Anyone have experience, good or bad, with Amway?

Hello ATS,

I was approached a few days ago by my wife's cousin trying to get us to enroll/join Amway. They came over, without us knowing why they wanted to meet with us of course, to make their "presentation!

Although it all seems nice and lovely and easy to make a fortune, I am not stupid. I feel like this could be a scam, and I have a REALLY bad feeling about this so I will definitely not be joining but I am currious about other's feedback.

Please refrain from posting opinions, as I know that opinions will vary from one person to another...What I am looking for is facts and experiences from people who have actually worked in Amway as an IBO or have been approached by a rep.

Thanks all!

Teye22

My father in law sold Amway for years and made damn good money doing it. Of course he's one of those people that can sell ice to an Eskimo, so your results may vary. I haven't used their products in quite a long time, but when I did they were quality products.

It's hard these days to sell anything door to door. If you are a people person Amway may be a good choice to bring in a little extra money.



It's not a scam (at least it wasn't) as far as scams go. There is real money to be made if you are a good enough salesman and put in the effort to move your product.

a reply to: Teye22
Similar experience.
It has come a long way from the old days, didn't go for it twenty years ago and didn't go for it this time. They are now using the internet to sell their stuff in Australia and are getting into normal products to get you in.
"but you buy these products anyway, why not buy them through our distribution network and get rewarded for it?'

If it wasn't dodgy why are they so reluctant to mention the word 'Amway' until nearly the end of their presentation or unless you directly ask them to say it!!!!

a reply to: Teye22
I have had two encounters with them.

At one stage of my life, the owner of the house I lived in had been brought into them.
He had a tape of an "inspirational talk", which I listened to. The man was exactly like an evangelistic preacher. It was a kind of religion in which "showing the plan" took the place of "presenting the gospel".
"So I sat in the seat next to him and showed him the plan, and at the end of the flight..."
"I always say that if I haven't shown them the plan, then they haven't been shown the plan" (whooping and cheers from appreciative audience).

Later on, somebody at work invited me to a group meeting, making a mystery about what the group was. I hoped it would be some kind of weird sect, which would add to my knowledge of weird sects. It turned out to be Amway. A visitor gave a little talk (for my benefit, in fact, because I appeared to be the only person there who hadn't already joined up).
What I gleaned was that you don't get real money from selling things. You get real money by recruiting the people who sell things. You get even more by recruiting the people who recruit the people who sell things. If you want real wealth, you must recruit the people who recruit the people who recruit the people who recruit the people...
As I understood it, explaining to someone how this pyramid works and how you get rich by sitting on top of it was what they meant by the phrase "showing the plan".

Yes, I think it's an outright case of "pyramid selling" (I forget the American term).
Only the ruthless stand a chance of getting anything out of it.
I would stay well back.

a reply to: Teye22
I did the Amway thing for quite some time, many years ago. I got to know a lot of people, from the bottom to the emeralds and diamonds. Yes, money can be made selling Amway products. But that isn't what Amway is about. Amway is about proselytizing. Plain and simple. That's what those above you will be pushing you to do. Because the more you bring into the fold, the higher you push those above you.

At the time, I was a Christian, so I didn't mind hearing all the "sermons" about Amway, god, and Jesus mixed. Now it would drive me insane. I can tell you, no one gets to that first rung easily. A lot of people I met had been at it for a long time, and still hadn't gotten that trip to Hawaii, or whatever they're promising now. So don't hold your breath.

One of the motto's of Amway is, "You can sleep when you die." That should tell you something.

I know you said you didn't want personal opinions, but I'm going to give you mine, anyway. In my years as a Christian, I dealt with more than one cult, and its members. In my opinion, Amway qualifies as one of the biggest cults in this country(USA). Don't believe me? Join, and you'll find out.

But personally, I'd run the other way as fast as you can.

ETA:

Amway this morning announced a deal to pay $34 million in cash and provide $22 million worth of products to settle a 2007 class-action suit alleging the company and some of its top-level distributors operate an illegal pyramid scheme.

The suit alleged the company used unfair and illegal business practices that mislead distributors about their ability to make money and how much it would cost to be part of the business.

In their letter to employees, DeVos and Van Andel said Amway has addressed many of the concerns raised by those who filed the case and others who have criticized the business as being heavily weighted toward finding new recruits and sales of "tools" or "business support materials" such as motivational tapes, books and seminars.

Link
Link 2

originally posted by: Klassified
a reply to: Teye22
I did the Amway thing for quite some time, many years ago. I got to know a lot of people, from the bottom to the emeralds and diamonds. Yes, money can be made selling Amway products.

I'll say!

I saw two of their family yachts in Tortola.

One was larger than the British warship next to it.

Thanks for all the replies, keep 'em coming!

It's really funny how some people get brainwashed so deeply that they don't even reallize that they are being arrogant and condescending when they are talking to you...and they are your own friends and family, I find them really pushy and that is a big turn off for me. If you try to force something on me, it could be the most legit thing on this Earth but I will turn my back to it.

