Here's a young lady who has a great grasp of the
Amway scam and how Amway is destroying her family. Also an incredible
grasp on English because I'm guessing its a 2nd language. This post just goes
to show why members of the Amway cult need to hand their children over to
protective services. Cult life is no place for a kid.
Hi, my name is Iva and I'm 16 years old (almost). I commented on your older
post and, after seeing your reply, decided to share my story here.
I ran into your blog a few days ago while browsing for anti-Amway sites in a
desperate attempt to find SOMETHING my mother would listen to and I found it
great. The fact you're trying to help people get out of Amway and your tips on
how to live with Ambots are awesome. :)
My Amway story started 14 years ago when my mother joined Amway along with my
uncle and his friend. They went on a "meeting" or something. My uncle
and his friend (who were 17-18 y/o back then) realised immediately it's a scam
and they gave up on it. But my mom didn't. She believed all that crap (sorry
'bout that, but honestly, it's crap) and started making phonecalls. To her
friend, acquaintances and everyone else. Nobody wanted to join it, not even her
closest friends. (This is a good time for me to mention that she was a very
sociable person and had a wide range of friends.)
Nevertheless, she continued buying tapes, CDs, motivational books and other
Amway products. She regurarly attended meetings all around Croatia and, a
couple of times, even nearby Slovenia.
She met other Ambots there and became friends with them. She made plans in our
flat and brought those people in our home.
I remember when I was 5 y/o and my sister was a newborn.. This one time, it was
raining, and she left me and my sister with our dad and went on a meeting. I
was sick and my sister wouldn't stop crying, but she left anyway, thinking that
she was doing the best for the family.
My dad hated Amway and they always fought over it. He started running away to
his parents, whom he was very close-knit and who lived a few blocks away. He
started drinking. Beer, mainly, but still.. He would come home drunk and fell
asleep.
Of course, that caused even more fights and eventually, after a couple years,
they got divorced. (Here I must mention that Amway was NOT the only reason.
There werw many others, such as personality incompatibility, different
mentalities and so on.)
I was glad they split up because that meant no more fights. But still, I wasn't
the happiest girl on Earth. (I mean, who wants a broken family?)
My mom still praised Amway and told me that it is going to build a future for
us. (Here insert all the Amway promo stuff.)
I never bought it. Even when I was 8-9 y/o, I was clever enough not to buy it.
Her relationship with her mother is now horrible and Amway is the cause. It
made my mom a robot, a brain washed person who isn't capable of thinking for
hereself anymore. My grandma tried a lot to stop her from ruining her life with
Amway, but she never did.
I tried too, but no success either.
My mom thinks that everyone is negative and she's the only person that thinks
positive. She tells me taht if I think positive, everything can happen. When
I'm sick, that's because I didn't take Nutrilite vitamins. If I have dandruff,
it's because I use Nivea shampoo and not Satinique. If my sister has a rash,
it's because grandma's Ariel fell into her washing machine and mixed with SA8!!
Her way of thinking is not normal. It's not just Amway, it's the whole mindset.
I'm having a hard time living with her and I even tried to make her let me go
live with my dad. But now that I'm older I realise not only that it's not going
to happen, but also that even if I had a chance of doing that, I wouldn't.
Because I can't leave my little sister there alone, with her. She would f**k
her up completely, like she did to me. I was an adult at the age of 10, and I
won't let that happen to my sister.
Sometimes I think I'm going to have a mental breakdown, but then I calm down
and realise I have a whole life to live and it's not worth it.
I have to pretend 24/7 that everything is okay, when it's actually not. And
that makes me tired. Really tired. But it won't help if I tell her everything
because I already did that. Several times, actually. And it didn't help. Au
contraire, it made it worse. She didn't hear what I was trying to say and
turned it all upsiede down. She made not-quite-normal conclusions out of it. (I
don't love her, I hate her and don't respect her are the lighter ones.)
So I gave up on her. But I didn't give up on my sister, and I never will. I'm
looking after her and won't let the same things that happened to me happen to
her.
The tension at home is sometimes unbearable, and sometimes I have multiple
emotional shocks in one day. But I'm used to it.
I'm in high school now, so I spend less time at home and that's great, because
I don't like being at home.
Wow, I wrote a lot of stuff down. I just wanted to share my Amway experience
with people who understand. I have other problems too, but I'm not here to talk
about that. (I think that I will need a shrink in the future, but I kinda don't
like them. Or trust them. So my family..well, some of them and friends will
have to do.)
If this post turns one person quit Amway, then I did what I was planning to.
Sorry for the long post and grammar mistakes. :)
This foreign girl writes better English than many of the American students in my college class. I dread marking student papers, but with this girl there is practically nothing of importance to correct. American education sucks.
