Artistry Cosmetics

Did I use Artistry products?

Nope.

Unknown to me Ambot bought a very expensive $60 face cream. I cringed at the price tag but seeing as how he’d already bought it, I used it. It didn’t do anything out of the ordinary for me so I didn’t buy it again after it ran out.

I usually buy makeup from a friend who sells Avon. I shop the Avon sales. Lipstick for $1.99? I’ll take a few colors. Same with eye shadow, foundation, and nail polish. If its on sale I’ll buy a few. Deodorant at .99 cents each? I’ll stock up for a year.

Luckily I was well stocked up on Avon products prior to Ambot getting involved in Amway. I told him I still wanted to buy Avon from our friend. Better prices, larger selection, equal quality. Ambot was outraged. “You need to support our business and buy from our store.” Yep, that’s Amway speak.

“But if I’m the only customer then we’re a bunch of idiots for selling our products too high priced,” I pointed out.

Nonetheless, my Avon stash held out pretty good during the stint with Amway. I had to sneak into the drug store to buy face cream after the expensive Amway stuff ran out. The $15 product works way better than the $60 product. Yikes! I can’t believe Ambot was so brainwashed he’d spend that kind of money when there’s a better quality product out there at a quarter of the price. With the $45 in savings we can go out and have a fairly decent dinner somewhere. Sure beats the upline splitting a $45 commission!

What really bugs me are the lies the upline said about Artistry being one of the top 5 cosmetics in the world. According to my research, depending on whose list (usually magazines do these surveys), Artistry falls somewhere between number 15 and 30, which is not too shabby in the greater scheme of things, but not in the top 5 you bunch of liars. I guess not too many IBO’s think about checking to see if their upline is lying or not. I suppose the only list where Artistry is on the top 5 is a survey run by Amway that is distributed to IBO’s only.

Forbes magazine is a reliable resource. Here is their list of the world’s top 10 selling cosmetics:

Maybelline

Avon

L’Oreal

Lancome

Clinique

Revlon

Estee Lauder

Max Factor

Cover Girl

Shiseido

That list sounds reasonable to me as the world’s top 10. So how come I’ve heard countless times at Amway meetings that Artistry is in the Top 5? More specifically number 1 or number 2. I’m looking at the top 5 names on the Forbes list and nowhere do I see Artistry.

I’m thinking a survey must be sent out to Amway IBO’s to choose their favorite cosmetic line and like a bunch of good Ambots they all choose Artistry so that’s where upline gets their statistics from. Skewed results you bunch of liars. If I went to a poodle dog show and asked all the owners what the most popular breed of dog in the world is, I bet I know what those survey results would reveal.

So where outside Amway circles or Amway influenced surveys can we find proof that “Artistry is in the Top 5 of the world’s cosmetics”?

I think that statement is just another case of  “never question upline”.

Busting Relationships

The pompous sack of shit Platinum often said “If I don’t like you, I won’t do business with you.”  Liar! He’d do business with anyone he could just for the almighty dollar. 

A better slogan for him would have been “If I don’t like you and you refuse to do business with me, I’ll destroy your relationship.”

I was at an Amway meeting once where he ranted about one of the fellows in the room. They were in the same car driving back from Family Reunion and the pompous sack of shit spent the 6 or 7 hour drive nagging him to leave his wife because she was holding him back in the business. He would never succeed in Amway as long as he was with his wife. And on and on it went. Platinum was even more outraged when they had a baby without asking his permission if they could start a family.

All I could think of was shut the fuck up asshole. Other people’s private lives are none of your business. Leave them alone. Asking “permission” for stuff going on in their private personal lives? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Like I need any further proof that this is a cult leader trying to control other people’s lives!

On the drive home I told Ambot that the sack of shit has no business trying to destroy that couple’s relationship. Not a big surprise to me that Ambot admitted the fucker was trying to convince Ambot to leave me.

After a few unsuccessful months of trying his damnedest to convince Ambot to leave me, the cult leader tried another tactic. I’d quit going to cult meetings and Ambot told me one night the bastard led the group in a prayerfest. He was bitching at Ambot and saying he wasn’t man enough for the Amway business and he didn’t deserve to be married to me because he wasn’t man enough. Tonight the Platinum sack of shit led the Amway meeting into a prayer group, praying that I would find another man and leave Ambot.

And these fanatic cult members wonder why I can’t stand them. 

The only good thing that came out of that prayerfest is that Ambot saw the truth of this evil cult and stopped attending Amway meetings.

The Platinum’s reasoning (which he probably learned from his upline) for any man not getting ahead in the Amway business is because his wife is holding him back and he should leave her. If an IBO has a potential prospect and the wife isn’t interested, upline immediately jumps on their pedestal and proclaims its because this couple already has existing problems in their relationship.

The relationship problems only happen after getting involved in Amway. Happy marriages go sour after one spouse gets immersed in the cult and is constantly badgered by the upline to get the PV/BV up there and buy more products to the point of sucking dry the bank accounts and maxing out credit cards. Attend more meetings chasing futile dreams. Put another dollar in. Put a few more thousand dollars in. Got to keep this cult thriving.

Scary. And this is not even a spooky Halloween tale. Its really happening within the Amway cult.

Insulting Women’s Makeup Choices

Our upline taught us to be rude, look down on, and sneer at anyone who didn’t use or purchase Amway products.

Ambot was a very good student when it came to the art of being rude and sneering at friends who weren’t interested in going to meetings or purchasing Amway shit.

I on the other hand preferred to direct my rudeness towards the upline I didn’t like. Oh, that would be pretty much all of them!

The Platinum taught the IBO’s to ask women what makeup they use. Whatever brand they said, he instructed the IBO’s to shriek: “No! You’ve got to be kidding me!” and with a look of horror slap their forehead and shake their head and gape with their mouths wide open. After this routine, they were supposed to tell the insulted woman about Artistry and ask for the sale.

