The last time we ran the post about the Amway Emerald throwing a hissy fit, the contributor left a comment with more details:
I remember paying for that seminar. That seminar was in
December of 2017. It was while I was in line in November of 2017 on a Thursday
night for the weekly meeting. My Upline Emerald (sponsor's sponsor who is
different from the other guy I mentioned who was his sponsor's sponsor) had his
wife go around selling tickets. I got out three-five dollar bills and I was
straightening them out to give to her for the ticket.
First off, she yells at me and says, "YOU haven't gotten your
ticket." I said, I know. I have money here. Let me straighten..."
"I'LL do it." she says as she grabbed the money out of my hands and
walked away.
That was the breaking point. Even though I attended the seminar in December and
Winter Conference in January, I never spoke to her again. I never went to
another weekly meeting after that. I went to two more functions (the seminar
and the conference) and then I stopped coming.
It wasn't worth my time. It wasn't worth spending two hours in line to get into
a meeting and then being fake nice for four hours before driving home. It
wasn't worth buying stuff on the First of each month that I never used...that I
still have piles of.
And then, in mid-2018; months after I stopped coming, I received texts from my
Upline begging me to come to conference and then my Upline Emerald (whose wife
grabbed the money out of my hand) saying how he missed me. I never responded to
either.
I don't know how many hits you get a month Anna, but I hope someone sees this
and does an about face. There are several ways to make money. This is not the
way to make it.
When you go to a restaurant for a nice meal you expect to be treated reasonably well. The staff are polite to you and while it is not 100% real and everyone knows that, it is not 100% fake either. You get treated well and you might go back. You might recommend the restaurant to your friends or do a review on some website telling people that it was a good experience. The restaurant and all its staff depend on customers going in there and buying food and drink. If they insulted customers, most would not go back.
ReplyDeleteThat is what I used to struggle with in relation to Amway. If your upline insults and demeans you why would you go back to their stupid meetings? What is in it for you since you surely aren't making any money in it. There is a small possibility that your upline is making money but they are making that money from you. They are the restaurant and you are the customer. It is your money either directly or in the extremely unlikely event that you have a downline it is still money that you are helping them to get. I suppose the idea is that by demeaning people you get them to think it is only their fault that the scam is not bringing people in. It is as many people have said a cult to control people. It might make a small amount of money for a small number of people (relative to the effort that everyone puts in). That is all it will ever do though. There is no endless stream of gold that will keep the people at the top rich for ever. This thing is not a business. What is the point of keeping it going as a cult? Do they really think they have power that is worth keeping? I don't know why cults form or keep going but I suspect it is usually about one person deriving all manner of worship from a group of people. Do all the various layers in this scam get that kind of adulation?
I have come to reluctantly admire this loathsome thing. It is never going to make any real money. It preys on its victims and immiserates them. It has no redeeming features at all except for giving a few people a few days where they dream unrealistic dreams of untold wealth. This thing should not exist and yet it continues to exist. It is like the parasitic worm that causes river blindness. You hate it and want to eliminate it and reduce the suffering it inflicts on all the innocent children it infects and yet it tenaciously lives on despite the best of human intent and effort.
Aussie Hillbilly - all the points you've brought up I've tried to figure out for a long time. If I worked a job and the boss was being a fucking asshole I'd say fuck you I'm outta here. Most bosses want to keep a good moral in the workplace. Not the Amway upline. Theses are the nastiest evil motherfuckers I've ever met in my life. Why do Ambots put up with being treated badly by these Amway losers? Do they have masochist tendencies? Normal people don't hang out with people who treat them badly.
DeleteHow many people work in jobs that they would love to be able to quit? They don't quit because they cannot afford to. Even so, there are basic rules that operate in the workplace. I don't know about America but in Australia various forms of discrimination and bullying are outlawed. Of course lots of terrible people get away with terrible behaviour because they can and they think that the law does not apply to them but nevertheless the law does exist to assist. And no matter how badly you are treated the day they stop paying you is the last day that you go into work.
DeleteWho protects you in this scam though? No one. You never get a cent (after expenses) out of the scam and yet you willingly go in day after day to pointless meetings and abuse in the vain hope that you will be free? Our maths education needs to be improved. The laws should make this scam illegal but I doubt that that will ever happen.
Within six months to two years almost everybody who falls prey to this scam understands how bad it is and what a waste of time (and money) it has been. Who covers their psychological pain and suffering? Are they so embarrassed to admit their stupidity that they pretend it never happened? We would not shame the victim of an internet fraud or a mugging would we? Scammers know that people are going to be too embarrassed about their experience and that is part of their scheme. Yet there is no way to get away from the fundamental point. Without victims you have no income stream so why not treat your victims a bit better. Keep them in for 5 to 10 years and you will win even though obviously they won't. Maybe the scammers need to bring in a team of highly paid management consultant scammers to help them refine their scam.
Hi Aussie Hillbilly. Well people might think they can't quit their job but most states (only one abstainer) are at will employment which means either the employee or the employer can quit without notice at any time. Whether or not they have another job lined up. There's always going to be another job...
DeleteAnd yes financial education should be taught in schools. This should include understanding deductions off your paycheck when you start working, savings, checking, and investment accounts, and profit and loss statements for businesses. It should also include a beware of scammers session. But also doubtful it will ever happen.
Not sure if you get Dr. Phil over there but I've seen some shows with victims of scammers. Usually romance scammers. But they operate similarly as ScAmway. It starts off with love bombing before asking for money and more and more money. And when the victim starts to resist sending more money that's when the abuse starts. Mostly slinging insults. All these scammers whether it's MLM or other scams operate very similarly in how they treat the victims. And you'd think victim shaming wouldn't be a thing but unfortunately it is.
Let me make one comment first about the incident described in the post. If that woman had come up and grabbed money out my hand in the manner described, and had talked to me like that, I would have kicked her so hard in the crotch she would have lost an ovary. And if her scumbag husband came over to complain I would have flattened him. That is the way to deal with insulting behavior from anybody, male or female.
ReplyDeleteThe points that Aussie Hillbilly raises are important, because they compel us to think about basic psychology. Why would anyone tolerate being abused and demeaned? What motivates that kind of passivity? There are hundreds of Amway anecdotes that testify to this kind of sheepish cowardice in Amway IBOs.
I can only speculate. Maybe some people have a desperate need for human connection of any kind, and will put up with nastiness from others simply because they are addicted to the love-bombing and fake "edification" and companionship that they get from being in an Amway subsystem. We know that many persons put up with violent abuse from a spouse for years, and never seek a separation or a divorce. Of course we also know that in a marriage issues of money and property and children might be involved, but what the bloody hell is involved in being a lousy Amway IBO? You aren't making anything, you have no chance to recruit anyone into a down-line, you are paying endless fees month after month, and you are alienating all your relatives and friends. There's nothing keeping you in the organization except some kind of superstitious fear of your stupid Platinum.
Anonymous - although it's nice to imagine violent things happening to those fucking evil assholes in Amway we can't just punch out these Amway motherfuckers. Violence isn't the answer and no one needs to go to jail because of an Amway loser. If someone snatched anything out of my hand I'd curse them out.
DeleteWhy do people put up with being demeaned. Whether they're in ScAmway or another sick relationship. It's because they think they deserve it.
Just get out of that sick relationship!!!
Why do people stay? That's something that those of us watching from the outside can never understand.