Monday, September 22, 2014

In Amway Only Money Matters


A reader shares their story and some wise advice.

I was involved in Amway from May 2012 to March 2013. A friend invited me along to a monthly seminar and while I was overwhelmed with the terrible pop music, in-time clapping, positivity overload and promises of achieving my “dreams” and “goals”. Naively, I assumed my friend invited me for my benefit so I signed up that night.


I played ball for a few months (because I still had a shred of optimism), attended most of the functions (including three weekend conventions), bought stuff from the website, listened to the CDs and even hosted a house/launch party. I got put into a good team of normal people who all seemed supportive.


While some of friends knew it was a scam, I ignored them. Heading towards Christmas, reality finally hit. I lost my job momentarily in November and was limping by on my now meagre savings (thanks to all the money I’d spent on Amway). I was forced to look at the most important things to survive - pay rent and buy food – rather than wasting my time with Amway. Because of this reality check, I started to see through the feelgood bullshit of Amway. While they sell you on reaching your “dreams” and “goals”, the harsh reality is most of the money goes to the big guns: the Diamonds, the Oblongs, the Rectangles etc. Most of those who make it already have oodles of money and saving and don’t need Amway, they’re just being greedy.


Those who are students, low-income earners or who don’t have a secure income, Amway can be potentially damaging, spending money you don’t have on something you don’t need. In my time in Amway, I estimated I spent over $2,000 on various stuff and made less than $100. While I found the online shopping part convenient, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to go down to your local supermarket and buy what you need. While I got my job back in late November, I immediately lost interest after the October conference (as I had to rebuild financially), I took until March to fully quit, mainly because my friend – who was now my “upline” – was away overseas and if I was going to quit, I wanted to do it face-to-face. In the ensuing months, I completely stopped activity: no more CDs, no more shopping, no more functions (I was always able to find a convenient excuse). When the March convention came around, I was upfront with my friend and he was fine with it. I left the convention on the Saturday afternoon and didn’t look back. It was a relief.


Looking back, Amway has had a negative effect on me emotionally. All the feelgood crap, false hope and focus on materialism made me cynical and bitter. Anytime people mention their “dreams” and “goals”, I roll my eyes dramatically. I’m nowhere near as optimistic about life as I was before I joined Amway. The worst part was, had I not been involved with Amway, my brief time out of work would have been more comfortable financially. Like most ‘get rich quick’ schemes, it relies on trickery and lots of materialistic, shallow rubbish. It’s basically saying “money is the only thing that matters.” I call shenanigans. Yes, money is great for peace of mind, but it doesn’t make you happy. If you want financial security, work hard, invest wisely and spend sensibly.

 

 

38 comments:

  1. Someone should show up to a Amway meeting wearing a hells angel jacket. Say to the sponsor and leader. If the tools,function etc is a scam. I'm coming after you two lol. Tell them you're just let out of jail.

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    1. Ha ha! That would be a good one. For further emphasis bring a couple of 300 pounders wearing Hell's Angels jackets and blasting out everyone's eardrums showing up on their bikes. And they should stand there with their arms crossed scowling at the cult leader running the Amway meeting and cursing him out.

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  2. Notice Amway has cheaper sign ups than before. Cost 67.00 for literature and 83.00 for product only. Need to make a correction to a earlier post. Cause that jackass ibofb will say we critics are off with our numbers. So its definitely cheaper signing up directly with Amway than with a cult system. But for 67.00 for literature portion its still a ripoff.

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    1. It doesn't matter what price we throw out we're probably within $100 one way or the other. Amway lovers will bitch about anything because that's what their life is all about so lets send out a big old FUCK YOU to every fucking Amway asshole out there!