Platinum would perform his “I hate your makeup, bitch” act in front of us at the Amway meetings. Then he would ask around the room, mostly male, who’d been putting this technique into practice.

He’d avoid asking me.

Insulting a woman about her choice of makeup? And then hoping to make a sale on overpriced Amway products? I don’t think so. Good on you if that horror routine works. I don’t think Ambot ever tried that technique. At least never in my presence.

Qualifying Prospects

This is my opinion: Sponsoring people who don’t like you = bad idea.

Maybe I’m way off base here but I think when recruiting Amway IBO’s its a good idea to leave people off your list who don’t like you, or even more importantly if their spouse doesn’t like you. Leave them alone!!!!

Instead these assholes “counsel with upline” and are told to make a run at the prospect and if the spouse doesn’t go along then do whatever it takes to sign up the prospect anyway. So what if it destroys their relationship, because obviously it was in trouble in the first place if the spouse doesn’t willingly go along with the partner’s participation in the Amway scheme.

I was in an abusive line of sponsorship called World Wide Dream Builders. Their philosophy whenever someone wasn’t interested in Amway or unable to “grow their business” that there must be something wrong with their marriage/relationship. I’d heard that accusation many times. Their standard answer to everything. “Something is wrong with their marriage.” And so what if there was? None of your business anyway. People’s private, personal lives are nobody else’s business. Unless of course you belong to a cult whose acronym would be more aptly suited to read World Wide Destructive Bastards because they destroy people’s lives, destroy marriages, destroy families, and destroy financial security.

I attended enough meetings where the Platinum sack of shit talked about qualifying prospects. “If I don’t like you then I don’t want to do business with you,” he’d often say. And then he added that he moved on to the next prospect. "Next!" I did everything I could to get that bastard not to like me! I even remember overhearing our arrogant prick sponsor parroting the same phrase to Ambot. Liar! That arrogant prick would take anyone he could get. Money, money, money to that greedy destructive bastard. Too bad for him the buck stopped with Ambot. This is one son of a bitch that should have taken his own advice. I’ve known him for years and he knows I can’t stand him and refuse to have anything to do with him. Surely I should have fallen under the “don’t like” category. Lying bastard can’t even follow his own advice.

"Next!"

Like our sponsors? Never!

Our first stint in WWDB and the Amway scheme was (no) thanks to the mother of a business associate of Ambot’s. She claimed to be a Platinum. We found out later she’d purchased her Platinumship. She was a nasty old bitch. She did not have the typical personality of  an Amway cult leader because she was not a likeable, charismatic person whereas the other cult leaders I met put on quite a performance being nicey nice, faking sincere interest, and real people persons. At least she was true to herself and let her ugly personality shine through. One time I showed up to pick up products at her house and she told me about an Amway meeting either later that week or the next week and made a big point of saying this particular meeting was specifically for all IBO’s going to the river. Hell, I’ve seen enough rivers in my lifetime so I didn’t bother going to that meeting. The next time I showed up to pick up products she started bitching at me because I’d missed the meeting (and she’d missed her cut of the proceeds from my ticket sale).

“Well you told me it was only for people who are going to the river.” I reminded her. “So it seemed pointless for us to go.”

She stared at me with her narrow shrew eyes. “And you’re not going to the river?” She asked in an icy tone.

“That’s right, we’re not,” I answered cheerfully.

Oh, man, you should have seen the glare I got. Too bad for her I didn’t like her so I didn’t give a shit. Eventually Ambot didn’t like her either and we ended our “doing business together” stint.

As an aside we saw her at FED during our last Amway penance. She was one of those morons rushing the stage when her upline Diamonds came on. She was no longer Platinum but obviously still involved in Amway, though whether or not she still is today, I don’t know.

The next foray into WWDB and Amway was (no) thanks to a friend of Ambot’s who I’ve never liked. The arrogant prick is the nicest thing I call him and it goes downhill from there. The bastard knows I can’t stand him. Over the years he’s borrowed stuff from Ambot and returned it broken if he ever returns it at all. Sometimes Ambot doesn’t hear from him for months because he’s gone off on one of his tantrums because Ambot won’t loan him something - those are the good times! He’s unreliable, undependable, and for years his presence anywhere near me makes me madder than hell. He’s one of these assholes that if you say the wrong thing to him he’ll stomp off in a snit. So in an effort to get him to stomp off, I’m rude to the bastard at every opportunity. Yeah, that sounds like a good IBO prospect to sponsor especially after I made it very clear to him and his wife and the upline Platinum sack of shit that I had no interest in getting involved in Amway again.

If that arrogant prick had just minded his own business I wouldn’t have gone through the emotional and financial turmoil and I wouldn’t be writing this blog.

Not Brainwashable

Not coachable = not brainwashable

I’m sure the pompous sack of shit Platinum had a ton of reasons he didn’t like me, mostly because I was such a rebel and disinterested in anything Amway.

He’d hold Amway meetings and say he only does business with people he likes. If he doesn’t like you he won’t do business with you.

Well I don’t like you, you pompous sack of shit, but I’ve obviously done a lousy job of getting that message through to your Amway drunken brain because you seem to be under the false impression that I want to do business with you.

So he would bitch about me to Ambot. He’d bitch about everything: the way I dress, the “other” makeup I wear, I refuse to mingle, my phone, my car, my dog, the books I read. You name it, he bitched about it. It all leads to one thing. He’d bitch about me not being “coachable”. Pompous asshole. I told you the day I met you that I had no interest in Amway, going to meetings, buying products, etc. And its a huge surprise to you that I’m not coachable?

Dumb ass!

I’m also not coachable when it comes to learning how to jump out of airplanes or becoming a lion trainer. If I have zero interest in something or something I deem to be dangerous (both qualities I attribute to Amway) then I’m not going to bust my ass learning anything about it.

Then Ambot would parrot back the Amway speak in an accusatory tone to me: “The dumb ass pompous sack of shit Platinum (OK so those are my words not his) says that you’re not coachable.”

So when did I ever claim that I was coachable?

