.

But funniest thing said was that pre-paid legal service is who the legislature calls to get advice on all gun bills as they write most of them.

I'm not the least surprised that they make that false claim. Someone in every class needs to ask "what is not covered? What do I have to pay out of my pocket if I call on you?"

Chas.

At the first sign of a sales pitch while I'm in a class, I'm bailing and will say why...and will speak to the instructor that I want a refund, if not forthcoming, we'll be seeing each other in court...

This nonsense has to stop!

Glock4ever wrote:

Scott B. wrote:Anybody know the status of the law suit about these sorts of practices?

What lawsuit? Do you have a link?

It was a class-action filing in summer 2015. The Harris County civil court judge did certify that CHL/LTC holders would be considered a "group" for purposes of the lawsuit. I don't personally know any recent status of the suit.

That said, because the Forum's audience and the Texas target market for these types of prepaid legal services overlap so much as to be almost indistinguishable, and because a Texas class-action suit is either pending or underway, we've had for about year now a policy of not allowing company names to be mentioned, detailed specifics of service offerings to be discussed, and no direct links to be posted...regardless of whether the context is positive or negative.

The moderators have edited a score of posts over this issue, deleted some, and some terms were even added to the prohibited word filter as a result. So please let this serve as a general notice that we have to watch Topics like this closely

General conversation about the concepts and how it's handled in LTC classes is fine. But you'll need to a little individual Google-fu to research the lawsuit on your own.

Was the worst part of my class at Central Texas Gun Works

I say let the buyer beware!

Reminds me of the credit life pitches made when you buy a new car or that silly "flight insurance" in case your plane falls out of the sky and you die. Extremely low likelihood of a claim but fat commissions and profits for those on the insurance side.

Would love to see their books on claims made/claims paid against the backdrop of their premiums collected. Of course they will not provide you this information. I won't call it a scam but I will call it a rip-off.

uthornsfan wrote:Was the worst part of my class at Central Texas Gun Works

I did my class here and the instructor told our class we were on break and didn't have to sit through any of the sales speech if we didn't want to. Some chose to go get snacks, others sat around and listened.