I already knew while starting this thread that I would not go for it, This was mainly to see if any one had anecdotes as I do beleive they (amway reps) lead people with false promises for a fast fortune, I read a lot of various comments online and you can tell when someone is brainwashed or simply replying to negative comments to make it look so GOOD! Which is why I asked for no opinions...I accept yours though Klassified and thanks for the links, that confirmed I made the right choice NOT to get Suckered into this....

This is something I will stay away from and that I am 110% certain.

a reply to: Teye22

My mother-in-law was into that for a while... And just like Klassified said... they kept pushing her not to make sales but to bring other members into the fold. but she just doesn't have that kind of personality to pressure someone into joining and that's kind of what it takes to get head with them...

FYI the wife and I liked the laundry soap they have... but most everything else we could buy cheaper at the PX or Wally World.

Amway is a pyramid scheme. Plain and simple.

You are not rewarded for your efforts. You are rewarded for the efforts of those you recruit.

Growing up in West Texas during the oil bust years, I had to sit through more than 1 Amway presentation. I know 3 people who did Amway back then. They have all served jail time for checks and other forms of financial crimes.

Not that all Amway folks are criminal. Just that, in my own experience, the folks who could put their pride aside long enough to try to sink their hooks into other victims ended up in jail at some point subsequent to this.

Can you make money with them? Sure...some will make money. Most won't. And the money isn't really honest.

My experience? When the wife and I returned to our clients in a month or so for further sales? They all said "NO! That stuff is great and we only need to use a little bit. It will last us a longggggg time!".

Then it was clear. We needed new customers all the time because the friends and neighbors, family were all set for a long time. It didnt take long to run out of leads, customers...even relying on cold-calling.

Product wise? They are all very good. But, like...and I say LIKE a pyramid process....the greatest (and not the only one) way to make $$$...is to get more sales people to work for or under you.

Research "Amway-Diamond Direct Distributors."

Should you go along? Good luck, and dont contact me please. I still got some of that great shoe shine spray from 1981!

My only experience is when someone tried to recruit me. It was someone I vaguely knew as a child (distant acquaintance of a friend of my older brother). He was that desperate to recruit that he looked up anyone in his whole life who he had been vaguely aware of in his distant past.

He became a nuisance. I didn't know the guy, I didn't like the guy and yet he would drop by regularly, fawning and flattering and acting like we were long lost bosom friends, trying to show me that he was doing me this enormous favour, increasingly desperate to get me, to get anyone at all to sign up.

Even after I spelled it out to him with a huge NO! it took a while for him to get it.

So I have no personal experience of being involved myself, but I have witnessed the desperation and loss of personal pride, and the lengths to which normal humans will be willing to go to scrap accepted social boundaries in order to survive.

I was part of Amway back in the late 1980s.

The products were good, and when you broke down the costs of them, they were comparable, maybe even a bit less than other similar products from the local stores.

The prices were a bit better when you join, since there is a discount and then you get a "rebate" check.

Not quite sure how the prices match up to today's prices, with the whole "cheap products made in China" we have now.

The whole push to get new members is very real. But there was no reason to if that's not what you wanted to do.

I spent a couple years trying to "build the business" without much success, so for a few years after that I just kept the membership to get cheap(ish) products. Lots of people do this.

Check the products, if there is something there that might be worth it to you, go for it. Don't get caught up in the hoopla that surrounds it.

BTW.. even back then, no-one actually mentioned Amway, because the preconception of most people is Amway = soap. It is, but they added alot to their catalog of products as well. I have no idea what their catalog looks like now.

Hope this helps a bit!

a reply to: DISRAELI

The American term is Multi Level Marketing, or MLM. And you are applying it correctly. Other American MLM companies are like Mary Kay, Tupperware, Avon, and the like.

To the OP, if you have a bad feeling, follow your gut. Seriously, every time I didn't follow my gut, I regretted it. Follow the feeling! A very small percentage of people who do this actually make good money. You might turn out to be one of them, but more likely, you will not. Find some other thing to do for yourself if you need to increase your income.
Good luck!

I have been around Amway most of my life. My parents were customers for YEARS and years. The core Amway made products are great and have a "180 day money-back-guarantee" that nobody anywhere else can match.
Try going to Walmart and purchase tide laundry soap, use half of it and take it back for a refund. They would laugh at you.

The Sales and marketing plan is the best in ANY multi-level-marketing business. There have always been copy-cats "like Amway but better" and all of them are compared by the Federal trade commission to The Amway sales and marketing plan. Back in the 1970s through the 1980s The federal government investigated multilevel marketing, As a alternate form of doing business. They could not find anything wrong with Amway. The federal government could not find anything wrong with Amway, and in fact they hold it up as a model against which all other multilevel businesses are measured.
There was a gentleman who mentioned a "pyramid scheme". There are illegal pyramid's that pop up from time to time, but Amway is not one of them. They are usually shut down by the Better Business Bureau, or the federal trade commission after about 5 to 10 years of history. It takes that long for the government to take notice. Illegal pyramid's make money on recruiting, or "front end loading" this illegal type of business makes you buy inventory to join. Amway IBO's don't make any money until YOU do. It's a win-win business.

