I got hit with this by a college roommate who joined Primerica. I didn't know anything about investing during college so I let him open a Roth IRA for me and put in $100/month from my part-time job. I fell for everything from him and his boss. Looking back, I definitely feel like a moron.
The fund he had me in was terrible. An expense ratio of something like 1.5%, a maxed-out 12b1 fee and a front-load sales charge of 5.25%. At least it wasn't an annuity.
Once I graduated and got my first full-time job, I started reading over the 401k material and doing my own research which lead me to the Boglehead's site. I slowly began the realize the fraud my friend had pulled over me.
When I presented him with the evidence, he literally lied to my face. That or he had so completely swallowed Primerica's literature that he believed himself. He tried to tell me that their fund had outperformed the market (it had not) and had stayed stable through the 2008 crash (it had not, it lost far more than the market).
He tried to convince me that the fees were actually quite low compared to the average (obviously not) and that Vanguard was in fact more expensive.
I ordered him to transfer the entire account over to Vanguard and we haven't spoken since.
(Another unspoken advantage of Vanguard or Schwab: if they do something I don't like, I can safely pull my business without risking a personal relationship)