Amway: The Untold Story

Sidney,

I read through quite a bit of the material on your page and I have to say I am quite shocked by what I have seen. I started my Amway distributorship when I was 19 years old. I realised at the time that I was not mature or responsible enough to own and operate my own busness and I made that feeling very clear to my sponsor, but I didn't want to let an oportunity pass that in the future may prove to be very profitable.

For the next year I became close friends with my sponsor and his wife and although I am no longer in his downline we are still friends. you see, near the end of that first year in amway my life was pretty much turned upside down. My father was layed off from his job of 24 years and i was forced to move out, pay my own rent/ college tuition/ etc… along with my parents bills. when you get laid off and your income goes from 45k+ a year to $250.00 a week from unemployment, things tend to get a little bit tight. my father found a job after about 6 months of searching. If you haven't had to do it you would be very surprised how dificult it is for a 48 year old man with a masters degree to find a job. it seems that he is over qualified for just about everything. anyways after 6 months he found a job (making about 10k a year less then he was before) and he and my mother packed up everything in thier 2500 sqft house into a U-haul and a trailer (because the new job didn't give him a moving allowance) and they moved from Abilene texas to a tiny little backwards town in Arkansas. I couldn't afford to quit my job and quit school and move with them so I found a room mate got an appartment and lived on a Pizza delivery drivers paycheck for 6 months while I looked for a better job. in all the commotion, I forgot to renue my Amway business. It took about 6 months for me to get my life back in order. during the time may father was unemployed my grades dropped drasticaly, the stress level in my family when through the roof I spent more time at work tryin to get that last tip of the night then I did with my family and friends, nothing seemed to be going right. however through the whole thing my "Amway family" was there to help out. I was told on numerous occasions by my sponsor that he would do anything he could to help out, even my upline direct called to offer assistance financially or anything else he could do for us and I had never even met the guy! If it hadn't been for the friends I've made in my Amway Bussiness I would not have made it through those times and I can honestly tell you. I didn't ever want to have that happen again. after about 6 months on my own I landed a job with a company in arkansas (coincidence that my dad worked there?) and moved out of the city I loved to be nearer my family and make a little more money.

After I moved to Arkansas I finnaly got my life back in order and rejoined Amway under a new sponsor. My old sponsor and I are still close friends. everything seemed to be going great untill the company myself and my father and my brother all work for decided that it was time to cut back. They laid off about 25 employees the first round and luckily my family all made the cut. a few months later our company decided they needed to get rid of a few saleried people and unfortuantly dad was on the bottom of the senority list. once again he is looking for a job and although he has had one offer and a garentee of another offer ina few days it is quite stressfull once again. my father has a masters degree in Industrial Manufacturing, a bachelors degree in Quality Control, he has 24 years experiance in quality control 12 years of that as QC Manager for a very large very well known Plumbing fitting manufacturer, and he lost every bit of it because someone above him in the line of senority didn't like the color of his tie. To top it all off…the company I work for will most likely close its doors around the end of July so myself and my brother will also be collecting unemployment. I'm sorry, I know I'm no Einstien, heck if your reading this you can see I couldn't spell to save my life, but I can't see the job security in my story that I always thought I was supposed to have after spending over 100,000 dollars on a college education. in fact, most of my friends from college can't find a job doing anything in teh field they went to school for. one of my very close friends at the pizza place i delivered for, another driver, has a masters degree in Mathematics and a masters degree in education, and he is in school working on his next masters right now....thats right…he's the pizza guy… with 2 masters degrees…yea..job security…alright..I believe that…it is unfortunate but this is the way jobs go. you are told all your life to get educated find a good job work for 45 years and retire on your pension and social security, move to Ft. Lauderdale, and live happy for the rest of your life almost from birth. Thats what my dad thought he was going to do. guess what. he won't. I met a college professor through my Amway business who retired as the head of the psycology department of a major university and now every month the university sends him his retirement check for $38.37. sure…I could retire on that…What about social security?? my guess is that in about 5 years there won't be any social security. there are 76 million baby boomers currently living on the social security that 52 million Generation x people are paying because all the mony that the baby boomers paid in went to people who didn't have to pay into social security. if you read the papers on a regular basis you know the story of where social security is going but I can tell you I don't count to heavily on social security to pull me through the golden years. What about investing? well..I don't have 10,000 bucks to put into an investment that would get me any kind of sizable return. if you've ever though of investing you'll discover that that is about how much it takes. so in my honest opinion, the future looks pretty gloomy. I have chosen Amway as my way out of the horror story that my job has become.