ReplyDeleteThe story this girl tells about her mother is frightening. We usually don't hear about cases of cult-control that are this intense and serious. The mother has literally wrecked her own life, the life of her husband and the grandmother, her older daughter, and maybe soon her younger daughter. She has also likely alienated all her friends and acquaintances.
And for WHAT? For a goddamned rotten MLM racket like Amway? For a scam that probably hasn't helped her earn any profit at all?
I fell very sorry for this young girl, and I hope she has the strength and endurance to save her younger sister.
Anonymous - I'm glad she shared her story. Her perspective. Though I'm sure Amway losers would screech at her to do her research. Like living it isn't good enough research. And her story helps other Amkids know that they're not alone in how they're feeling about being neglected and abused by their parents who put Amway above them. Always nice knowing that your parents love a box of soap more than their kid.
DeleteThis comment is a few years old. I always hope that perhaps one day she'll return and read this and give an update.
Interesting blog. I can add a little more historical perspective. Looks like Amway hasn't changed much since my parents got involved back in 1989! They were financially successful university professors (they owned several rental properties) with three preteen children (one of whom was me-I'm 43 now). My parents got hooked very badly and quit their university jobs to do Amway full time around 1992. They sort of dropped out of society and even started homeschooling us. After a couple of years they went broke, but my father wasn't able to snap out of it. He stayed out of the workforce for 10 years from age 46-56! My mother left him in 2002. After having to sell our house and rental properties and amassing a debt of over $50,000, he moved into a cheap small apartment by himself and finally returned to work. Amazingly he still remained active in Amway during this time! He finally was able to retire a couple of years ago with a modest pension from the state-at the age of 78. His association with Amway was a great disaster for him and all of us, and is still a source of anger and resentment. To me, the worst part of Amway is that they try to get you to quit your job. I don't understand why they do that-how can you buy their products if you are broke? I don't like using the word cult, but whatever it is, Amway is terrible!
ReplyDeleteThis story scares the living daylights out of me. Two successful university professors with rental properties gave up their financial security to get involved in a dipshit MLM scheme like Amway?
DeleteThat's utterly mind-boggling. In fact, it almost sounds suicidal. But the frightening part is that somehow their Amway recruiters were able to talk them into this crackpot scheme. What could have possibly been said to these two highly successful and intelligent people to convince them to take such a disastrous step?
I think the word "cult" perfectly appropriate for what Amway is -- the company uses mind-control and brainwashing techniques to make people destroy their own lives for the profit of their up-line. No other explanation makes sense.
Hi Anonymous. Thank you for stopping by to share your story. And as I hope you can see - you are not alone. Many AmKids have stopped by to share stores of neglect and abuse and financial devastation and divorces thanks to Amway brainwashing their Ambot parents. Your parents had decent jobs and owned rental properties. So there's their "residual" income. You know the type that Amway cult leaders preach on about. Your parents had already gotten there. Amway is all about destroying other people's lives emotionally and financially and they succeeded with your parents. And your father unemployed for 10 years. Someone with an education? Even if he had to take a job as a cashier you think he could have found one. But no. You can be very sure that his Amway cult leaders told him when he lost his job that now was the perfect time to grow his Amway "business". LOL. As you pointed out when you have no income how can you afford to be inside the expensive Amway buying club. The assholes in his Amway upline "counselled" him to get as many credit cards as he could and that's where he ran up the debt - tithing the Great Amway God. Nothing is more important to an Amway Ambot than their devotion to Amway. Younger people who get scammed by Amway can usually bounce back. It might take a few years to pay off the Amway debt but they're young and have many earning years ahead of them. Older people who get scammed by Amway might not ever bounce back or take a long time getting their finances back under control again. Your father had to work until he was almost 80 recovering from ScAmway. This is what cult brainwashing does to people. It destroys their lives and the lives of the people around them. You don't really say but due to the Amway influence your father probably alienated all his kids. And it's OK for you to be angry and hate a company that destroyed your family. And one important thing you learned while growing up and watching this is that you will never get taken in by a pyramid scheme. Good luck to you and thanks for sharing.
Delete2nd Anonymous - the Amway cult is a terrifying thing. The brainwashing tactics used on these educated, financially capable people proves it. Amway is only out to destroy people financially and emotionally. And this poor man was brainwashed into believing he didn't try hard enough and that's why he failed at ScAmway. It's a blame the victim scam. These parents were doing all the right things investing their money in rental properties which would have brought in steady income and hopefully a profit if they chose to sell them after many years of ownership. They had jealous Amway upline who were furious that these lowly Ambots on the pyramid had more assets than them so they were "counselled" to sell and use the proceeds to buy shitty overpriced Amway products. We already know how this story goes because it's been told so many times by Amway victims.
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