How profit is made: two ways.
1 - The retail sale of products to your customers, the same process Wal-Mart or McDonnalds makes money.
2 - The volume of people you helped and mentored generate, by selling products to their customers. The exact same way you made money. This is how Franchisors make money, like Ray Crock who started McDonnalds. He helped someone start a McDonald's and then Ray made money on the volume the franchisee generated.

There are several people who mentioned that only a few make serious money. That is true, because only a few ever actually do what they are taught. Just like more than a few college kids fail to graduate college because they fail to what is required. EVERY PERSON who does what their training organization teaches, makes money. But there are many who can't or won't do what they are taught to do. These people usually generate netegitive about Amway.

If you are serious, motivated, willing to be teachable, and are paired up with a good training system like World Wide Dream Builders, or Britt Motivational, Amway can generate a SERIOUS income (more than 300,000$ a year at the diamond level) in a relatively short period of time (5-10 years). What job out there could you make $300,000
a year with five to ten years effort? Not many, and not with out years and years of college.

I hope this helps you evaluate the Amway business opportunity better.

I think so, yes, but it gets blurry.

These people came over and gave us the presentation, and then they would take frequent breaks in seclusion because they were into TM and they didn't want to lay too much cultishnish on us all at once. You cannot just go around talking to strangers about vibrating and stuff.

Then the house was filled with all their products. And weird books with weird memes written by persons with weird names. Zig Zigler wrote a motivational book based on 'stinkin' thinkin'.

Whenever you asked too many questions the answer was 'stinkin' thinkin'.

I was in college at the time. There was a guy who also had experience with Amway, and we found that we had more than one Amway meme in common. 'Ain't it great' was the big one.
Whenever we were around certain people, or stuff that was expensive, this guy would
screw up his face and bark rhetorically in a Texas drawl 'Ain't it great'. Plus he knew a guy who had herpes; one day he brought me to his house, though it seemed sort of like a Shadenfreude maneuver on his part. We were supposed to wonder if his wife had it too, or something like that. The friend started talking about joining the Marines a lot. We drifted apart.

Soon other persons were showing up at our house, not just the Amway people. The TM thing was out of the bag and rather than get involved with an obvious cult, we solicited the advice of Christians. At this juncture evrerything gets blurry. Between shelves stocked with Buffup, soaps, vitamins, and healthfood snackbars, stinkin' thinkin' books, and what with a revolving door admitting Christian ministers and double diamond pep talk speakers plus college...there's not a lot I can remember about Amway, specifically. Sometimes when I am folding laundry I will look up and see a rusting can of Amway waterless hand cleaner, or Buffup-these are great products by the way-especially the hand cleaner...it still oozes out after all these years, just enough, just when you need it, when hydrofluoric acid is not enough to tackle the problem.

Eventually the Amway thing went by the wayside, and I have grim recollections but only because of the terrible mix of company that blew in once we opened the door for Amway.
The priests, their insane outbursts...stuff that can't be conveyed here and now...were a direct result of our sabotaged expectations made possible by Amway.

For years I was haunted by some of the memes, especially the 'stinkin' thinkin' one, and I almost switched majors from engineering to philosophy. Instead, I transferred to a Jesuit college and majored in economics.

Make no mistake: Amway people have an agenda.
They are rabidly sold this money equal success equal happiness thing, and will drop their soul like a whore drops her panties, and run after it before they even get their ankles freed, as during a vice raid. It can be embarassing but only if you think about it, because you must suffer through and expose others to a whole spate of rah rah motivational you know you want it ain't it great platforms, all so you can become a salesman who gets other people to peddle stuff, in exchange for your life and soul. Sick, really, just as an off the rails gambler will allow brain activity that mirrors a coke fix, with every spin. If you can play the game without
the screamingbrain damage, that's great. Motivational themes tend to head into soul sale territory.

# 846

a reply to: DavidBeers
Well, that post is one way of "showing the plan". But you probably need the persuasive "person-to-person" touch to do it properly. Enterprising, though.

It is coming back...back through the haze, back to just before everything was...everything was

I watched as my father become mortified as his lovely wife was becoming transfixed
with ideas that started with
one simple question:

"What do you want,"

posited by vibrating suited bastards posing as simple folk who know what they want
and know how to get it, so they could finally be happy in life....

Pictures of sports cars, precious gems, mansions, luxury yachts, cleavage, Czech circus performers and Learjets were flashed onto the wall, alternated with Amway products set against a dewy spring setting foreground and endless sunny blue skies.

"What do you really want," the mantra was subtly intensified, repeated, and again intensified.

Backbones became erect as aromatic vinyl folders were handed out along with ring binders stuffed with glossy pages. Again, the yachts, manisons, kids, families, pets, all laughing, all toothy smiles and
stepping out of, into, and onto their new toys like an endless birthday that eclipsed Christmas always,
and all of it.... made possible by Amway.

to be continued

# 867