I have had contact with Amway for about 5 years total although only about 1.5 years as a distributor and i can honestly say that I have not seen any of the trash that you had on your web pages. My upline has always been willing to do whatever it took to help me build my business, I have never been told I HAD to get on standing order tape. I have never been told I HAD to attend every function. I have never been told I HAD to throw away everything I owned that did not come from amway and I have never been told I HAD to only use things I purchased from my business. as a matter of fact I have not seen any of the negative things you had typed into your web page. I am slowly finishing up the products I have in my house from before I got back into amway and when they are gone they will be replaced by Amway products and services because it makes good business sence that if I can by it from me, why pay sam walton for it. I attend the functions because they are fun and I get to meet people who have reached the level of success in there Amway businesses which I will meet someday, and i get to LEARN how they did it. I buy the tapes because they are entertaining as much as informative, and i even read motivational books I purchased from my upline because they do infact help me to understand people better which helps me to relate to people in both seling of products and sponsoring new distributors.

One fact that I learned from one of my Motivational books that you seem to be so against on your site is that everything that everyone does is motivated by GREED. People join Amway because tehy wan tto make a lot of money and be "free" you bought your last car because that was the car "YOU" wanted not because it had the lowest exost emissions and was good for the environment, lets talk about teh environement. you know why environmentalist firght for the environement?? because they love those whales right?? NO! because paluting the see and poisoning the water and cutting down all those trees might harm the ecology system and in some way in some future time inconvience THEM! who cares about whales and trees they just want a clean place to live. guess what. environmentalist are fueled by greed. you name it and I can tell you how greed caused it. religion?? why do people go to church and devote there lives to god?? because they want to go to heaven when they die. they are concerned about there own afterlife. in my book…its greed.

Thats right my upline is using me in order to build his own business bigger so he can go lay on the beaches of the world while I stay home and build my business. but you know what? because he is using me to get rich, I'm going to get rich.

If you've seen the plan drawn out the way it is ment to be( buy you web site I'd say you haven't) you must realise that when I go direct my sponsor looses all my business but the Amway corporation sends him a check for the equivelant of 4% of my business volume. this means that even though I am downline from the top of the pyramid I can make more mony then the guy above me! that is the main factor that says amway is not an illegal Pyramid. (pyramid thery out the window) you want to see a n illegal pyramid I'll show you one.

corp. pres <---makes a lot of money!
/\
board of directors <---makes a lot but not as much as#1
/\ /\
mid level management <---won't even compare to 1 & 2
/\ /\ /\
employees <---minimum wage

you know…its not illegal where i work. if this system works so great tell me how many people in the employee section of my little diagram up there will eve be corp. pres.??? thats right. 0 well…maybe 1 cause somebodies got to get lucky every now and again. Have you ever seen an employee of a company with a higer hourly paycheck then teh corp. presidents salery??? I haven't. heck I worked 67.5 hours a week for about 7 months strait. thats 12 hours a day mon. - fri and 8 on sat. and I made great money. but I didn't have time to spend it because I was always at work or home sleeping because i do hard work. believe me the money wasn't worth it. what am I going to get for all that hard work??? laid off in about 5 months. job security…yea…

