you are so programmed you don't even know it. negative people can't stand positive people many people thought JESUS was a bad person and all he did was help the sick & broken hearted. i suppose you think thats not true also you need to get off your commie kick and use your time looking at why you are so unhappy. i will be praying for you that you let JESUS in your heart and except him as your savior
how much money have you given to the easter seal foundation? i bet it's not 2.8 million and broke a record GOD PLEASE HELP THIS LOST SOUL
Just dropping a quick note to let you know I found that ALL of the links on the Amway Price Comparison page were dead. We were "visited" this past week and when I went on the net to find out more about this outfit I found your wonderful site, as well as, AUS and a few others. I don't mind working for a living but most places at least tell you how hard and how much they expect out of you right up front. This was my fourth time being recruited but my husband's first. He wanted to hear all about it and make up his own mind. I showed him all the sites I found on the net and that was that! I knew I wasn't going to even think about it when we met the very nice couple at a local eatery and I saw her get out of the car wearing a dress. We live in a very casual community and the dress immediately screamed AMWAY to me!
Anyway........ sorry to make this so long. Keep up the good work!! You are truly providing an invaluable service to the world with this website. Thank you!
I have read a lot of your web site with a great deal of interest and I would like to comment on a few things of interest to me.
First, let me tell you that my wife and I signed up in Amway in Sept '72, and with a lot of hard work achieved the Ruby Direct level. At this time (26 years later), I am retired (from my "honest job") and I have to say that I would never have been able to retire 11 years ago if it were not for the Amway business. We are also essentially retired from the Amway business, although some still remains, even after this time and with no effort on our part for the past 12-15 years.
Most, if not all, of the problems stated on your page relative to the Amway business concern the Yager organization and their methods of operation. Believe me when I tell you, this has been of great concern to me and all distributors that I have come into contact with for the past 26 years that are NOT part of the Yager organization.
Rich DeVos used to have a Direct Distributor meeting in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area around Christmas in the late 70's and I remember very well the concerns of Rich DeVos about the initial steps being taken by the Yager (and other) organizations to produce non Amway recruiting and motivational material. As I understood Rich's comments about it, he really did not want to allow it, but felt that there was no legal way that he could stop it. I have wished many times that Amway Corporation had taken the firm position at that time that there would be NO tapes, books, etc. moved in any organization that did not come from Amway.
I have heard the complaints expressed on your page hundreds of times by Amway distributors about the practices going on in the Yager organization. I have personally heard Rick Setzer, one of Yager's larger volume distributors, state that the general Amway distributor population called them "that other group". I remember thinking at the time, you are that "other" group.
The sad part is that Amway Corporation has never stepped up to the Yager group and severely punished the leadership for their recruitment practices. I have heard of some attempts, but no real success at stomping out the "tapes, books and rallies", "throw the sales kit under the bed", and "you don't have to sell" programs in place in that organization. Now these concepts have spread to other organizations.
Other perversions of the system have also crept in. Direct Distributors do get free shipping. Shipments to other locations in the DD's organization have a charge of $4.00 minimum or 4%. This is a service charge charged to the DD. Amway Corporation states that the "RDC Service Charge" is charged to the DD because Amway Corporation is doing their work in shipping the products directly. It would cost more than the 4% for the DD to ship to the downline. It was never intended that the DD would charge local distributors a 4% "Handling" charge or pass down this cost to the "ship to". Some Yager groups charge 4% or 5% of "Suggested Retail" as the handling charge.
The Emerald Bonus was created to offset an Emerald Direct Distributor's cost for in depth training. It was expected that he would have extra expenses for this size organization. In 26 years, we have been visited by our upline Emerald one time. Our Diamond also came once. Both for free. We did pay handsomely for our Crown to visit; but he did several meetings and weekends.
We always followed the Amway Sales and Marketing Plan. Retail sales were always required and stressed at every meeting we had. We actually retailed over $1000 per month for many months and have to this day retail customers that phone us long distance to order Amway products. Many of our distributors also retailed $300-1000 per month. We also held monthly "pot luck" suppers and the reward for the highest retail sales established your position in the food line (highest retailers got to eat first).
There is one other aspect of the Yager organization that was not mentioned in your text. The Yager group prostelizes distributors from other groups. During my active time in the Amway business, I did not have a single out of town distributor that came into contact with a distributor in the Yager group that was not "stolen". The pitch was, if your going to be a distributor in this area, you better get in our group. This factor and the other practices of the Yager organization have caused a great deal of animosity with other groups in the Amway business who make every attempt to follow the S&MP outlined by Amway.