And right back at the Platinum - why bitch about someone not being coachable when they told you that the first day they met you?

Amway speak. “You’re not coachable” is better translated “I can’t brainwash you.”

Really FED (UP!)

On Sunday of Free Enterprise Days we’d slept in because we weren’t attending the church service. Just a little too much cult brainwashing for me to handle. Instead we went for a drive and arrived at the venue’s parking lot around 11:30am, found an excellent parking spot near the exit to beat the rush out of there at the end of the day, and sat in the car for a bit because the service was still on and IBO’s weren’t being let in yet for the afternoon FED session.

Ambot’s cell phone chirps indicating he’s received a text message from some asshole upline. Ignore it, I tell him. He checks his phone anyway and turns out the text is from his arrogant prick sponsor, aka Captain Fuck Up.

He tells Ambot that the pompous sack of shit Platinum has called a very important meeting that all downline must attend at his hotel lobby near the stairs. We have to be there at 11:45am and the time right now is about 11:42am.

The hotel is several minutes drive away, ironically we’d just driven past it within the past 20 minutes. Ambot’s all in a panic. WE MUST GET THERE!

He refused to listen to my voice of reason that it didn’t sound logical. First off the hotel check out time had already passed - why would they hang around the hotel. Second the sack of shit was very religious and unlikely to miss the morning church service. Third the sack of shit had made it a big point out of saying due to being Platinum he had the honor of helping out backstage during the church service. Fourth, if he was already here at the arena for the church service, why would the sack of shit drive all the way back to his hotel that he’d already check out of instead of holding his “very important meeting” (better known as a bullshit brainwashing session) at the arena.

But Ambot refused to listen to me that they were probably already in or around the auditorium. I wanted to stay where we were. Instead Ambot breaks the speed limit getting to the hotel, runs faster than I’ve ever seen him move, easily outdistancing me. I catch up to him in the hotel lobby. He is frantically running around looking for other IBO’s. He opens up the staircase doors thinking they might be holding their meeting in the fire exit. He’s badgering hotel employees if they’ve seen his beloved upline.

He is really agitated that he can’t find anyone and eventually we return to the venue. The good parking spot I’d scored earlier is now taken. We walk across the parking lot and on the lawn in front of the auditorium we see our group gathered around the hallowed cult leader and Ambot sprints to join them.

It turns out the arrogant prick sent Ambot a fake text message having him run all over town on a wild goose chase just so he could have a good giggle. Fuck you jerk!

Yup. These are people I really want to do business with.

Still FED (UP)

What actually happens at Free Enterprise Days?

You know, most of its a blur. The only thing I remember for sure was being bored to death. It seems to me the exact same thing goes on at FED as what happens at Family Reunion. On Friday night its a bunch of rah, rah, rah. A lot of patriotism, loud music, and speeches about what a great weekend its going to be. If it wasn’t part of Amway, that Friday night special would have almost been kind of fun.

Saturday everyone arrives at the auditorium - early of course. Remember if you’re a “serious business builder” you have to be there at least an hour early. There were huge line ups - the venue had several doors - and its my guess some of these cult followers had been lining up for hours. Gee the building looked pretty big to me. Scared you weren’t going to find a seat?

FED was mostly Diamonds and I think a few Emeralds who told their stories in such a manner as to motivate IBO’s to stay with “the business”. They’d all been down on their luck, found Amway, and built “the business”. Now their life is fantastic. Mansions, luxury cars, exotic vacations, blah, blah, blah. One by one they trooped across the stage and said the same thing. Nothing useful to anyone who is actually trying to build an Amway business. Or maybe the helpful stuff happened when I was out of the building. I get hungry and thirsty and would head out and scout the nearby eating places.

And darned if I didn’t find a restaurant I liked a few blocks away. It had a sign out front saying it was serving up caramel apple milkshakes I guess due to proximity to Halloween. That milkshake was the only thing I liked about FED. I bought a snack for Ambot too and brought it back to the auditorium where he was dutifully taking notes even though the speakers were all saying the same thing as the last ones. Boring, boring, boring.

Sunday morning there is an all denomination church service - all the better for brainwashing the followers. Fortunately Ambot was tired from the previous evening’s night owl so we slept in. Sunday afternoon drones on with the Diamonds boring the audience. They say the exact same things - basically how wonderful their lives are now after all the troubles they endured in the past. Amway brought them riches, saved their marriages, and turned them all into Ken and Barbie dolls. Boring as hell. I finally leave and go out to the car and read a book.

So in answer to the question about what happens at Free Enterprise Days, to sum it up - a bunch of IBO’s get ripped off by spending money listening to boring speakers. It won’t help your business but will lighten your wallet.

And increase the bank accounts of those boring speakers who marched across the stage all blending together as one entity. How do you tell any of them apart anyway?

FED (UP!)

FED = Free Enterprise Days and it is a World Wide Dream Builder major function held on a weekend in October.

This event was being shoved down our throats before the Family Reunion function in July had finished. Ambot had to ante up the cash for the tickets while we were still at the Family Reunion.

We had to drive 2 states away to attend. After the debacle driving to Family Reunion I refused to allow any passengers in my car. Oh, I was a bad little IBO. How selfish of me not to want to spend my money on gas and wear and tear on my car for the privilege of enduring Amway speak from some demented, brainwashed passenger on an all day drive. Three months ahead of the function the upline were arranging car pools and sharing of hotel rooms. Yeah, right. I really want to share a hotel room with a bunch of kids. The upline chose a rather expensive hotel and said we should all get reservations there before it sold out.

I had a better idea. I was going to fix those bastards. I told Ambot I was bringing the dog with us. I found a hotel that takes dogs and booked a room there at about a quarter of the price of the hotel the upline were staying at. Once word got out that any passengers would be sharing the back seat with a shedding, panting dog, no one was too eager to hitch a ride with us. Go figure!

Pissed off the Platinum to the nth degree that he didn’t have all his cult followers in the same hotel.