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  3. Hey there,

    I thought I'd pose this question to you or anyone who reads this blog that might know the answer. I'm sure you and many readers on this blog remember the Dateline expose on Amway/Quixtar from about ten years ago. It was entertaining then, and while none of it was all that surprising, everything said in that Dateline episode would still be valid points today. The episode started out by focusing on one direct level (I assume he was direct, otherwise he wouldn't be conducting a recruitment meeting) name Greg Fredericks in New Jersey. He claimed at the meeting, to an undercover Dateline reporter, he was making $250,000 a year doing Amway (without a lot of other details), and claiming that anyone else could be doing just as well as him too by working at the business a few hours a week, within a few years. He looked and sounded about as sleazy as they come, and also mentioned that higher level distributors probably make about 75% of their income from selling the tapes, function tickets, etc. All of this was said on a hidden camera. But when the undercover Dateline reporter revealed to him that his statements were being taped and a story about Amway was being done for television, he suddenly became very tight-lipped and wasn't very talkative anymore. Supposedly after the episode aired Amway terminated the guy's distributorship, but that's about all I found out about him. Anyone know what LOA he was associated with, what happened to him and where he is today? I've looked all over and couldn't really find anything. Supposedly there is someone with the same name that is a car salesman in northern New Jersey (sounds about right for a sleazy person like him) but I'm not sure it's him.

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    1. Charles, in the dateline episode I see bill britt and some other britt diamonds and they where going to north carolina. So just a guess he's in bww loa

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    2. Charles - links to that Dateline episode are up a bit on the right side of this page. I'd never heard of him before or after that. Amway can fire their commissioned salespeople at any time for any reason and I'm sure he must have violated many of their terms of conduct over the years before he got caught on camera. I'm not positive but I think he was in whatever cult sect Dexter Yager runs. Maybe someone else here will know for sure. Saying the real money to be earned in Amway comes from selling tools was probably the only honest thing he's ever said the whole time in Amway!

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    3. The function in the Dateline show was BWW. Fredericks was allegedly booted out of Amway but I'm not sure it was because of the Dateline show. After the show, Amway posted some BS non responses.

      IBOFB tried to make a weak defense that Dateline had sensationalized a segment about Chevrolet and the Amway critics asked him to prove that the segment about Amway (Quixtar) was rigged and that shut him up.

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    4. I know this guy. He was in the Britt organization. His brother was an emerald and was just as much of a dick. Funny you mention sleazeball, he used to be a car salesman and his claim to fame was he played for the NY Jets on special teams. We got into an argument at a diner once and he got pissed, threatened me with a baseball bat then said "but I won't because I'm on probation and don't want to go to jail." Oh, I have a million stories of this guy. I quit long before the Dateline show so I don't know what eventually happened to him. He's probably out there, somewhere, trying to scam someone else some other way.

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  4. I suspect the system like Charles says was at one time 75% or higher of a diamonds income. But since people like Anna & joecool appeared its been cut to only 50%. Read on a site Greg Duncan made half of his income from tools in a bankruptcy case. Amway helped out in the lost tool income. By jacking up prices so we see 65.00 vitamin c from Amway lol.

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    1. I don't know if it was 50% or 75%, no idea. It was that guy Greg Fredericks who said it in the Dateline hidden camera shows. In any case, I wonder where he is now and if he was stripped of his entire Amway business, AND if he had to respond to an outstanding warrant for his arrest in another state that was mentioned on the show.

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    2. Anonymous - if we can do our part and get the truth out there what our lives were like when we were in the Amway cult and the money loss and the emotional distress the Amway cult leaders put us under, and help someone make the right decision to stay away from the Amway evil, then its all worth it. Its not just us. With the Internet so many people can get their stories out there of the devastation Amway brought to them that people can decide to stay away. Some people go to an Amway meeting, get all worked up by the rah rah and love bombing and sign up. Then they come, check it on the Internet, land here, and say holy shit what did I get myself into. And then they quit right away. I don't know if there's any drop in the income of the Amway cult leaders from their tool scam but I hope so.

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    3. Charles - the Amway cult leaders are crooks and they should go to the jail. And some of them have, though not necessarily due to Amway, they've gotten greedy and devised their own Ponzi schemes or other scams they do at the same time as the Amway scam. No idea what the warrant for his arrest was for, don't remember that but I haven't watched that in a few years. Some warrants aren't worth the other state's trouble to arrest and return.

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    4. The Dateline story said it was for crack cocaine possession in North Carolina (not related to Amway obviously).

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    5. Charles, Amway can terminate but people like federicks will just go to monavie. There's not much loyalty in this scam.

