Someone did a search for “Amway
defectors” and ended up at this blog.
Ha! I love it. Perfect name. Someone should start up a forum called that and we
could all head over to chat!
Whenever I heard the word defector growing up it was usually in reference to
someone from the USSR escaping and claiming refugee status in another
country.
I think defector is most commonly referred to similar stories when people leave
one country for another country. Defector can be used to describe people who
switch companies, switch baseball teams, etc.
I know there are people who left Amway to join other MLM’s. Monavie comes to
mind though I’m not good on the details. I see some of those discussions on
Amthrax’s blog. See a link to his blog on the upper right area of this blog. I
guess those distributors who switched to Monavie can be labelled Amway
defectors. I bet the higher ups in Amway probably do refer to them that
way!
But what about the rest of us who just quit. Closed up shop. Walked away.
Got the hell away from Amway!
I guess we could be called defectors though a lot of us didn’t leave Amway to
join another MLM. We just washed our hands of the whole network marketing
nightmare.
We are the people who saw the light.
Curiosity got to me and I did a Google search for Amway defectors. Not a whole
lot of information but I found a link from a newspaper article in 2008 for the
top 5 scam artists and Amway is number 3. Its no big surprise to me that
Amway is on the top scammers list! To quote:
Dick DeVos and Steve Van
Andel are the inheritors of Quixtar, the company left to them by their
billionaire fathers. Call it a pyramid scheme, call it multi-level marketing,
or, better yet, call it by its original brand name: Amway. Quixtar created a
pseudo-religion where God is money and its prophets are the success stories
recorded in expensive tapes and books. Quixtar has convinced millions around
the world that they too can make six figures simply by selling “the best” soap,
vitamins and other amazing products, when the actual average annual income of a
recruiter is $1400. Some even lose money at the cost of the recommended
seminars and audio tapes.
Unfortunately the website where the rest of the list can be seen is no longer
active.
http://www.vueweekly.com/top_5_scam_artists/
The sum of $1400 as the annual income for an Amway IBO is far too high. Most people in the lower levels of the racket make far less, or nothing. Even that lying prick, IBOFartBack, who shilled for Amway on line, would never have dared to claim that he made such a salary.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - yup the lies start with Amway's head honchos. That lying scamming mothermother IBOFartBack claimed much higher income than $1400. But getting back to that $1400 average annual income. When we in ScAmway the Amway brochures said the average monthly income was $120/month. So times by 12 months that makes it a bit over $1400. The unknown is how many IBO's were used to be part of that "average" and Amway's head office has refused to disclose that information. Amway could have taken the annual income of 5 Diamonds and 5 other random IBO's and the higher income earners screw the results. Say I get together with 4 friends to get an average income. One income is $100,00. The second is $75,000. The third is $25,000, and the other two don't have any income at all. That makes our average income $40,000/year. But individually that salary is false. So that's how Amway fucks with the income numbers. I've always said that if Amway was honest they'd have a chart that shows breaking down how many IBO's make over $200,000/year, how many IBO's earn $100,000 to $200,00/year, and how many IBO's earn in downward increments of $10,000. And then by the thousands for below $10,000. The majority of participants would be below $1,000. A chart like that is honest and gives the full picture to prospects and lets them make a better informed decision. But then no one could ever go around accusing Amway of being honest. And such a chart like that showing over 99% of IBO's make less than $1,000 would not be appealing to prospects.
DeleteThat's quite true. Amway does everything in its power to cover up the fact that the vast majority of its IBOs make very little income at all, if any.
DeleteThis is especially true in the various AMO subsystems (URA, WWDB, Network 21, etc.), where the Platinums and other big pins constantly make up stories about how rich you can be if you follow their 6-4-2 plan. None of it reflects the simple reality that 99% of Amway IBOs make little or nothing in the racket.
I am assuming you are talking about income before expenses? Your profit is unlikely to be 1400. It is the profit that is the most important number a business operator needs to worry about. You could have an income of $10 trillion dollars but if your expenses are $10 trillion and 1 dollars, you are making a loss of $1 and need to think about that loss very, very carefully.
DeleteAmway takes people who don't know anything about business and confuses them with random terms that they don't understand. They use words like "income" in ways that confuse. If you work in a shop or in a warehouse you earn an income. You generally do not buy anything from the shop or the warehouse. If you do buy anything it is going to be a tiny fraction of your income. If you are buying more from them than they are paying you, you are doing something wrong (in most cases). Amway is no different.
The main number you should care about is what you get each month after you pay them. If that number is a positive you need to divide it by the hours you put in and decide whether it is a decent use of your time. Until you run the numbers honestly and dispassionately you are just a victim of a huge scam. Nobody except the guys at the top make anything from this scam. That is the honest truth.
Aussie Hillbilly, that is God's honest truth. Income is what you make AFTER deducting business expenses. This is why your Amway up-line forbids you to keep account books.
DeleteAussie Hillbilly - It's been so long that I don't remember if the Amway brochure said gross or net. They probably omitted that because Amway is all about deception. They might have said that number and then something in small print that is before expenses. Any way you look at it. Ambots must by 100PV worth of Amway shit - around $300 worth in order to be eligible for a commission check. Or more accurately a rebate. That check is usually around $10. My Ambot spent more because some fucking asshole in the Amway upline would phone and bully him into buying more Amway shit because some other motherfucker upline needed to meet their monthly PV or BV goals. With the bullshit story that when he got to their level then there'd be suckers in his downline doing the same thing for him one day. LOL! OK so our checks from Amway were usually a bit higher, like $15 or $16. But nowhere near this $1400 annual income or $120/month I think it said on Amway's literature that the average IBO got.
DeleteBut yes Amway is all about confusing people with numbers and deception. And bullshitting the Ambots that even if they don't make money in Amway they will become a nicer person. It's just my personal experience but I've never met anyone who became a nicer person after getting scammed out of thousands of dollars.
Anonymous - that's right. The Amway upline discourages Ambots to keep a profit and loss statement. With the bullshit story that your membership to WWDB keeps all the financials there for you to look at on their webpage. I think it only kept track of the check received from Amway if you bought enough Amway shit that month to qualify for a rebate. It did not have any means to track how much Amway shit was being purchased. Though you'd think there could have been a monthly tally provided by Amway's head office. It also didn't keep track of all the money spent on the Amway tool scam. Though there might have been a purchase history where the Ambot could manually keep track. Looking at the numbers too closely would have been forbidden by the Amway upline and if you dared to question the fucking assholes in the Amway upline about how the money numbers weren't adding up - you'd get a shit kicking about never question upline.
Delete