I have thought many times about writing Rich DeVos and outlining most of the things you have mentioned in your site. I don't think that is necessary because the legal suits cover my concerns quite well. I only hope that Amway Corporation will crack down on these activities, but they have done nothing about them for a long time.
Amway is now also making another change. They have instituted the "Direct Fulfillment Program", whereby Amway ships directly to every single distributor in a Diamond organization, and pays all performance bonuses directly. This program is on trial, but is gradually expanding. I am greatly concerned about this method of operation because there are absolutely no checks relative to outside retail sales. If distributors do not sell, only buy, then this is the classic pyramid whereby all sales take place to participants.
Hope this was not too long and windy. The Amway concept is good. Unfortunately, it has been spoiled by some greedy distributors and Amway Corporation has not taken appropriate action.
I have been in the business now for 5 years and achieved a Ruby level. I came to the USA only 11 years ago, I have no family here, and I'm not a Christian (I am Jewish). During the last five years I managed to free my wife from her job, helped three other families to do the same, and currently in the process of helping (yes helping) other families to become financially free. If your intentions are honestly to educate people about the Amway business, will you give me a fair opportunity to summarize my experience and share my opinion about all the negative comments made about the business?
If you respond to me positively, I will email you a summary of my view point for you to publish in your site.
Will you do it?
I did invite him to email his summary, and he said he would, but to date have never received it
I just spent the last 5 hours reading you site. It made me think back to 1981 when I was a"successful" Amway Distributor (I never sold a thing to ANYONE).
I was hit up afew years ago, while at work, from a "Motivational Speaker" to have lunch... my first question was "Is this Amway" his response was NO!
Funny thing was during lunch (when I realized it WAS Amway) I really hurt this "Motivational Speakers" feelings when I told him to draw the F***ing circles.
He keep trying to go on with his presentation and kept telling him to draw the circles. (I REALLY DID hurt his feelings!)
The amazing thing was he kept after me for months! It reminded me of when I was in college in Boston and the moonies on the street wouldn't leave you alone.
Anyway, Thanks for the memories...
i'm a former distributor, 3 1/2 years, reached 1000 pv, was sponsored by "close friends", sunk a few thousand dollars into tapes, books, and functions before shaking loose the emotional bondage of one of the larger Amway organizations. we unplunged in '96 and i've visited various sites to keep abreast of what's going on in the world of Amway.
just a short 2 years ago i could search "Amway" on the net and readily view a number of pro and anti Amway sites. i've now noticed that Amway has flooded the net with a multitude of pro Amway items that makes it difficult to get the true story of what's going on in the large, "emotion-driven" organizations. my question is, in this day of the internet and Amway organizations spouting that they are on the cutting edge of technology, WHERE ARE THE AMOs WEB SITES???? DO YOU HAVE EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR ANY OF THE BIG DIAMONDS OR CROWN AMBASSADORS? I was wondering about Free Enterprise Celebrations this labor day, where are they. one might think that this would be published on the net somewhere's but i've foune nothing. i suspect that email addresses for the big dawgs are confidential like much of what they do. if you can shed light on any of this would appreciate it. your doing a great job. as you state, helping people to make a sound business decision about a business rather than an emotional one is indeed worth while.
love your site, I have a question, how do I answer these Amway idiots ( I own a pharmacy inNy so they would just LOVE me) when they bring up their "residual income" bullshit. I appreciate your time
Thanks for responding to my comments. I was not sure there would be any response.
Back in 1983, Amway Corporation announced that they were not going to get involved in software or hardware for the Amway business, but if anyone had software of hardware for the Amway business, Amway would publish the information for a fee of $20/year in a publication called the Distributor Computer Information Service (DCIS). At that time, I undertook to develop business software for the Amway business for most of the computer models (Atari 800/ST, IBM/Clones, TRS, Macintosh). Amway advertised our offerings in the DCIS for 2 years, and then announced that there would be no more DCIS. In 1987 Amway announced that they now had business software, named AMWARE, for IBM and clone computers. Our sales dropped 90% and continued to remain low, since Amway Corporation would not provide requests for information on any software except Amware. Distributors were not made aware that if they did not have an IBM/Clone, there was other software available.
