It is most likely a high pressure sales event like they do for timeshares.


It's not worth the free meal.

I get these for a good local restaurant from insurance hacks that want to do retirement planning. Never went to any of them.

And that brings up the whole issue of bottom feeder insurance salesmen all being "financial planners" now. They still make big commissions on insurance and annuities so that's what they push. Deregulation of the banking and insurance industries was not the best idea.

But they can't advise on my 401K because they are not the fiduciary, and even when all I want is term life insurance they never stop pushing the whole life I don't want or need.

Around here there is a local funeral home who sends them out inviting you to join them for free pizza. Really not an enticing offer.

We receive our fair share of these free meal offers.. Lest we not forget the ones for final burial with military benifits.....Guess we get a double sampling because both myself and wife are US Army veterans.. ......................drill sgt.

We had a shooting buddy that was a financial planner who used to hold such dinners. When he could't fill the tables he would ask my wife and I to go along. We went once in a while, sat through the pitch and had a nice dinner. When it was all over we sat with him and had a few beers. That was fun as we were with a friend. He didn't do this for too many years, he felt he was a scammer and got out of the business.

I rank them right up there with free weekends at a time share for sitting through their sales pitch.
Nothing good is going to come out of it for me.
Hard pass.

I especially like to get them on Tuesdays as the garbage can is already close to the mailbox ready for Wednesday AM pickup.

I've received several of them over the years. They were always sales efforts for either life insurance or time-share properties. I never accepted any of them.

They seem similar to time share pitches. I don’t need to spend 90 minutes listening to a high pressure sales pitch for whatever.

quote:

Has anyone received a mailer inviting you to a free lunch or dinner.

All the time. They all went to trash.

quote:

Originally posted by reluctantpaladin:
Around here there is a local funeral home who sends them out inviting you to join them for free pizza. Really not an enticing offer.

Hey, I got that one! Pizza with a funeral home, sounds fun.

I sat through a time share pitch many years ago . Never again . We get these offers of a free meal at one of the nicer restaurants almost weekly. Never been but I hear they aren't high pressure snake oil salesmen . Mostly money manager types . We might give it a try one day just for the hell of it .

I got suckered 30 years ago, never again!

Against my advice, my significant other filled out a registration for a vacation drawing. Got a call saying we won. I'm like, "nope". It was a time share company. They bugged us for 2 years!

I was manning a booth at a trade show once that was for the time share industry (ARDA - American Resort and Development Assoc). The booth next to ours was a company that had an applicant screening program for hiring timeshare salespeople. Oh man, that's a brutal biz and it takes a certain personality to do those presentations. That's a skillset I do not possess or want.

That said, I do life insurance sales, but only meet with people who mail in lead cards asking for the information. And most of these people have never been to a nice restaurant and, if they had an invitation to one, would have to find a city bus route to get there.

Time share pitches are usually done on site so they can show you the amenities and the models and get you all excited . All of these meals at high end restaurant offers that I've seen are for money managers, estate planning , etc. The only exception was a local solar company that wanted to pitch their system .

Get them fairly regularly, once we got close to retirement age. Hearing aids, funeral plans, financial services/estate planning, most get torn up and deposited in the trash can instead of coming inside the house with the rest of the mail.
Our financial agent who has our IRA accounts, etc. has similar events for their clients. We occasionally attend, but the topics if financial are very general, otherwise they’ve had more general interest topics or entertainment (Doyle Dykes was a recent XMAS event) with a plug and thanks for continuing to patronize the firm.

Get them all the time and they universally see their way into my trash.

Thanks again everyone.

Some had mentioned it might be timeshare, back almost twenty years ago I did advanced sales and preview center operations for a timeshare company.
It was for that big entertainment/theme park/resort hotel company in central Florida.

At the time all of our sales presentations were done at a preview center. Also most of the other timeshare company's in the area outside the company I worked did the same.

Years ago we got a post card for a free vacation or cruise. To get the certificate for the vacation all we had to do was attend a 60 minute presentation then lunch. We never went.

Some had mentioned pizza to view a funeral home, I never heard of that one, however my in-laws do have a prepaid funeral services and it might have involved a free meal.

The last offer I got was for dinner at a very nice/expensive steak house. My wife and I have had dinner there several times and thought what the heck it's a free meal but what are they trying to sell. We thought was a free meal worth the time spent listing to some sales pitch?

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
I sat through a time share pitch many years ago . Never again .

My wife and I did it twice years ago, same place in Maui, and same location, the Hyatt Vacation Club. Each time a 7 night stay in a nice oceanfront suite (living rm, dining, kitchen, bedroom, laundry, bath) for approx. $95 a night before taxes, with complementary resort fees and discounted car rental. A deal at the time, the same accommodations would have been 4 times the amount. But we had to sit through a "presentation", scheduled at our convenience. The first one was pure sales pressure for 60 minutes, the guy literally placed a pen and contract in front of us and we kept smiling saying 'no", and left him in a poor mood afterwards. The 2nd one was easy- the lady just sat and talked and asked what elements would make an ideal vacation, just mentioning timeshares for a few minutes with no sales pressure, the whole thing took 30 minutes of our time. We never received this offer again.

This one we got made me chuckle.