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    6. The ratio of Amway income to tool income has various factors. If the diamond is not really qualified, they might make a lot more from tools as their Amway income might be small.

      When Greg Duncan filed bankruptcy. the records showed he made 500K from Amway and 500K from tools. A very good income but you'd think a triple diamond would make more than that. But even a million dollar income doesn't support a cash lifestyle of several mansions, jets and a fleet of sports cars. That's likely why Duncan was broke and could not even pay his taxes. I'll bet many diamonds are in debt and are living check to check.

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    7. I agree Anonymous. Just about everyone in our former Amway upline defected to Monavie and I got an email from our sack of shit Platinum ranting about what a shitty company Amway is and Monavie is the best and the best compensation plan around and rah rah rah. No loyalty in this scam.

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    8. Thanks Joe. That 500k from the tools sounds a little on the low side. Either way you can't be living the lifestyle of say Paris Hilton on a million dollar income. But he's hardly the only Diamond or Amway ambot out there to be pretending he's richer than he is and going into debt to support that pretend Amway business owner lifestyle.

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    9. That's 500k from tools before the bankruptcy story hit the net. I read his downline platinums Facebook page recently. Saying we have a special treat. Greg Duncan who hardly speaks at functions anymore is finally speaking at one again. They get less request for speaking when the bad news hit the internet and affects their tool income. Look at dean kosage of wwdb when it's reported he was abusing his ex wife. Dean was forced to sell his downline. Greg will be lucky to still receive 300k of tools after the bankruptcy story.

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    10. Anna, that's why puryear prefers to buy ritzy homes by the dirty river. Cause when you're only making 500k to a mil from tools. That's the only thing he can afford. One mil income doesn't afford you much of a pretend lifestyle lol

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    11. Anonymous - so Greg Duncan gets to speak at functions and tells the ambots how to declare bankruptcy? I'm sure many ambots figured out how to do that without his help! Kosage selling his downline. Sounds like a slavery kind of thing. Which Amway is of course the way the fucking assholes in the Amway upline treat the cult followers. I thought he started up his own cult sect?

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    12. On amway Wikipedia says kosage is exploring social media business opportunities. Guess its kosages way of saying he's a bum now on Facebook all day lol. Since he's forced to sell his group.

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  5. Anna, you had a post about how expensive amway vitamin c is a week or so ago. Checked the Amway site today and vitamin c price is up to 72.20 and double x is 95.00. Just glad I'm not a ibo or customer.

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    1. Anonymous - that's just incredible. I mean go out and buy a sack of oranges from the guy standing on the street for $10 or buy a gallon of juice the next time you're at the grocery store for a couple of bucks and get your vitamin C that way. And NOBODY needs Double X unless you're an Ambot trying to get the PV/BV up there to impress the assholes in your Amway upline.

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  6. My point with the vitamin c price increase from last week of 67.00. Often the Amway leaders talk about the frog in water. Slowly being cooked to death by turning up the water temp. With Amway they are slowly raising the prices. Till the stupid fucking ambots are paying to pay 100.00 for vitamin c.

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    1. Anonymous - figures Amway ambots are sadists that would boil a frog. Who comes up with that shit?

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  7. It'd be neat karma if an upline tells an downline to sell his car, house, or other possessions so he can continue feeding the uplines, then the upline himself loses his job. The downlline can recite the same garbage right back at him!

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    1. ackmondual - karma will get those Amway assholes one way or the other. Stick with the Amway scam long enough and they'll lose everything.

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    2. Ackmondual, actually it was very satisfying seeing my diamond go back to work. His downline shrunk down to barely anything. Thanks to people like joecool and Anna. Of course my sack of shit diamond has a fancy title at his job. Told me he's president of the company lol. I looked at the website and they have 3 other presidents. Friend told me they are all sales people with a fancy title. The ceo is the one running the place and they are selling precious metals and investments lol.

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    3. Anonymous - years ago I was with a friend who'd gotten hired on to help clean up a company after it had been purchased by another group. They had this huge office space about 30 miles from their warehouse and he was going through there to see if there was anything worth salvaging. Most of the staff worked at the warehouse, where there was also office space, and just about everyone who was at the office site was fired. It was a huge space with many offices though I think only 4 or 5 people - all men - worked there. My friend was saying look at the little empires they were building for themselves. One of the men drove the one ton truck delivering their product. His title was President of distribution. Maybe your ex-Diamond has hooked up in business with these boys.

