Amway faces boycott over donation to anti-gay group

[Playinghardball]

LGBT rights activist Fred Karger announced Thursday a global boycott targeting the direct-sales giant Amway over its founder’s contribution to an anti-gay group.

Tax records obtained by Karger show that Amway president and owner Doug DeVos donated $500,000 to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) Education Fund through his Douglas & Maria DeVos Foundation.

“I have been closely tracking NOM for over four years,” Karger said. “NOM always tries to hide the names of its donors and often breaks state election reporting laws in the process. NOM is currently under active investigations for election law violations in Maine and California”

“I imagine NOM leaders Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown thought that no one would uncover the huge Amway contribution which appears to be the largest family donation to NOM in its history. Only the Catholic Church’s political arm the Knights of Columbus has given more to the ‘Hate Group’ NOM.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/02/amway-faces-boycott-over-donation-to-anti-gay-group/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29

[alphafemale]

1. Who the Hell actually buys Amway...anyway.

Except for brainwashed Amway distributors with two tons of it in their garage?

[backscatter712]

2. Amway's owned by right-wing extremists.

They're controlled by the DeVos family.

NEVER do business with AmWay, Quixtar or any of the other MLM scamster pyramid businesses - any money you spend ends up in the pockets of right-wing billionaires.

[muntrv]

3. Besides the fact that scamway is a pyramid scheme, this is another reason

to boycott them. About 15 years ago, someone tried to sell me, as he called it, "the plan" and "the dream." He gave me some audio and video tapes of their rallies. I lost count as to how many times a speaker would say "wives, submit to your husbands when doing this business."

[DURHAM D]

4. I doubt any LGBTers buy Amway products.

We have all known for decades what they represent. This should have zero impact on their bottom line.

[modem77]

5. I didn't even know they were still around.

I remember people selling this scam back in the early 80s. Didn't ever think it would make it this long.

[alphafemale]

7. There's always someone else you can sucker into buying thousands of dollars of inventory.

I'd bet only a small fraction of product ever gets resold to consumers.

[canuckledragger]

12. the Amway name became hard to sell as so many people caught on to the scam

that they took their name of a lot of their products

those 'products' became something like a separate business or corporation in their own right.

also, 'Quixtar' is their online business, ISP, etc. supposedly separate in it's own right as well

[marble falls]

14. They had good products. My problem with it was nobody wanter to the sell the product -

they all wanted to be distributors of it. Otherwise I'd still be using the stuff. You'd find a seller and the next week they be a distributor and they all learned hard sell techniques which just doesn't work with me or my wife.

They offered some of the first Phosphate free detergents available before the EPA had phosphates banned..

[canuckledragger]

15. I liked the products too

Especially their laundry soap which lasted a single guy like me for a year or so.

The big scam that took a while for folks to catch on to was the ones that pushed the tapes, promotional gear, seminars, etc. which you had to pay for, of course.

THAT's where the real money was made...not the selling of the products.

[Peregrine]

6. DeVos also owns

The Orlando Magic and Tampa Bay Lightning (hockey)

[slampoet]

8. His Wife's brother owns Blackwater.

[backscatter712]

10. Yep! Erik Prince is brother of Betsy DeVos...

Psychopaths of a feather flock together.

[gollygee]

9. Oh, well I'll stop buying Amway products then.

LOL

[jmowreader]

11. Most people boycott Amway because it's overpriced crap

The $250 set of saucepans (you get two--a 2-quart with lid and a 3-quart with lid), $58 dog food (40-lb bag), $9.35 quart of dish soap, $49.79 gallon of diesel engine cleaner (this isn't actually all that outrageous...you're only paying the minimum-wage slave $3.71 to drive to the nearest truck stop, buy four quarts of Howes Meaner Power Kleener, dump it into a gallon jug and stick an Amway label on it)...shall I go on...are proof no one buys Amway shit unless they're in someone's downline or they have a friend they're trying to keep Amway from bankrupting.

[canuckledragger]

13. I joined up around 1998/99

When a friend in the biz had mentioned that they were launching an online web-based biz, (Quixtar) & I was about to enter college.

Him & his higher ups had told me that some of the partners involved would be IBM, Microsoft, etc. (turned out to be lies & half truths..they possibly had a hand in the building and/or managing of the equipment that would host the sites, but never sold products through Amway)

Because of college coming up, I had visions of helping to pay for it by being the go-to guy for Microsoft Office at discounts, etc. for my fellow students...nice gig if they had been truthful.

I eventually figured out it WAS a MLM pyramid scheme..but also pretty much a bait & switch operation as well.

You see..you are NOT buying their stuff wholesale, as much of it is overpriced crap to begin with, so folks don't make a whole lot of money for themselves JUST by selling the products (unless you convinced a gullible army to sign up with you & you get a percentage back from what they buy & sell themselves monthly)..

...the bait & switch scam where the real money was made was by convincing people to go to all the 'business workshops' (that you had to pay to see) & buy all the 'inspirational' tapes, books, videos, etc. from all the 'successful' millionaires in the biz.

Needless to say..I got out within a year without losing too much. (helped that I was a struggling student without a whole lot of money to begin with!)

Scammy bastards...grr...

[marble falls]

16. Scummy bastards with good products. I atarted using their products in the 60's and the MLM was ....

all innocent and in the background like Avon or Mary Kay.