Thanks to one of our readers for sharing their story about getting sucked into Amway by someone they trusted:
I was a young guy (22) when my
cousin signed me up in Amway. In those days there was no "starter
kit," and I don't think there even was an entry fee. All you had to do was
agree to be a distributor, sell products, and try to recruit a down-line. There
also were no vicious, bloodsucking subsystems like WWDB or Network 21 or BWW.
There weren't even any "tools," except for a few tapes of DeVos and
Van Andel speaking at meetings. My cousin played one of them for me once, and I
was completely turned off by its vulgar, rah-rah enthusiasm. I didn't say
anything, but I could tell that my cousin was disappointed by my silence. I
think he too (deep down) realized that Amway was totally lacking in class.
I was unmarried, so I had no wife to advise me against the deal. Since Amway
back then involved practically no investment at all, my parents were
uninterested in the whole question, and assumed that it was just some
unimportant waste of time.
I absolutely refused to try and sell Amway products to friends and relatives.
The entire idea seemed distasteful and cheesy to me. I didn't want to bother my
aunts and uncles for "pity" purchases! Instead I did my best to flog
the products to the auto dealers in our neighborhood, and I did manage to sell
a number of cleansers, polishers, and similar items. The amount of money I made
was trivial.
I never signed up anyone. In fact, my cousin never even mentioned to me the
business of making a huge list of friends, acquaintances, and relatives to
call. Perhaps this wasn't part of the Amway shpiel back then.
Only once did my cousin try to sign up some people whom I had recommended as
possible recruits. They were two of my old college buddies. He and I went over
to the house of one of them, where several guys were gathered for a few beers
and TV sports watching. We were all just young college guys, having a typical
male night together.
My cousin gave the typical Amway song and dance for about two hours, with the
usual circles and lines drawn on paper. The two guys he was trying to recruit
listened patiently, and asked several intelligent questions. My cousin answered
as well as he could, and tried as hard as he could to put the Amway
"plan" in the best possible light.
Then he made his big mistake. He brought out some printed Amway literature and
showed it to them. Most of the stuff was just printed facts and figures, but
one was a large fold-out pamphlet with photos of Amway couples from all over
the country.
My two friends immediately seized upon this pamphlet. They looked at it incredulously.
Then one of them said "Are THESE the kind of people who are in
Amway?" When my cousin said "Yes, these are Amway distributors!"
the guy replied "THESE jerks? These people are totally uncool SQUARES!
Look at them! They look like George-and-Martha from Rat's Ass, Kansas!"
I couldn't help breaking out into laughter, for I had thought the exact same
thing when I had looked at that pamphlet earlier. The Amway couples did indeed
look like small-town dopes.
My cousin was infuriated, and said "Don't join Amway! You don't belong in
this wonderful organization! You have a completely wrong attitude!" But at
that point he must have realized that Amway was not going to appeal to anybody
there, and he asked me if we could leave.
That was the beginning of the end for me. I just couldn't take Amway seriously
anymore. What really generated my continuing rage at Amway is how it estranged
me from my cousin for many years, and brought about the dissolution of some
very strong friendships that he and I had in common with others.
Anna, I'm the one who posted that story several years ago. Let me expand a bit about how this Amway escapade with my cousin had some bad outcomes.
ReplyDeleteHe and I did become alienated, since it was clear after this meeting with the guys that I too did not take the business as seriously as he did. Our very close friendship slowly disintegrated. And it happened not merely because we disagreed about Amway, but even more important, because he had LOST ALL INTEREST in the things that we had in the past enjoyed together. Let me explain.
We had enjoyed traveling together in Europe. We enjoyed going to fine restaurants and having excellent food. We enjoyed talking about poetry, and the French language. We enjoyed collecting rare books. We enjoyed trips to art galleries and museums. We had a network of good friends, both male and female, whom we visited frequently and went to films and plays with. It was an amazingly rich and wonderfully interesting life, especially because we were all so young.
All of this ended when my cousin joined Amway. He simply wasn't interested in any of it anymore. He insulted and offended many of our mutual friends by trying to insinuate the Amway garbage into everything he said, and by showing contempt for the cultural activities that we had all previously enjoyed. He didn't want to go to films and plays, he had no interest in art or music, he forgot all his French, and he didn't really care that our mutual friends were basically writing him off as a dim-witted loser. All he cared about was that fucking Amway scam.
I was appalled and angered by all of this. Since he and I were cousins, our mutual friends started to write me off as well, figuring that he and I were joined at the hip in the stupid Amway racket. I felt humiliated and cheated. And I developed a fierce hatred of Amway that has lasted for decades.
Eventually my cousin and I reconciled, but it took years. He of course dropped out of Amway, but the entire thing had a bad effect on his work life. He became a sucker for anything that promised "residual income," or "getting in on the ground floor." He lost plenty of money in these stupid schemes, simply because Amway had planted the poisonous seed in his mind of "getting rich" by dedicating yourself to some half-assed scheme. He is now poor, and lives on Social Security and small wages from a job with a large food-store chain.
As for me, my hatred of Amway grew and grew until I finally found Anna Banana's blog. And I swore that I would rip Amway a new asshole every time I posted a comment here, and that I would tell the real-life truth about this rotten, evil, destructive scheme. And through Anna Banana I found other blogs that were anti-Amway or generally anti-MLM. But this blog is the very best, because it has the fiery hatred and rage that will eventually destroy Amway, and it gives real-life examples of what Amway has done to human beings.
God bless Anna Banana. And may God damn Amway to the lowest pit of hell.
Hi Anonymous. Thanks for providing the original story! And the follow up! Your story is the same of all of us who watch someone close to us get sucked into Amway. Like all cults, Amway works on getting their followers to become alienated from friends and family who could be the voice of reason and get them to understand their throwing their money away on a pyramid scheme.
DeleteAnd all Amway cult followers have no outside interests. Their lives revolve around Amway, Amway products, other Amway cult followers, and the pursuit of getting rich quick in a stupid pyramid scheme that only ends up destroying their lives.
Yes this blog was created back in the days when all the bloggers talking about their Amway experience were men. Nothing wrong with that but here we bring a different perspective. And we ain't shy about cursing out Amway and Amway losers as we get the truth out there that Amway only brings emotional and financial distress to the lives it abuses.