Here’s a comment left by a reader who got the classic scam treatment to sign up to the Amway cult.
Thank you for your post, and I am very sad that I did not see this sooner. I was introduced to Amway and WWDB (World Wide Dream Builders) by a guy at my last job. I had just graduated college, and was pressured to get a job quickly.
The place where I met my "Mentor's Disciple," because he refused to actually be my mentor was a call center. He said, he was not in a position to be an effective mentor for me and that his mentor would be the person I would truly learn from. That's awfully strange considering you are the one talking to me about this business, but it did trick me into thinking he was looking out for my best interest.
Needless to say, I went to his house meeting, and a meeting at a church where I was told a lot of nonsense, and after the first meeting at the church from the "Diamond" I said this guy is illiterate and I don't understand what I'm supposed to do. The "Mentor's Disciple" said maybe you didn't click with him, but someone else will hopefully make more sense to you.
So they sent me to a 3 day meeting over 6 hours in travel time combined to come to these seminars called Freedom something where I heard from 15 different diamonds, and still had no idea what the business was. All they did was show videos of their expensive life styles and tell people don't listen to your friends, family, or any other naysayer because they will never understand.
Finally,I told my real mentor after asking ten times if you don't show me some numbers, I will never sign up. He then showed me how I have to spend money on the dvd's, the membership, and the expensive trips out of state to go to these meetings. It would've cost me close to 10k that year with the products and I wouldn't have sold anything.
I was so frustrated with this, and when I confronted him he basically taught me how to divert parts of my paycheck to cover these expenses...What a joke, the guy had been in this business for 2 years, and was an Island's Manager (Basically the same price point as a TGI Friday's). This guy was getting nowhere fast and he only had 6 "followers" at this point.
With all of this said, and it is probably very difficult to follow due to my erratic thought process,I gave it a legitimate chance.This is why I can fairly say there is no gold at the end of this rainbow. I am very glad that I only wasted a small portion of my life to learn a valuable lesson, and they got me at one of my most desperate times. I was getting married soon, with no job security, and trying to have a kid. These people aren't just greedy they are inhumane to hunt out people that were in positions like mine.
Amway wants young, inexperienced, and naive people in the racket. These types will be the quickest ones to sign up, and they will not notice all the red flags about the Amway proposition that smarter and older persons will see right away.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - at Amway cult meetings we were always told to prospect younger people and new immigrants because they were less likely to have heard that Amway is a scam and would be easier to sign up.
DeleteI'm against massive unchecked immigration, but I will admit that some immigrants are decent and honest persons who simply want to better themselves and their families.
DeleteIf Amway deliberately preys upon these people (who are probably unaware of the long American tradition of con-men and scam artists and grifters), then Amway is one of the worst and most degraded theft-rackets on this planet.
Cheating innocent and naive people who aren't wise to American rackets is despicable. At least the casinos are honest -- they admit to you that the odds are against your winning.
Anonymous - Amway preys on the disadvantaged. Nobody wants to get scammed out of their money but many of Amway's victims can least afford to be scammed. They're students, new immigrants, people drowning in debt, people on social security, etc. And along comes some lying, scamming Amway asshole promising them they'll be rich and making $100,000 in 6 months and after 2 years they'll be making bazillions of dollars in residual income every month.
DeletePeople have more chance of making money at the casino than they do in Amway!