You Haven’t Earned The Privilege!

Something we heard a lot of from our Amway upline, and usually in a taunting “I’m better than the rest of you” attitude was “you haven’t earned the privilege yet”.

This could be for a number of things.

One time the Platinum was trying to round up a work crew to do yard work at the Emerald’s house. Free IBO labor in exchange for the privilege of spending time with the Emerald. Uh yeah. Sounds great. Where do I sign up to yank that bastard’s weeds? Fortunately the Platinum sneered at me and others in the room including Ambot that we haven’t earned the privilege yet to spend time with that bastard. Whew! Lucky me!

The Platinum’s wife rarely went to meetings. I personally think she was just sick of listening to her husband spout off the same old bullshit. He said by virtue of reaching Platinum status she’d earned the privilege to stay home with the kids instead of hiring a babysitter. Hunh? Their son and daughter were in their early teens. They needed a babysitter? Holy shit I was babysitting when I was eleven years old. Children of ambots are so badly behaved they need a sitter into their teens? Maybe all the mothers in the Amway meeting who hadn’t earned that privilege should have stopped by the Platinum’s house on the way to the meeting and dumped their kids off with the wife for some free babysitting. We earned that privilege because we had to put up with her husband that evening while she got a free pass!

Most of the time the “you haven’t earned the privilege” was a taunt to the cult followers who hadn’t reached a high enough level in Amway or any level in Amway as was the case with most of the ambots in our meetings. Most often the privilege taunt had to do with meeting someone further upline like a Diamond. Or more appropriately hadn’t earned the privilege of providing free labor to the Diamond because they hadn’t reached a high enough level in Amway. Whew! Snuck under the radar on that one that I wasn’t on call to cook those bastards free gourmet dinners! Actually that might have been kind of fun spiking their food with something nasty!

A lot of the time the “haven’t earned the privilege yet” might have meant something else. Like owning something of significant value that your upline doesn’t own. Just because someone in your upline drives a clunker car or rents instead of owns a house doesn’t mean that you have to go backwards in life and give up these items that you’ve worked hard to attain. I think it has much more to do with jealousy that they don’t have what you have and that’s why upline flaunts the “you haven’t earned the privilege” taunt.

The last time I took out a loan to buy a new vehicle was in 1993 and I paid it off early so the bank probably wasn’t too happy with me that they couldn’t make more money on interest on that one. I’ve never taken out a loan since then to buy a vehicle. Just don’t feel comfortable doing it. I’ve always been a cash person but that doesn’t mean I would never consider taking out a loan depending on the circumstances.

When we joined Amway my car was 5 years old. I paid cash for it when I bought it. Looked good, ran good, suited my needs. Almost immediately the Platinum was riding my ass about it demanding to know how much I paid for it and how much was left on my loan. I don’t think I told him how much I paid but I told him there was no loan I paid cash when I bought it. So he had to try another tactic. Or two or three. Bottom line was he wanted me to sell my car and buy something older and cheaper and then I’d have money in my pocket to buy more Amway products and tools. Like that was ever going to happen. Someone my age doesn’t need to be driving around in an old clunker that’s breaking down all the time. That “privilege” can go to the younger ambots.

Then our house came into the equation. Nope we didn’t pay cash for it. Like just about everyone else we have a mortgage. This is not our first house. When you sell a house you use the equity for the down payment on the next house you buy. If you do it a few times by your last house hopefully there isn’t too much of a mortgage.

Our Platinum had recently purchased his first house. And I say its about time! You have a full time job and your two children are in their teens and you’re still renting?! Fucking loser! I wouldn’t even consider having kids until I owned a home. Its called security!

Our house came up when ambot “counselled with upline”. Different scenarios. Take out a home owners line of credit on the equity and use those funds to pay off the credit cards to leave more room to buy more Amway shit and tools. Sell the house. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!??????? And do pretty much the same thing. Find a place to rent and use the equity to pay off the credit card bills so you can run them up again.

Excuse me but we had zero balance on those fucking credit cards until you fucking upline assholes badgered my husband into buy buy buy Amway’s shitty products and investing in the tool scam. Our penalty for getting involved in your Amway scam is to sell our house and use the equity to buy more shitty Amway products? Go to hell!