The upline still badgered Ambot to drive to their hotel room after the day’s bullshit session ended so they could have their “night owl”. Its after midnight and everyone is tired. All the better to brainwash the IBO’s. Thanks but I think I’ll stay in the hotel room with my dog. He’s better company than those Amway morons.

An Amway event disguised as an afternoon tea social

Almost as soon as we signed up with Amway the arrogant prick who sponsored us said we had to immediately start having functions at our house. Invite people to sign up as Amway IBO’s or purchase products from us.

Seeing as how we’d already been down the Amway trail before I didn’t want to scam anyone into signing up for Amway knowing they’d lose money. I didn’t want to buy the lousy overpriced Amway products myself, let alone try to convince anyone else to buy that shit. The upline bastards kept riding Ambot’s ass to have an “event” at our house and it wasn't too long before Ambot announces that we’re having an afternoon tea social at our house and the date he’s chosen. Someone upline has a makeup kit full of Artistry products and we can “rent” it for the afternoon and the arrogant prick’s wife will be there to assist with makeup application. Ambot has arranged for a variety of Amway products that he hasn’t already stocked the house with that we can borrow. Then Ambot wants me to invite as many women as I know to come and try the makeup.

Two friends showed up out of about 50 invites and one actually bought some stuff.

Ambot’s friend arrived and signed up to be an IBO. If Ambot was in, that was good enough for him. This was our only downline and he quit and got refunded a couple of weeks later after someone upline phoned to chew him out for missing a meeting.

The pompous sack of shit Platinum with his wife and two teenagers in tow showed up. The sack of shit made it a HUGE point out of saying he normally doesn’t attend events like this. Yeah, well who invited you, asshole? Oh, I guess Ambot probably did because he actually likes you. The sack of shit’s son and daughter must have been bored to death. When you hit that age you don’t always want to go out visiting with mommy and daddy. They headed into our backyard to play catch with the dog.

And here I’ll say something nice. The Platinum’s wife and teenagers are lovely, decent people (or maybe that's all part of the Amway act when out in public). I do pity them for having to put up with that asshole especially after listening to him rant at Amway meetings where he all but called his future wife a whore before he met her and changed her.

Afterwards everyone congratulated Ambot on what a wonderful job he’d done because one person bought products and he signed up one new IBO.

And that was as good as it ever got.

Acting on Complaints

In case anyone missed this exchange on the Tax Deductions blog, IBOFB seems to think that upline IBO’s who are violating Amway policy, telling lies, or otherwise given misleading information should be reported to Amway who will take action.

Bullshit!

I did make a complaint to Amway about false information given to us at an Amway meeting by the sack of shit Platinum. At the time I didn’t know I’d been lied to and was asking for assistance from Amway on this issue. The Amway employee stated what I’d been told was not Amway policy and then told me where Amway policy regarding that issue can be found. I told her I had been given this information by the Platinum at an Amway meeting. Amway employee said they are not responsible for incorrect information that might be given out at meetings and when I suggested Amway take action on this person, I was told Amway has no interest in doing that, but suggested I speak to Platinum about the lie he told. Furthermore, Amway employee told me he'd put a note on my file that I’d “been informed” just in case I tried to phone back and take it up with Amway again.

Although some people have unrealistic views of companies and people they admire and think they can do no wrong, life doesn’t always work out that way. Ten years ago one of my friends was in a tizzy that Martha Stewart was headed for jail. How could that be?! IBOFB has unrealistic expectations that Amway will actually act on complaints IBO’s have about their upline. It just ain’t so. I’ve tried. I'm sure others have tried. Based on my experience Amway doesn’t give a shit.

Amway is hardly the only company around guilty of inaction. Years ago my supervisor was violating company policy. I informed the HR manager a few times each time an incident occurred. Nothing happened. If the HR department doesn’t give a shit, why should I, and I stopped informing. I’d say close to a year passed before I couldn’t keep silent anymore and informed the HR manager again of what was still going on. Let’s put it this way. That supervisor abusing company policy is still there. I was given 2 years severance salary to go away.

Is my former employer the only company around that doesn’t act of employee complaints of policy abusers? Nope. Are they the only company around that has shelled out cash for people to go away? Nope.

IBOFB can have his jaded view that Amway actually gives a shit when IBO’s complain about their upline. There are enough blogs, books, media attention, etc to show that’s simply not the case.

Pretend Business Owners

“Here’s what we’ll do for you. We’ll help you get started in your own business. And we’ll offer you coaching and mentoring.”

I heard that at just about every Amway meeting.

I probably heard that long before we even got involved in Amway when I went to an information meeting about an entrepreneurship training program which I ultimately spent several months attending.

Amway IBO’s sponsor people by telling them this is their opportunity to be a business owner but don’t give any further advice on what else is involved when starting up a business. You’d think this would come up in one of the late night “teachings”. Instead those “teachings” consist mainly of rants about which IBO’s should change their clothes, hairstyle, car they drive, etc. It would make better sense if those “teachings” actually provided useful information such as advice on how real business owners set up shop.

While I’m not going over the curriculum or advice I received during my entrepreneurship training, here are a few things I learned there about starting my own business.

1. Search for a business name. This doesn’t mean thinking up a name, decide to start using that name, go for it, and that’s the end of the story. It means you pay a government agency to do a name search to see if anyone else has already registered that business name.

2. Register your business name, probably at the same government agency.

3. Purchase a business license for the city where you live/do business in.

4. Purchase business insurance including errors and omissions insurance. (This is to cover your ass in case you lie or make misrepresentations to others while tricking them to come to Amway meetings, sponsoring IBO’s, or buying products. Piss off the wrong person and that insurance might come in handy.)

Real coaches and mentors would have these on their checklist for starting up a business. Phony coaches and mentors running a scam wouldn't.

There are many steps to take when starting up a company such as buying equipment, payroll, tax numbers, hiring professionals (accountant, lawyer), registering the vehicle under company name, etc. The above lists just gets most self employed entrepreneurs started. Important starting steps to take to be considered a serious business owner.

