It's Amway horror story time again.

[LoZoccolo]

For some reason I am fascinated by Amway horror stories, so I'd like to hear yours. Maybe it is because I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, near the Amway headquarters. Believe it or not, despite the size and influence of Amway in that area, I was never solicited to be a part of anyone's downline.

My mom told me one, that she went to a restaurant with a friend somewhere near Van Andel Arena in downtown Grand Rapids, and saw all these couples where the woman would be dressed nice and the man would be wearing a red tie around the arena. She figured it was either a cult or Amway. It turned out to be Amway.

[philosophie_en_rose]

1. What exactly is Amway?

I've heard that it's a pyramid scheme of some sort, but I've never known anyone involved with it.

[LoZoccolo]

3. Technically not a pyramid scheme, though people can make it so.

From what I can recall, a pyramid scheme is one where the primary source of income for people is recruiting new people rather than providing a service or selling a product. People can make it a pyramid scheme if their primary business is selling training materials to new people rather than selling the products.

But yeah, it's supposed to be a home-based business for selling all sorts of products to people, but there are these motivational organizations people have built that are supposed to train people to sell, and a lot of the people who really make money seem to be the ones making money off of motivational products rather than Amway products. The rest are doomed to try to get this outdated home-based business to work (why would you want to buy stuff from some home-based business that you could just buy at a store).

Plus people get annoyed because the Amway people they know try to recruit them and sell them things, taking advantage of personal relationships to build their business.

[philosophie_en_rose]

4. Sounds like an annoying elementary school sales drive.

:yoiks:

[LoZoccolo]

6. People have set up web sites critical of it.

http://www.apollowebworks.com/amway/index.html

http://www.amquix.info

[MichiganVote]

8. SCAMway manufactures household goods, make up, pet food

just about anything they can peddle out the door to the sellers who purchase it at inflated prices who then make money when the people under them sell the junk to somebody else who has been swindled with the "dream" of SCAMway. It is a pyramid scheme but they get around that with a few legal manuvers. They hold these giant pay your own way in rallies that consist of a bunch of oversexed hair sprayed bozo's manipulating people with motivational speeches. The people OD on that crap, spout out the SCAMway rags to riches bullshit and promptly lose their shirts.

SCAMway was in trouble with Canada in the 90's and the Bush family saved their ass. They still had to pay big bucks to Canada but it was the Bushies who enabled Dickie DeVos to save his ass. Devos and Co. have donated more to the Bushies than any other donor.

[NewWaveChick1981]

2. OMFG, a former boss of mine sold Amway on the side for years...

:yoiks: He's a nice man, but when you first meet him, you get the impression that something's not all there. (I'm not the only one who has said this. :() When I started working in that office in 1993, he had a catalog on his desk. I made the terrible mistake of asking him what it was, and then I had to hear the entire presentation. I was trapped like a rat in a cage. :yoiks: He would take time off to go to the conventions with his wife (who was also immersed in the Amway cult). He never did a hard sell in the office to anyone (with the exception of me asking him about the catalog in his office) since it was against college rules. However, we all were made well aware that if we wanted to buy Amway products, he was the man to see. :P I never bought anything.

[Kali]

5. The word CULT always comes to my mind.

There were a few decent products but most were just overpriced junk you could get anywhere. My tidbit isn't a horror story (well maybe to the Amwayzombies) but a helpful cleaning hint.


Amway laundry detergent is the best bong cleaner on the planet. :smoke: :evilgrin: :rofl:

[LoZoccolo]

7. Someone published a children's book aimed at children of Amway people.

It's called Just Wait 'Til We're Diamond, and from what I've heard, it's supposed to teach kids to be patient with their parents making them sit through meeting after meeting with them to build their business and what-not, because some day they'll get to go up on stage with them at the convention and celebrate how they've become rich.

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. Are you SURE you want to hear it?