Equity is to be used for the next house purchase! If you uplines weren’t such fucking morons you’d know that and wouldn’t be giving full of shit financial advice. That’s one of the reasons I like David Bach’s books. He doesn’t do way out there shitty advice like Amway cult leaders. He says pay off those damned credit card bills but don’t let that debt stand in the way of getting a mortgage and owning a house. You can do it all. Pay down your debt and your mortgage and put away money for savings and investments.

Holy shit! I can see the upline covering their ears and screaming NO!!!!

And seeing as how I brought it up lets talk about ambots who own houses. Our Platinum owned his house - or said he did, I never saw the deed but somehow I suspect he might have a few upline “business partners” names on it. Another Platinum in cross line I met owned his house. Our Emerald owned his house. The only other IBO I know who owned a house were the parents of an IBO. I don’t think we should count them. They only signed up to help their son out. They may have bought some stuff but they never went to Amway meetings.

So why the big flap about our house? We’ve been homeowners for many years. This caused a lot of outrage with the upline that we owned a house while almost everyone in our upline were renters.

I figured it out. Jealousy! Upline’s reasoning is we can’t have what they don’t have because we haven’t “earned the privilege”. Because they’re a higher level in Amway than we are we can’t have anything they don’t have.

Jealous, petty, materialistic ambots. Got one message for you when it comes to my car and my house: Fuck off!

“PLEASE Join My Amway Scam!” Begs the Lousy Shitfaced IBO

This post is dedicated to the lousy shitfaced IBO who phoned Ambot at 11pm last night to shoot the shit. That fucker quit Amway and is involved in another MLM scam. Fucking moron! Quit pissing me off! Leave us alone or read all about it in my blog!!!!

Don’t you hate it how these Amway bastards show up with their scheme and tell us how we can make $100,000/year. Minimum!

To most people $100,000/year is a pretty decent income so that might generate some interest if you’re working a minimum wage job or your job/career might many years to work yourself up to a good paying income.

Just because you put on a business suit and carry a cell phone that is constantly ringing with calls from your upline or beeping to announce yet another text message from your upline and you’re trying to bullshit others that you’re rich and important doesn’t mean you really have the cashola no matter how hard you pretend.

Many of the Amway “businessmen” in our line worked customer service or labor jobs and aren’t earning anywhere near that magical $100,000 number. This is what happens in your 20’s. It takes awhile to build up skills and marketability to command a decent income. Maybe that’ll happen at age 30 or maybe not until 50 or 60. That doesn’t mean to tide yourself over in the meantime that you should go around scamming others to join your Amway cult.

I just can’t believe that Ambot would fall for that shit. I guess the promises of having residual income of $100,000/year rolling in for the rest of his life sounded good. Too good to be true! He believed those lousy troublemaking lying IBO bastards. Anything looks good on paper. Logistically executing an Amway/WWDB business plan designed for failure is another story. A story of emotional distress and financial losses that is.

Those lying IBO’s told Ambot he must counsel with upline and take the advice of these fucking assholes who don’t have education or degrees in counselling whether it be financial or family or marriage or dealing with death or whatever. No one in our upline was qualified to offer any type of counselling services.

But that won’t stop a fucking Amway IBO. Just because they’re in Amway means they’re better than everyone else and don’t need a stinking education to “counsel” and give bad advice and destroy people. That’s all part of the Amway scheme.

Obviously Ambot didn’t take as good a look at those fucking lying Amway IBO’s as I did. Lying bastards who promised him how they’d all get rich in Amway and be lazing around the beaches of the world sucking back mai tais while the endless supply of money comes rolling in and they never work again.

So we’re supposed to “counsel with upline” who were either too young to have saved money for a down payment on a house or were old enough that they should have been homeowners but were too busy giving away all their money to the great Amway god so they couldn’t swing it. Ambot doesn’t see something wrong with this picture? We’ve been homeowners for years and Ambot thinks its rational to take financial advice from kids who've never owned a house and don’t know piss all about the financial responsibilities that come with home ownership? There’s more to owning a home that coming up with monthly mortgage payments. It means replacing appliances when they break down. It means renovating and making repairs as needed. It means keeping a yard neat and tidy. Its called taking pride in home ownership. You know how it is when you’re in a neighborhood where most of the houses have the lawns mowed, painting touch ups down, nice flower beds, etc. And then you see the one house with the peeling paint, knee high weeds, abandoned cars, gutters falling off, and a tarpaulin over the leaky roof. Why not put a big sign outside: Renters live here!