The Amway IBO’s I knew didn’t take any of these basic steps and yet they still considered themselves “business owners”. Ha! Nothing but jokesters pretending to be business owners. Not in the same league.

I’d say Ambot and I were the only IBO’s in our leg who were real business owners, and I’m talking a business that has nothing to do with Amway. The steps we took when setting up our real business, we didn’t take with the “Amway business” because we were never instructed to do so by our upline. Amway “business owners” or commissioned salespeople?

To sum up our Amway penance: pretend business owners losing real money.

Amway Business License

I hadn’t gone to an Amway meeting in a long time, but one night after his prospect no showed I agreed to accompany Ambot to listen to the boring Emerald spew out some bullshit.

It had been at least 5 months since I’d last listened to this guy. He surprised me when he talked about the start up costs and said it costs $150 for the Amway business license.

Huh? That’s a first. Is that what they're calling it now? I’ve always understood a business license to be purchased from city hall where one’s company is doing business. It was clear the Emerald was talking about the Amway start up fee/registration because he mentioned the value of the Amway sample pack that new IBO’s receive after paying their $150 Amway Business License is about half that amount in Amway products.

The change from Amway Starter Kit to Amway Business License must have come down from some Diamond upline of him in an effort to make “the business” sound more legitimate. I doubt boring old Emerald thought this one up all on his own. One person in the audience asked about this Amway business license, if that meant they could do business in their city without going to city hall to purchase a business license.

Fortunately the Emerald did say that IBO’s would have to check with their city for guidelines about business licenses to find out whether or not it was required where they lived.

Probably the only decent business advice I’ve ever heard given out at an Amway meeting.

Childish Behavior

A lot of the problem with our Amway upline was that most of them were half our age and quite immature. The bigger problem was the old “duplicate your upline” bullshit that was forced down our throats. Ultimately Ambot would lower himself to his upline’s childish behavior.

One night we were at a function for an Amway product line that was held in a banquet room of a hotel. Everyone was seated at round tables, about 8 to 10 people per table. Half the people at the table had to turn their chairs around in order to face the stage to see what was going on. Each table held a bowl of candy. Here’s where the trouble began. Some of the boys decided it would be fun to throw candy at another boy who had his back to his because his chair was turned to the speakers on stage.

I was not happy when Ambot, duplicating his upline, picked up pieces of candy and started tossing them at the fellow’s head. I told him to knock off his childish behavior. He didn’t. Neither did the rest of the children at the table until the candy bowl was empty.

Another time we were at a rally. When it was over our Platinum sack of shit held a meeting out in the lobby for all his downline. Mostly it was to tell everyone to purchase more products, get their PV up because one of the couples was close to going Platinum and it was our duty to buy more products and help them reach their goal.

So while the Platinum is scolding the group to buy more Amway shit, Ambot decides it would be a good idea to unzip and untie the backpack of the boy standing in front of us. I think he was trying to remove the kid's laptop thinking it would be a big joke. Again, childish behavior and I asked Ambot to stop it.

I do remember in the middle of his childish behavior he stood there and told the Platinum that we were going to do 2500 in PV that month to help that upline couple go into Platinum qualification. We weren’t even close. Thank god his credit card must have been at the limit or Ambot would have easily bought $10,000 in Amway junk just to impress his upline.

I don’t remember how soon after this but in late November Ambot was summoned to a meeting by the eagle that sponsored the arrogant prick who sponsored Ambot. The arrogant prick was there and I’m sure the only reason I’d gone along too was because we were going to a restaurant and I was hungry for dinner. I’m pretty sure the Platinum sack of shit must have told the eagle to call this “business meeting”. Ambot recorded the meeting and titled it “Jackass on Behavior”.

Yep, this jackass eagle who is half Ambot’s age is admonishing him about his childish behavior. Even though I agreed with him that Ambot’s behavior had sunk to that of a 10 year old boy since becoming an Amway “business owner”, it was not his place to do so. That job belongs to me. Second, said jackass was the ringleader at the candy throwing function and he tossed the first piece and then others at the table duplicated his actions.

Not only did Ambot record this he took notes! So there he is dutifully writing down stuff like “Don’t bug Harry.”

And then Jackass goes on about how he wants me to spend more time with the arrogant prick’s wife. Yeah, I’ll get right on that.

Notice she didn’t show up for the "meeting". Lucky her.

Tax Deductions!

Our upline told us that everything to do with “the business” is tax deductible. 

Our upline even said our dog food is tax deductible because our dog guards the house where we have Amway meetings.

We were told that all Amway products we buy are tax deductible. I seriously doubted that and so did our accountant whose services we use for our legitimate business. The upline made it sound like anything and everything about Amway products and tools is tax deductible and we’ll get our money back in the form of tax refunds and therefore its all free. 

For some people this makes it easier to keep shelling out money if they’re given the hope that it will all be returned at the end of the year in the way of a tax refund. To hear upline tell it, this business, if nothing else, is a great tax shelter.

Uncle Sam might disagree.

This is a good example of why its not a good idea to take everything the upline says as gospel truth especially in areas that aren’t of their expertise. A person working a J.O.B. as an unskilled laborer or slinging burgers at McDonald’s while walking the Amway path to financial freedom is probably not the best expert on what is and what is not a legitimate tax deduction especially if they've never hired the services of an accountant.

Fortunately Ambot took the counsel of our knowledgeable, experienced accountant instead of his upline when it came to acceptable tax deductions.

As our accountant tells it to us - save all receipts except for the grocery bills and she can write them off. That would disqualify anything edible/consumable that Amway sells as a tax write off.

That was contradictory advice from our upline. They told us to buy Amway drinks and food bars and vitamins because they have high PV/BV.

The same items our accountant tells us that we can not claim on our tax return because they fall under the grocery category.