Since Amway Corporation will not divulge the names of any distributors, we had to rely on referrals from satisfied users and I also contacted Directs and above whose names and states were listed in the Amagram. I mailed a one page flier about our program to addresses that I could find using "Phone Disc". This infuriated the Diamond organizations that had developed software (SOAR for example, a very expensive software package) and they complained to Amway. As a result, Amway Corporation (Ed Postma, mentioned in one of the lawsuits on your site) suspended my distributorship since I would not comply with their order to "cease and desist! The complaint was that I was "cross selling". My response was that Amway Corporation advertised for me in the DCIS and that I was only doing what I did when they advertised for me. Apparently, the "Rules" people were never aware that one side of Amway (DCIS) was soliciting sales across groups in the DCIS. At any rate, Amway was never able to get a satisfactory software package and abandoned the project about 3-4 years ago. In the mean time, the Diamond organizations were able to develop some kind of business software package which they market downline as they do tapes, books and other materials....
The software business has allowed me to be in contact with many distributors, in many organizatiions including the Yager group. Here are a couple of things that annoy me greatly.
Our inventory count used to go from -99 to 1000. We had one diamond in the Northeast that would set his inventory level at 1000 at the beginning of each week for tapes on hand for his "Tape of the week" program, and the program would bomb because he was selling more than 1099 tapes per week. We had to change to -999 to 10000 to accomodate his tape sales.
We had to put a provision in our program to allow handling charges on "Suggested Retail" instead of "Cost". Also, the ability to make the charge different from 4% (like 5%). This increases those charges substantially above what Amway charges.
One Direct Distributor complained that we were not computing Performance Bonus correctly. The group involved witholds the performance bonus if the distributor to whom the bonus would normally be paid did not have 100 personal pv. In other words, if distributer A (with personal pv of 80) sponsored 3 legs, each of which had 80pv, no bonus would be paid to A even though A had 320pv (3 groups at 80pv plus their own 80pv). I wonder who got the money????
There are many groups in Amway that attempt to follow the S&MP outlined by Amway Corporation. The money "fleeced" by the Yager organizaion has tempted other groups to begin their own "fleecing", but there are some left that don't. For example, I know Dexter Yagers sponsor (Charlie Marsh). Charlie does not have a tape, book or rally progarm. I have worked and known Charlie's sponsor (Ted Elias) well for many years. Ted never had a tape, book, rally program. I know Dan Williams well, and, unfortunately, Dan began his own program, World Wide Diamonds. Dan has joined with Yager for some unknown reason (leaving some of his leaders behind), but I suspect if you could follow the money you would find the answer.
I talk about once a month with a lady sponsored into Amway by Rich & Jay's sponsor (That is a long way back). She is distraught about the "cancer" associated with the Yager organization and its spread to other groups. She continues to follow the plan exactly as outlined by Rich Devos and Jay Van Andel, and is very successful in the business. I'll bet she has never had a complaint or law suit filed against her.
This sounds like a tirade against the Yager group doesn't it. In reality, it probably is, but after 26 years in the business, I cannot think of any problems outside of that group or groups trying to emulate Yager's group.
I have been an Amway distributor for one year now. I read through all of your information you have provided. I can see you have devoted allot of time into becoming knowledgeable with the amway business. I will not argue about DD's who make profit from shipping charges, tapes, books and rally's. Anyone who actually thought that it cost $6-8 per tape to make obviously has there head up there butt. Common sense says some ones making money. I look at it as an added bonus when I reach that level to be cut in on some of the profit. When you go to University to learn how to be a doctor is it free? Does some one make money on your books you buy for school? This is the same thing I know I am spending $ 6-8 per tape so I can learn things that will help me build my business. Who cares were the money goes it costs money for education. I am just glad some day I will get some of it back.
I copied this next paragraph from your site and I have to say you are wrong about the direct sales. In Interactive Distribution(phase4 of Amway) We are not required to sell anything and our bonus depend on our personal volume and the volume of our downline. Weather we buy peanut butter for ourselves or sell cleaner to the neighbor it is the same volume.
Let's just take one example of a complaint - The Retail Sales Rule. In the Fall of 97, I snuck into an "open" while on a business trip and heard an emerald state "All I do is buy from myself and find others who do the same." He did not even mention customer sales in his presentation. This is not a lower-level distributor who said this but an emerald, someone you would think would be cognizant of the Retail Sales Requirement needed to earn a performance bonus and the fact that Amway's Rules and Regulations specify that retailing must be properly emphasized when the plan is shown.
I understand many people have been left with a bad taste in there mouth from other distributors sales tactics but please know that there are honest hardworking amway distributors who don't appreciate you trashing our business. One thing to keep in mind is just because you make more when you are a DD from shipping etc. doesn't mean don't make everything they say you will before that point. I have really enjoyed your site and it has made me very happy to know that when I reach DD I will receive even more bonuses.