Amway IBOs in our upline know nothing about owning a home and the upkeep. They are not on the same level as us. Maybe in 20 or 30 years when they have bought a house they’ll understand but for now they don’t know nothing. Counsel with upline! And their advice? Skip mortgage payments. Don't pay your utility bills. Use that money to buy Amway tools instead. Wow! Great idea! Wreck our credit rating! Then we can be Amway losers like you!

Upline’s advice on my car? I should sell my nice car, buy a 30 year old BWM clunker for a few hundred bucks and then use the thousands of dollars difference from the sale of my car and invest it in the Amway business and buy lots of Amway products and Amway tools. Invest in my business? Are you kidding me?

Got two words for you asshole: fuck off! Read into that my little message to last nights late night caller.

So here we are, already business owners, earning a good income, own a house, own nice cars, have nice furniture, have investments, take vacations, and no debt. And then some fucking Amway asshole shows up to destroy everything we have.

Jealousy? Is that what drives IBO’s to destroy others lives? What about all that bullshit they spout about helping others? Blessing others? Those greedy bastards don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.

Did Ambot not take a good look at the downhill adjustments we’d have to make to our lives to be fucking Amway business owners so we could be equal to our upline?

Why doesn’t Ambot see this? Because he’s been brainwashed into the Amway cult and is too busy fawning over these new cult friends who in 2 to 5 years are all going to be rich together.

The Amway IBO losers in our upline have been trained to lie and scam to recruit downline and then bully them into buying Amway products and attending functions.

What wonderful qualities a human being should have!

Thanks for brainwashing my husband into believing the only way to success is by being a liar.

I got him out before it was too late.

You fucking Amway warriors lost this battle!

Starting Over After Amway, free ebook of Start Over Finish Rich

There are stories all over the Internet about financial devastation following departure from Amway. Sad stories. Mountains of credit card debt. Tens of thousands of dollars from savings accounts gone. Houses being foreclosed. Declaring bankruptcy.

The financial devastation the Amway cult leaves in its wake is horrifying. Most of this financial disaster is a direct result of counselling with upline. In most cases those bastards do not have the required education or experience to be any kind of counsellors, much less financial advisors.

Amway cult leaders especially like finding new blood who own houses. Or more accurately are co-owners with the bank! Our asshole Emerald counselled Ambot to take out a home owner’s line of credit on the equity on our house or a second mortgage to pay off his credit cards. Fortunately the house is also in my name and I refused to listen to that fucking idiot. We are NOT going to lose our house because of bad advice from an Amway cult leader. Of course the reason the upline counsels to do whatever you can in regards to taking out a loan against your house to pay off your credit cards because that now leaves the credit cards with a zero balance to start all over again buying Amway products and tools. Its a vicious cycle and will only end up badly for the homeowner. You don’t put up your house for nothing especially when it comes to a cult!

There are lucky people who get out of Amway before losing too much money. Its made a small dent in their finances but they’re able to recover and move on and forget they were ever stupid enough to throw money at a cult. Many people struggle for years or perhaps the rest of their lives recovering from the Amway cult horror. Seniors can be the most vulnerable. They’ve spent all their life savings, maybe they borrowed against their house that was previously mortgage free, and racked up credit cards. Now one or both of them might be forced to go back to work in their 80’s and 90’s or they end up becoming renters after losing their house or declaring bankruptcy at this late stage in their lives. Its no different from when we occasionally see on the news that a senior has become the victim of a Nigerian scam.

Today I got an email that David Bach is offering a free download of his book Start Over Finish Rich. His financial advice might help people or give them some direction on recovering after losing everything to the Amway cult. You have to go to his webpage: http://www.finishrich.com/ and wait a few seconds for the pop up window to appear. It will ask for your name and email address to send a link to where the book can be downloaded from. No strings attached other than you’re now on his mailing list. Even though I’m on Bach’s mailing list I rarely get email from him and usually its to promote a book or some special like this. I’m not sure how long this free ebook offer is on for. Usually when he announces something like this its over at midnight. This time it says for a limited time so maybe it will be longer than today. I don’t know. So don’t wait if you want a free copy of Start Over Finish Rich!

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.