Use your own judgement on this one. Fortunately Ambot did. Our upline were a bunch of scammers and liars as they shoved the Amway business opportunity down everyone's throats. I disregarded everything they said anyway and am sure glad I didn't listen to them try to scam us about legitimate tax deductions.

Amway Dog Food

Today I’m going to do an impression of our sack of shit Platinum and go off on an unrelated rant. Unlike him it won’t take half an hour.

I’m going to rant about the shitty Amway dog food. It costs approximately the same as any high end dog food out there. Whether or not it has the same high quality ingredients as other dog food companies I can’t say because I haven’t recently compared. I will say the one time we bought a bag of Amway’s brand dog food that I’ve never seen so much dog shit in my life! I’m the one who usually walks the dogs. I’m more into fitness than Ambot and I walk everywhere and those dogs give me an excuse to get out of the house every couple of hours. I take the dogs out for a walk first thing in the morning. I’ll usually get one shit out of each of them. After we switched them to Amway dog food the morning walk consisted of 4 to 6 shits! Luckily I stuff lots of baggies into my pockets! These dogs were easily shitting 10 times each by the last walk of the night and huge baggy filling ones at that! I'd get home and flush them one at a time and the next thing you'd know the toilet was clogged and the bowl nearly overflowing. The Amway dog food made me very proficient at using a toilet plunger! But I confess. If Ambot was home and the water was rising in the toilet, I'd turn the water off and start screaming that the big shits had plugged the toilet again and make him unclog it. 

Ambot tried to put the Amway dog food onto his next order. I told him if he wanted to keep buying the shitty Amway dog food that he would now be taking over full time walking the dogs and cleaning up after them - a task he doesn’t like. I suggested he find someone in his upline to take over the clean up duty if they wanted us to buy Amway dog food. I got no takers. Imagine that! 

I was able to put the dogs back onto the high quality, low stool dog food that they’ve enjoyed in the past.

This drastically reduced the money I was spending on baggies.

This also drastically reduced the number of clogged toilets.

Residual Income

So why did Ambot really get involved with Amway?  

Bottom line is he was brainwashed. He believed the lies he was told by his sponsor and upline. He liked these people and wanted to impress them, dropped out when the money wasn’t there, and got involved in Amway again a few years later. The second time was the dangerous time with the cult in full swing.

I think the lie Ambot liked the most was the one about residual income for life. Work hard at Amway for two to five years and then spend the rest of your life collecting residual income and never work again. Walk the beaches of the world with your upline who also are collecting their lifetime residual income. The money will just keep coming in after the IBO has put in the required two to five years investment in Amway.

Sounds nice. Looks good on paper. Unrealistic unfortunately.

Every Platinum, Emerald, and Diamond that I’ve seen claims they’re earning big bucks, at least $100,000/year. But why are they still working J.O.B.’s and putting in tons of hours speaking at Amway meetings? Motivating (threatening) IBO’s so they don’t quit. If the upline stopped speaking at meetings, their downline would forget about them, drift away, lose interest, and quit.

There are other ways to earn residual income and keep money coming in that have nothing to do with Amway. Here are a few I like:

1. write bestselling novels and live off the royalties

2. invent something like a Chia pet and sell the rights to it

3. buy real estate and rent out the houses or office buildings

4. save and invest your money and live off the interest

There are other ways to acquire residual income, some requiring more effort than others, those samples are the ones that appeal to me.

Amway requires lots of effort and yields residual income to only a tiny percentage - less than 1%. Probably even less than 1% of 1%. Can anyone actually name one person - other than the families of the Amway founders - who do nothing in the Amway business, have stepped off the stage and never show the plan, just do whatever they want, and have lots of money rolling in to fund their lavish lifestyle?

Ambot is working on accomplishing some of my residual income suggestions. If he invests just a fraction of the time invested and effort at trying to build an Amway business, he’ll find a lifetime residual income from a more honest venture.

Ambot wanted to Succeed

My husband wanted to succeed at this Amway business, even though the odds - with a 99% failure rate - were stacked against him that he wouldn't. More than becoming financially secure, success in Amway would mean basking in the bliss from the cult leaders that he adored so much.

All over the Internet are blogs and forums from former Amway IBO’s who say much of the same thing. They worked hard and put a lot of time and effort into building an Amway business and it didn’t pan out. Also on the Internet you will see plenty of posts from current IBO’s who parrot their upline and said the reason these people didn’t sponsor anyone is because they didn’t work hard enough or didn’t put in the effort.

Sure there are IBO’s out there who signed up due to pressure from friends or family. They paid their $150, got their start up kit, and that was the extent of their Amway involvement. Those people probably had no intention of putting in any work, just wanted to help out the person who hounded them into signing up.

I’d say my Ambot worked hard and put in plenty of effort to build an Amway business. He spent hours glued to the computer taking the Amway university program. He spent hours studying the Amway literature and product magazines. He memorized everything and could answer questions about the plan or products and knew as much or more than his upline. He spent hours listening to tapes and reading books that his upline pressured him to buy. He spent many hours each week hounding prospects to come to meetings. He went to every Amway meeting, rally, seminar, and major function. Those meetings ate up at least 50 hours a month and if a major function out of state for the weekend was in there, easily over 100 hours a month attending Amway meetings including travelling to them.

Let’s not forget the hours each week he spent talking on the phone and dealing with the endless text messages with the upline.

Ambot easily doubled, if not tripled, Amway’s estimate of 10 to 15 hours per week once all the meetings, listening to tapes, and studying Amway is added up.

Ambot put in plenty of time and effort and his upline still rode his ass accusing him of not working hard enough. He was told the reason he wasn’t succeeding at the Amway business was because he was lazy and not trying hard enough.

Let’s see. Someone investing at least 100 hours a month into any project is not a lazy person. They are on a mission and determined to succeed and accomplish their goal even when the odds are stacked against them, like Amway’s success rate is a fraction of less than 1%.

What kind of motivation techniques is the upline using accusing people of being lazy, not trying, not working hard enough? This is clearly more than my Ambot’s upline because so many former IBO’s have the same story that their upline (not related to ours) said the exact same thing.