Thank you A devoted Amway Distributor.
My parents where in Amway for five years. They got to the level of pearl direct. They have pretty much the same story as you and the other letters I read. I remember the pain they went through seeing their friends and family that they told about Amway become the victims of the MLM marketing plan. Nine years later after they got out of Amway they found the business that they are in now. I am also doing this business. I will keep it short and will not hold my breath. The name of the company is ***** (name of yet another MLM offer snipped... I responded by saying that it was good that he wasn't holding his breath) No inventory, no selling . Not a MLM. Consumer direct Marketing.
Your statistics in regards to the IRS leaves approximately 170 million people unaccounted for, given the American pop. is 286 million. Your statistics would be more accurate if you measured people who were in debt...I think "broke" is not a measure of your income, but of how much money you have. If you have a 100000 dollar income, and you spend 120000 dollars a year, you are broke! Do you agree with me?
Please note that the IRS statistics posted is the number of tax returns filed not the number of people
Ok true.... SOME of the things you have written are right, and ALOT more are wrong! I'll give you credit though that you have this much spare time on your hands to write a worthless website. Are you sure your not retired from the business?
Let me ask another thing.... why do you care? Are you even in Amway or are you just another person who hears things??? Well anyway I know more people who have retired from this, probably more people than you even know! So if its such a scam.......HOW DO PEOPLE BECOME SUCCESSFUL FROM IT?!? So maybe next time you decide to write another page of bs, you'll try it and not be so JUDGMENTAL!
THE END
Thanks for your web page. There's a lot I wouldn't have known without it :)
If you wish to have additional references for your artickel" Amway Produces More Millionaires Than Any Other Type of System", check out article "Selling the Dream" by Worth Online at http://www.worth.com/articles/Z9701F03.html "But don't believe anyone telling you that most new millionaires are coming out of network marketing. That's an absurdity," says DSA president Neil Offen.
To whom it may concern, as you know Amway doesn't require people to complete a questionnaire or application for hire form to get into Amway. So like any other business that will except people for their word of doing the right thing and following the rules of the business. Not everyone does. You will have the percentage that does not care about what the say or who they say it to.
So if you were mislead in the Amway business, I am sorry. But not all Amway people are dishonest.
You made a comment about an emerald stating that you have to sell products, This is not true, you can sell if you like, but not required. I heard a statement that Amway is 40% more than Wal-Mart, When was the last time you or anyone bought Something of the Highest quality from Wal-Mart. Sorry for taking your time up to read this, But just felt like I had to set the record straight.
"It is always the best intention that the worst is done" OSCAR WILDE
I know you have the best intention, however, a lot of people are now without hope but you had your say. Please go out and offer someone real help and help them make money to feed their family, pay their bills and most of all, give them hope.
I am new to this business and have heard many things from many people about this business. I brought up the issue of 'tools income' to my upline and they say that no one profits from the tools. What can you tell me about Ron Puryear and Bob Wells ( my immediate Diamond ) and this organization. Assuming that I don't invest in the tools and run a strictly soap business, am I not able to 'make it'?
"It is always with the best intentions that the worst is done." I believe this sums up your web-site. You keep doing what you're doing and we keep doing what we are doing. In life there's always the yin and the yang. May I suggest you investigate other businesses too and suggest something that is "good".
thanks a lot from colombia south america next week i had my first meeting. i hate amway right now
Great page, probably saved many. I really wanted to show my friend (caught up in Amway) Jeff and Joni Probst's page. Cannot access it or find it now! Help! Do you know what happened?
Thank you so much for keeping the contents for this site. I read Jeff's site about 6 months ago after I had been told "there is a bunch of garbage on the Internet about the system." I was shocked at that time, but still "committed to the system".
I had to investigate this futher as it has been nagging me for months. Needless to say I am totally disgusted with what I am reading and embarassed to say that I have been one of the biggest "promoters" of this system since day one. I am now a Silver direct. I have personally sponsored 12 people and have had as many as 28 people on tape of the week. I have taken over 30 people to some functions.
I am so angry that these people have spent money (in some cases, money they don't have) to here the same things taught over and over again just to line the pockets of the bigger pins.
Sorry Charles, I'm sure you have heard all of this before.
Now to decide what to do about it. I do have "good access" to my upline Crown. I am considering requesting a meeting with him at the next funtion armed with the information you and Sidney have provided me personally. I will let you know what he says. He has mentioned that Amway is looking at making some major changes soon to " organize" the tools and funtions.
Thanks again!