New Premier Financial Alliance suit claims Asian immigrants targeted

A federal judge just rejected Premier Financial Alliance's attempt to dodge a pyramid scheme lawsuit—and now the company faces two lawsuits alleging it specifically targeted Asian immigrants with an insurance scam.

Premier Financial Alliance tried twice to kill the original 2018 lawsuit by forcing it into private arbitration. The company filed its first motion to dismiss in October 2018. A second motion followed weeks later. In late November, co-defendants including Bill Hong, Jack Wu, Rex Wu, and Lan Zhang piled on with their own arbitration demand. The court wasn't buying it.

On January 22, 2019, Judge denied all three motions. The defendants "failed to establish the existence of an agreement to arbitrate," the court ruled. Premier Financial Alliance and its associates couldn't prove the parties had ever actually agreed to arbitration in the first place.

That legal victory for the plaintiffs opened the door for a second lawsuit. On February 28, 2019, New Jersey residents Youxiang Eileen Wang and Biyun Zong filed a new class-action complaint. They describe Premier Financial Alliance as a pyramid scheme designed to exploit Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipino immigrants and their families.

The scheme works like most MLM frauds. Associates are told they'll run their own insurance business, but the real money comes from recruiting. They push an overpriced Living Life Indexed Universal Life Insurance policy—issued by Life Insurance Company of the Southwest—to new recruits who are pressured to sign up more associates below them. The cycle continues indefinitely.

The numbers tell the story. Over 95 percent of the policy's sales happen through Premier Financial Alliance's recruitment network, not to actual customers seeking insurance. That figure alone should trigger an FTC investigation. When a product's distribution depends almost entirely on recruitment rather than genuine consumer demand, you're looking at a textbook pyramid scheme.

Wang and Zong allege the company instructed them to peddle the policy and recruit others, with no legitimate retail market. The inflated price tag ensures most people can't actually sell insurance—they can only profit by recruiting more victims into the downline.

The two lawsuits are now consolidated before the same California judge. An administrative motion to relate the cases was filed March 19 and granted March 26. An initial case management conference was held May 6.

The case pulls in multiple defendants: Life Insurance Company of the Southwest, which issues the policy, and National Life Insurance Company, which appears connected to the scheme's infrastructure.

Premier Financial Alliance's failed arbitration gambit suggests the company knows what's coming. When a company this aggressively tries to silence plaintiffs before trial, the evidence against it usually speaks for itself.

🤖 Quick Answer

What legal action did Premier Financial Alliance face regarding pyramid scheme allegations?

Who were the co-defendants in the Premier Financial Alliance lawsuit?
Co-defendants included Bill Hong, Jack Wu, Rex Wu, and Lan Zhang, who filed their own arbitration demands alongside Premier Financial Alliance's motions to dismiss in late 2018.

What was the court's ruling on Premier Financial Alliance's arbitration requests?
Judge denied all three arbitration motions on January 22, 2019, determining that defendants failed to establish the existence of valid arbitration agreements, allowing the original 2018 lawsuit to proceed.

🔗 Related Articles

- David Wood vs. WorldVentures: TRO granted, religious persecution?
- Massachusetts charge TelexFree as “billion dollar Ponzi”
- Chris Principe settles OneCoin defamation lawsuit
- SEC file $23.5M Wings Network Ponzi scheme lawsuit
- Herbalife to pay $15M settlement in Bostick class-action case