There are better ways to motivate people.

Oh I forget. Upline is not there to motivate. They are there to brainwash. Like the good cult leaders they have been trained to be, they scold, they mock, they punish, they blame. Even more than wanting to succeed at an Amway business, the followers want to please their leader. They try harder, they put in more effort. They are scolded and belittled time after time when they don’t get results, specifically sponsoring new IBO’s.

Fortunately, many IBO’s get tired of this degrading treatment and quit “the business”. Sadly, usually not before some major financial and emotional damage has been done.

Whose advice to take - an expert or the upline?

Further to my last post about “counselling with upline”.

As people gain life experience they learn to sort through good and bad advice, take what works for them and reject the rest. Counselling with qualified financial advisors or other professionals can be smart for your business and personal life.

A lot of people have similar goals: get out of debt, put money in the bank, buy a house, make wise investments, and retire comfortably not worrying about finances. Those are basics. Some people will have different financial goals, perhaps buying a motorcycle or a jet plane or starting their own charitable foundation.

There are many paths to reach the finish line. Throughout the years I have asked for and taken advice from persons more experienced than I am. Some of the advice works, others not so good. When asked I have even offered advice. Never on the stock market! Sometimes on the ponies at the racetrack!

Prior to getting involved in Amway, Ambot was debt free. Pulling off moves he hoped to impress his upline, he started to charge, charge, charge all these crummy Amway products. Crap that we never had purchased before. We rarely buy bottled water. Now Ambot was buying it by multiple case loads costing ten times more than water at the grocery store. Did the water taste any better? Nope. Water is water. It didn’t taste gross, neither does the water we buy at the grocery. Vitamins up the ying yang. We eat a fairly healthy diet, lots of produce, we never needed vitamins before. And on and on it went. And up and up went his credit card bill.

I’ve read several books from financial experts and one of my current favorites is author David Bach. He writes The Automatic Millionaire and the Finish Rich series. I highly recommend his books.

One day Ambot and I were out for a drive. He was at the wheel of my car. He’s telling me his upline Emerald said to take out a home equity line of credit to pay off the credit card. I told him David Bach recommends finding a zero interest or low interest credit card and transferring the credit card debt to that one card. Ambot was outraged that I dare suggest something different than what upline counselled. He floored the accelerator and we flew along going about double the 40mph speed limit with me screaming at him to slow down. He was going so fast that an apple I had in the shopping bag in the back seat flew out and exploded on the back window.

I’m happy to say we never took out the home equity LOC so he could pay off his credit card. I knew as soon as he paid it down he would start charging Amway shit on it again.

The fact that he got so outraged that a financial expert could come up with a different plan than his beloved Emerald is mind boggling. The control those cult leaders have on their flock is frightening and horrific.

Counsel with Upline

Platinums, Emeralds, and Diamonds would always tell their flock to counsel with upline. Learn from your upline. Follow their teachings. Be like your upline.

My Ambot and occasionally myself had to put up with being “counselled” by upline.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I would say to the Ambot. “What credentials do these kids have to be counsellors.”

“They’re our upline,” he would parrot back to me.

I guess the subliminal message was that we should put them up on a pedestal and worship them. Not going to happen as far as I’m concerned. I’ve known our sponsor for many years, never liked him. Irresponsible and unreliable are his best attributes and it goes downhill from there. I can’t tell you how much I aspire to be like him. Always behind on the rent, being threatened with eviction, having the phone cut off, debt collectors phoning constantly, cars always breaking down. Yeah, I want to be like my upline!

OK lets see. Us. We’ve been running a business for many years and doing quite well. We own our own house, not our first home either. We’ve purchased up as our finances have allowed. We own nice vehicles, not brand new, but fairly recent models. We have investments. We have a good lifestyle with our hobbies, travelling, and people in our lives.

Them. The “upline to counsel with”. Twenty to thirty years younger than us. Working jobs like janitor, coffee shop cashier, carpenter, salesperson. All decent enough jobs if you’re earning an honest living. No savings. Lots of debt. Renters. Drive clunker vehicles.

Hmm. Who should be taking advice from whom here?

But Ambot was dead serious. “I must counsel with upline.”

And off he’d go to gather whatever learned advice he could from these morons.

We’ve all been young, had to save up to buy our first home, had cars that broke down at inconvenient times, and most of us have held dead end jobs that don’t bring in nearly enough income. We all have to start out somewhere and it takes time to save and reach a comfortable stage in our lives.

I sure didn’t pass myself off as any type of counsellor when I was that age.

“Counsel with upline” when upline doesn’t have a clue and doesn’t have life experience. Bad idea.

Here’s a good idea for the kids who insist their downline counsel with them. Buy errors and omissions insurance. Give someone the wrong advice during a counselling session and risk getting your ass sued off.

Its a wise business decision anyway to have this type of insurance no matter what your career is. Funny I don’t seem to recall anyone upline recommending to IBO’s to cover your ass and purchase proper business insurance.

What happens at an Amway meeting

Other lines of sponsorship will have different experiences but for the Amway meetings our cult leader held they usually started around 8pm, once or twice a week. Either at his house or at another IBO's house, usually someone in our direct line, though occasionally crossline.

Meetings started at 8pm but the Platinum told everyone that serious business builders arrived at least an hour early, therefore my ambot had us arriving closer to 7pm.

Prior to the main event meeting, the Platinum usually held private meetings with IBO's at a coffee shop where he'd go over there budget, their phone list, or just generally ride their asses about how they could be doing better in "the business".

He'd expect one of the downline to purchase his refreshments and then drive him to the Amway meeting. However if they arrived at the house and no one of at least 1000 pin level was standing on the street to greet him, he'd make the driver circle the block a few times until someone who appreciated him showed up on the street.

So 8ish start. There are usually 10 to 15 of the same IBO's at each meeting. Occasionally someone has hijacked a prospect to attend. The Platinum spends an hour talking about himself and his life - like I've said he's a pompous sack of shit who loves the sound of his own voice.