Okay, here goes... Back when I was young, impressionable and a hairstylist I cut this woman's hair. I also cut her husbands. They were the sweetest couple with two little ones and were just always punctual and never complained if I was running behind etc... I was a single mom at the time, working my butt off. About 6 months into my "relationship" with them they asked if they could do a "Networking" presentation to me. I said fine, because I was a lunkhead at the time and didn't realize that was what they had renamed the AMway scheme in the 90's. They came over, started telling me how wonderful it was...how many great friends they had... how much money they were making...how I only had to "bring aboard" 6 friends or family members (and why didn't I write their names down right now)...how one could be a distributor (i.e. only sell the products, but really more money was to be had as a "networker") They left me with 4 tapes and the suggestion to "get back with them". I also got a free lipstick (because AMway's makeup line was the best and maybe I could get the salon to use it for artistry...Ummm.. the salon was JC Penney's with their own line-Ultima II). I did listen to the tapes (brainwashing), I later went to an "event"- a pseudo fashion show and display of products and listen all these freaks come up and tell me how "Happy" they were and how much I would "enjoy being part of this BIG family..." It was a long drive home. Long story short, they talked me into a "distributorship" and my father was nice enough to buy some products from me which netted me a check of $1.35 for his $50 purchase. Stupidly, I didn't want to lose the income of these clients. I should have just let them go. 4 months later, they put the screws to me again, asked me to take a personality test to see what kind of a networker I would be. I said,"No Thanks" they said they were sorry but they couldn't do business with someone who wouldn't do business with them. Ummm... I thought I was a distributor...

I never saw them again...it was no great loss.

[LoZoccolo]

10. DANG that's a good story though.

I've never heard the thing about I can't do business with you if you don't do it with me before. My amateur interest in game theory is piqued at this one: why would someone think that that would be a strategy for maximizing their benefit? You could say it's a form of reciprocity, which is actually the most effective strategy for inducing cooperation...but that dynamic doesn't really reconcile with their assertion that your involvement in and of itself would benefit you, not simply their continued business with you. You get what I mean? It's a tacit admission on their part that you wouldn't really benefit from Amway because they have to withhold another benefit (their business with you at the salon).

[AmandaRuth]

11. i signed on just to tell this story

way back when minimanda was just a little thing, my husband had a cousin who went thru some very trying times, with family. Her son was a first grader at a public school not too far from our house, so hubby took the morning off of work to stop by and talk to the counselor about the little guy's deteriorating home situation. The counselor seemed receptive but did say he was busy and asked to make an appointment to stop by our house to discuss options. So he comes over and, you guessed it, tried to sell us on amway, both buying the products and becoming one of his sales "associates". We pretty much asked him to leave as politely as we could. Yes, this really happened and yes, we complained to the school. Amway people are some of the most brainwashed cultish people I have ever talked to. Right up there with boshbots.

[LoZoccolo]

12. WOW.

I imagine there'd be some explicit directive not to do this by whatever society tends to the professional standards of school counselors.

[AmandaRuth]

14. yes,no doubt

this has less to do about grade school counselors, who, I am sure, are underpaid overworked modern day heros, and everything to do with some very brainwashed very scary people.

[bluedogyellowdog]

13. No major horror stories, just..

..trying unsuccessfully to convince anyone to buy SA8 (laundry detergent) and LOC (all purpose cleaner) that cost 4 times as much as other brands...an upline who suddenly decided to drop out of the business resulting in them taking my (and several other peoples') money and then me waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting for my order to finally arrive...and those god-awful motivational tapes. Those tapes take the cake. One of them had a guy who literally spoke with much excitement and motivation about how he almost starved living on Amway's energy bars and their gatorade knock-off drink while he was going diamond - this was supposed to motivate us to make sacrifices to build the business, or something. Another guy saying the economy and stock market were going to collapse and our only hope for the future is Amway since 401Ks and IRAs will all become worthless. Most of the tapes were full of religious right bilge too. I dropped out after finding out how much money the DeVos family donates to Repugs.

[Bluestar]

15. Many years ago I was an inside sales rep

at the biggest greeting card company in the world (you can guess). There were about 120 of us and our big boss was an Amway double diamond. I don't know if that designation still holds sway or not. The rumor was, he made about $900,000 a year in this Amway gig, but still held onto the greeting card job because he could recruit young, unsuspecting types.

He would hold "parties" at his house and only invite the single people (especially single moms) who he perceived were struggling to make ends meet and give them the pitch. No one would complain because he was their boss! Eventually it caught up to him and he was fired. After he left and went to another company, he would call those of us who used to work for him and offer us new jobs at his new company (a violation of his employment contract). He was a very slick salesman with no scruples.

[HeardOnTheHill]

16. Fundamentalist religious aspect

While not religiously affiliated in any official capacity (at least as far as I know), Amway does have some fundamental religious aspects to its message and operations. The DeVos family (ie. Dick DeVos, MI gubernatorial candidate) is involved in Dominionism, which has been referred to as the extreme wing of the religious far right, and strives to push their extreme beliefs onto their employees. Much of the sales training and internal operations stress a "faith" aspect that sounds like the textbook definition of cult. It's as if DeVos wanted to start a fundamentalist right-wing cult, and realized that he could rob people of billions in the process, so all the better for him.