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    4. I asked an ambot who was trying to prospect me after one of their introductory meetings. He responded "everyone is already set up, why would they want to leave"? Yeah, nothing new here, they really do have an answer for everything. Part of the fun if you still interact with these folks is having an answer to the answers... "because your downlines realize they can't keep this up for the long term, and I know I can't do the same thing because it makes no sense? If I can see it, so will they"

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    5. ackmondual - yeah they're all "set up" to be victims of Amway that is! I would say the longer an Ambot is inside the scam the harder it would be to leave, just in case success really is right around the corner. Because they've already invested thousands of dollars maybe tens of thousands. Could have bought a new house with that money instead of tithing the Great Amway God.

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  8. They do the same thing with "dreams" when they try to sign you on. When one amway person tried to sign me on, he told me to write my hopes, dreams, and goals onto a piece of paper. I was so disgusted by that request that I just called him out on that. "Really?". "Could we just skip this?". He bashfully put the paper away, and presented the form to sign. I can't believe I stuck out through all that crap thus far, but when he answered I'd have to pay now, I told him "nope", not comfortable committing money to this.

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    1. ackmondual - you got lucky. Usually insulting an Amway ambot doesn't make them back off. They're in Amway after all. They're used to being insulted and laughed at.

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    2. I'm sure at some point someone has taken the piece of paper when they say "I want you to write down your dreams" and scribbled on it and handed it back with it saying "My dream is to get as far away from this obvious scam and bullshit as possible. See ya!"

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    3. Anonymous - my dream was for my ambot husband to get the hell away from these fucking Amway assholes. So of course none of those bastards ever asked me what my dream was. It probably involved most of them dropping dead.

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    4. Anna, I'm sure many upline of your hubby. Told him to divorce you lol.

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    5. Anonymous - that's nothing new. Every woman who hits the Internet complaining about the Amway cult says the same thing about the assholes in their Amway upline ordering their husband to get divorced from their unsupportive unchristian dreamstealing wife.

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Comments are moderated but we publish just about everything. Even brainwashed ambots who show up here to accuse us of not trying hard enough and that we are lazy, quitters, negative, unchristian dreamstealers. Like we haven’t heard that Amspeak abuse from the assholes in our upline!

If your comment didn’t get published it could be one of these reasons:
1. Is it the weekend? We don’t moderate comments on weekends. Maybe not every day during the week either. Patience.
2. Racist/bigoted comments? Take that shit somewhere else.
3. Naming names? Public figures like politicians and actors and people known in Amway are probably OK – the owners, Diamonds with CDs or who speak at functions, people in Amway’s publicity department who write press releases and blogs. Its humiliating for people to admit their association with Amway so respect their privacy if they’re not out there telling everyone about the love of their life.
4. Gossip that serves no purpose. There are other places to dish about what Diamonds are having affairs or guessing why they’re getting divorced. If you absolutely must share that here – don’t name names. I get too many nosy ambots searching for this. Lets not help them find this shit.
5. Posting something creepy anonymously and we can’t track your location because you’re on a mobile device or using hide my ass or some other proxy. I attracted an obsessed fan and one of my blog administrators attracted a cyberstalker. Lets keep it safe for everyone. Anonymous is OK. Creepy anonymous and hiding – go fuck yourselves!
6. Posting something that serves no purpose other than to cause fighting.
7. Posting bullshit Amway propaganda. We might publish that comment to make fun of you. Otherwise take your agenda somewhere else. Not interested.
8. Notice how this blog is written in English? That's our language so keep your comments in English too. If you leave a comment written in another language then we either have to use Google translate to put it into English so everyone can understand what you wrote or we can hit the Delete button. Guess which one is easier for us to do?
9. We suspect you're a troublemaking Amway asshole.
10. Your comment got caught in the spam filter. Gets checked occasionally. We’ll get to you eventually and approve it as long as it really isn’t spam.