An hour in he'd mention what he does for a business but mostly a bunch of double talk for a good 15 minutes to half an hour because he gets distracted and goes off in a tangent. After the double talk he'll finally mention the dreaded "A" word. He'll start using flash cards to present the Amway business plan. Basically eat, drink, and duplicate. Find enough people who do this and you'll be earning $300,000 a year.

This drags on for around 3 hours because he keeps getting sidetracked and goes off on various rants usually something negative that's happening in the news. The sack of shit loves spreading negativity thinking he can scare his ambots into compliance.

Its now 11pm and I'd like to be at home, anywhere but listening to this sack of shit.

But it ain't over yet! The "teaching" now begins after a short break so any guests or anyone who's not a serious business builder can go home. If I can convince someone to give Ambot a ride home, I am outta there!

Unfortunately I've stayed for more than my share of "teachings". These meetings last another hour or two. Very typical for Amway cult meetings to last well past Midnight. The more tired the cult followers are the easier to brainwash their minds. Usually now is when he rips into people about what changes they're going to make in their lives. The sack of shit will criticize the way people dress, the car they drive, their haircut, the people they hang out with, etc. Mostly he criticizes the group for not sponsoring anyone or bringing prospects to meetings. He'll talk about the movers and shakers in his downline and sing their praises for the rest of the meeting gabbing on about how those are the people going Platinum, going Diamond. (Not so far!)

No teaching, lots of rants. That pretty much sums up the Amway meetings the Ambot dragged me along to.

Phone calls and text messages at all hours

When it comes to phone calls, barring any emergencies, I think phoning between 9am and 9pm is reasonable.

I know when our phone rings at 10pm or 11pm or later that my heart leaps up my throat. Elderly parents, you can't help but think the worst.

After my husband got involved in Amway his sponsor and upline felt it was OK to phone and text whenever they wanted. It freaked me out when his phone rang after we'd gone to bed or hearing a chime indicating a text message. And it would bug the shit out of me that he felt he had to be a good Ambot and pick up the phone or immediately type back a text message. And then it would go on. A few minutes later the text would chime again. And again. And again.

Ir would piss me off and I'd tell him to ignore it. The problem is if he didn't respond within a minute to a text, one of those upline bastards would phone and ask him if he got the text.

Ambot had pre-purchased a $25 ticket to an Artistry seminar. The night he was supposed to go he realized he was double booked and had another function he had to attend because he's on the board of directors and there was a huge membership vote that night. He phoned some jerk in his upline to tell him. I don't think that jerk really cared one way or another because he wasn't planning to attend the Artistry seminar either. I have no idea if he advised anyone upline of him and so on and so on.

We returned from the meeting and went to bed. I'd turned on the late news at 11pm and we were still awake when the phone rang at 11:30pm. I nearly went through the roof. Visions of car crashes and hospital emergency rooms rushed through my head.

It was the wife of the 4000 pin upline couple who's phoning the Ambot to scold him for not attending the Artistry meeting.

I mean fuck you for phoning at that late hour just to bitch him out. That call couldn't have waited until the next day? Why even phone at all? Adults can make their own decisions. Ambot should have asked her if he could get a refund of his $25 for the unused ticket.

Let's go back to the list of 5 things in order of importance to an IBO: God, spouse, family, work, Amway. I guess I could loosely classify the meeting Ambot went to that night as work related because he did receive a small stipend for attending meetings. Amway is last on the list.

So what are you phoning to scold him about, bitch????

Still haven't made Platinum yet after 20 years? Woo hoo! You go girl! Alienate your downline and make them quit because of your dumb ass late night scoldings. Way to motivate your downline!

J.O.B.

"Your job is spelled J.O.B. and that stands for Just Over Broke and that's all you'll ever be as long as you're working for someone else instead of yourself."

That was the mantra at every Amway meeting.

The Platinum sack of shit would put people down who held jobs. Nevermind that he'd been working for someone else at a paid job for 20 years.

We were also told J.O.B. was a 4 letter word. Hmmm. Someone flunked out of math class on that one. I see 3 letters. What's so bad about 4 letter words. I use many of them to describe our former upline!

The Platinum constantly put people down who held jobs and worked for someone else, helping their employer's dreams come true.

People in WWDB must be the unhappiest employees around. They're taught at Amway meetings to hate their jobs and to do whatever it takes to become free.

But what about people who already own their own companies, making decent money, and choosing their hours. By the time the arrogant prick who'd been my husband's friend for many years came around hounding him to come to meetings, my Ambot had owned his business for many years easily pulling in 6 figures.

Believe it or not the Platinum sack of shit looked down on self employed business owners. It was implausible to him that people could actually be successful business owners if they owned a business that had nothing to do with selling Amway products.

Amway or other businesses, not everyone is capable of being a business owner. Though in Amway even though they tout themselves as Independent Business Owners, they are actually commissioned salespeople. Some people will never be a business owner, Amway or otherwise. Its a different mentality and not everyone has it. Not everyone is disciplined enough to be the boss and run their own business.

Why put people down? Whether they work a J.O.B. because that's all they're capable of doing is no reason to sneer at them. But that's what the cult leaders do. They tell you if you have a J.O.B. you're a loser. You're making someone else rich. Oh well, that's their opinion. There are countless people with J.O.B.s who make a lot of money and have big houses, fancy cars, money in the bank, and go on great vacations.

But pushing people to hate their J.O.B.s and be free of their J.O.B.s leads to a lot of unhappy cult followers. Some will quit their J.O.B. and end up on government assistance and others will get shown the door because their attitude sucks.

Don't quit your J.O.B. You need the money to pay for the Amway shit.

And don't think that Amway is the only business opportunity out there. Go to the library and check out books on business ideas and running your own business. Explore other options. Amway isn't the only solution. There are much better self employment opportunities out there if you're considering leaving your J.O.B.