[Aristus]

17. I used to work in a bookstore. I was a hard worker, a good clerk

and a pretty good bookseller. (Don't know why I bothered; I got a shitty wage, and no percentage of sales, so why try? I love books, I guess.)

I was ALWAYS getting customers who recognized my drive and work ethic and would ask me if they could "come over to your place and run some number by you". The first time, I thought they represented a real company and were recruiting for smart, hard-working employees. Turned out to be AmWay. Pissed me off. :mad:

Never accepted any more offers to "run some numbers by you".

[LostinVA]

20. That happened to me, too -- and when I worked in a bookstore

[Maine-ah]

18. my (former) boss and her hubbie sold amway

got my hubbie involved for a little while. No matter how much I told my hubbie it was all BS, he still wanted to try it. So, I went to a meeting that was held in a hotel, and the thing that creeped me out was they begin and end each meeting with a prayer. All the women wear like all the same clothes and caked on make-up, very creepy.

Now, I do have to say that I have used many of their products, since my hubbie did this for like a year. I admit, their products are comperable, and some of them definitly superior to other commercial products out there. Especially the laundry detergent, I loved that stuff, and skin care products.

The thing is, is that the higher-ups don't make their money on selling products, they make their money on selling audio tapes to the newbies, and intermediates. You know, the kind that supposedly will help you "sell better" ect...

Anywho, that's my experience. They're all really just creepy.

[mikeytherat]

19. One story? How about three?

Story One:
Mid-70s. Friend of the family is heavily into Amway and constantly trying to "sell" my father. Somehow gets invited to dinner, and my dad makes him INSIST this is dinner only and not an Amway sales pitch. Friend insists "no funny stuff and no Amway." Friend shows up for "dinner" carrying collapsible easel, Amway marketing crap, and product samples. My dad physically threw him out of the house.

Story Two:
Late 80s. Wife's father is an aerospace engineer with NASA, working on the Space Shuttle. Nephew of his is an Amway rep who insists he must "sell" my father-in-law. Finally corners his uncle, writes a figure on a piece of paper, and says, "How'd you like to making THAT?" My father-in-law replies, "But I already make more than that, and I love my job." Sales pitch ended.

Story Three:
Early 90s. Friend of mine keeps hinting about his new "business," and how I need to "get on board." He is very coy and will not tell me the name of the company. Wife and I spend next two hours telling him, "This sounds just like that Amway crap," proceed to tell him every horror story we know about Amway, and essentially grind the Amway name into the ground. He leaves and I run into his brother a few days later. His bro asks me, "So, has my brother tried to sell you that soap stuff?" "Soap stuff?", I ask. "Yeah. He's selling that Amway crap." Never heard a peep from my friend about his new "business" again.

mikey_the_rat

[LibertyLover]

21. Years ago

a friend of mine got involved in Amway and as a birthday present, bought me a distributorship - oh happy day - so that "we could get rich together". I quickly found that the products were ok, not great, not bad, just ok, but really expensive. I would buy some things that worked ok (the cleaning products were not bad) and not hideously overpriced, but drew the line at recruiting people to work under me. I met some of her "up-line" as it was called then and found them to be people I didn't want to associate with - mostly because they were very Christian and pushed that almost as hard as the Amway stuff. One person asked me where I had bought the outfit I was wearing. When I told them I'd gotten it in a department store, they chewed me out for not buying my clothing from Amway.

I did go to two events and boy were they weird. The one was a two or three day event with lots of the big names putting in an appearance to fire us up. A couple of them had their RVs there on display and you could go in and see how they lived. They also had someone there selling fancy and expensive dresses and all the women were encouraged to go and look and buy one so that when it was their turn to get up on stage and tell their rags-to-riches story they would have this fabulously expensive (and tacky as all get out) dress to wear and brag about. It was sad really to see all these people flocking to buy the overpriced crap. In the end, my friend gave it up because of major problems with one of her up-line. Now she doesn't even like to be reminded about her Amway period.

[seemunkee]

22. Tried to get recruited by my bedmate in the hospital

back in the late 70s I had my appendix out. I was not one to hesitate on asking for pain meds and was enjoying my spaciness. The guy in the bed next me found out I went to the same high school so was very chatty and dropping names of mutual acquaintances. He got my phone number and said he wanted to get me in on some business opportunity. His wife chatted me up about it too, she was cute but way to Stepford wifish. Thankfully back home and off the meds I was clear enough to refuse them when they started calling.

[Crabby Appleton]

23. the very un-PC movie "I'm gonna git you, sucka"

has some recuring references to amway.

check it out sometime