With the state of teh world today I suppose it would be impossible to expect an oporunity like the Amway oportunity to get as big as it has without attracting teh lesser desired elements. any time you have over 2 million people worldwide involved in a organisation like Amway tehre will inevitably be some who don't go exactly by the rules and those people cause the entire organisation to look bad. I agree that there are things going on in the structure of Amway that are hurting people. and I deeply regret that some distributors are destrying the name of a company which is accualy good at heart. Yes the Amway corporation was founded out of teh greed of its founders because they wanted to make money. and yes distributers by books and tapes put out by Bill Britt and Dexter Yeager and yes bill and dex make a lot of money from the sale of these tools and they love to hear that someone else just got ontop S.O.T. because that means they get more money and I really don't care because I'm building MY dream. just like they built there dreams and thousands of other Amway distributors have built there own dreams. If there are a few bad apples in the barrel i agree with you that amway should do something about it. revoke there distributorships or something but it is such a shame to see all teh negative press that amway gets on the web from a few people who just didn't have what it took to become successfull amway distributors. I believe that anyone who is willing to try can build this business. It is not an easy thing to do and as I state every time I show the Plan to a new prospect it takes a lot of hard work to get to the top. it can be done in the 5-10 hours a week we say in the plan but most succesfull distributors put a lot more time into it then that. I won't deny that to anyone. I believe that you just got into the wrong downline as I see so many people here on the web have done. my downline is suppoertive and we help each other out every step of the way. although we all own our own individual Amway businesses we build them through good honest hard work, teamwork, and friendship. I am sorry that you didn't have a team like mine to help you during your Amway ordeal and i agree that this business can be rough. but I realise that it is rough because people like you cannot look back objectively on you stint in amway and evaluate what really happened. instead you go out on the internet and create a web page to spread the word of the lies you were told by a few distributors who don't run there businesses by the Amway code of ethics. You scream out for everyone to pity you because you were wronged and because your particular upline was a bunch of crooks then all 2 million other Amway distributors must be crooks to. yes some amway distributors lie about there business, yes some sports card stores lie about teh value of cards in there case, yes some resurants use meat from 3 days ago because it still looks ok to use and doesn't smell bad…yes some retail stores jack price through the roof on things they sell and yes some used car dealers even lie about whats wrong with the car they are trying to sell you. and yes some people even lie to themselves about why they failed in there amway business, they make excuses and the make web pages and they cry to everyone who will listen. I don't think you are a looser because you quit your Amway business. I don't think your a looser because you Spoke out against something you feel wronged you I don't even think your a looser at all. I think that you are a person who got into something he didn't understand, with people who couldn't explain it because they had corrupted the system so badly that they didn't understand it anymore.

I am very sorry that the Amway business oportunity wasn't a good experiance for you, and i sincerely hope that someday you find a way to make your dreams come true. I tell all my downline that Amway is not the only way to bring your dreams to life but it is the way I chose and hopefully the way many more people will choose even in the adversity caused by people like you.

in closeing i would apreciate it if you would leave my E-mail adress in this letter when you post it on your page as I and my team would happily answer any questions anyone may have about teh amway business oportunity. It is regretfull that some distributors have done the things listed on your page but people should realise that not all distributors are like that. many of us accually run our business by the Amway code of ethics and do our best to be sure we stay within all federal and state laws pertaining to our businesses.

If you know any thing about AMWAY you would be in In mt view it it a good thing and you are full of shit

Your "Amway" page is a joke. I've never seen anything like it. Full of inaccuracies, completely biased. Your ignorance about Amway, life in general, and the issues about distributors is amazing.

Mind control? How ingnorant can you be? Parents brainwash their children (guide them into certain belief patterns), churches brainwash church-goers, Political parties brainwash anyone who listens, schools brainwash students ..

Just look around, TV programs brainwash viewers … grow up. People in Amway decide they would rather be around a POSITIVE belief system than "Cheers" or "Natural Born Killers" or any other destructive and morally degenerative belief system.

Your version of "mind control" exists everywhere. Corporate work place, Home School associations, churches, political organizations. Get a clue.

Hi Sidney,

Been reading some of the responses here and have a question - If these Amway distributors are so much more successful than the rest of us, how come they don't know how to deactivate the caps-lock key? ;)

Couldn't resist.

Dearest Schwartz, I'm a silver producer in the ILD system and I just wanted to voice a few comments to all the negative information you provide on this web site. Why don't you just leave it alone, the only people in Amway that don't "make it" are the ones who quit. Don't you think that business in America is operating as a pyramid? All American business has the appearance of a pyramid from the top down, corporate executives down to the laborers and they get paid top to bottom. Why are you not slamming companies like Coke, Frito Lay, Nike and so on. The people at the top of these companies had to work their way up and use others to do their work. Why is that any different than the Amway business? Just because you didn't make it work, why spoil it for others? Do you have some sort of vendetta against Amway? The ILD system uses success principles to help people become successful with a honest, integral Amway distributor ship, not trying to rip people off. I think you need to take a look at the ILD system and give it an honest try. I think you would like it and see how the business should work. I will admit there have been others that have built it wrong over the years and it's too bad I have had to follow in their shoes, but I can only show others what I have got and build a businees relationship based on accountability and trust. Simple process if you ask me. I hope that you will discontinue this page and spend your time on something more positive. Why not try to promote the word of Jesus and his saving grace. Have a nice day

This site is amazing! Having grown up with "the business" and seeing my parents strive for the "Crown," I can associate with the stores of information which you have provided. Indeed, this site is biased, and thank God! After my many years of observing Amway in an "out-of-box" fashion, I've concluded that Jay Van Andel and Rich De Vos have taken a Libertarian approach towards marketing-- set as few "rules of the game" as possible and let the natives do what they do. While I have seen a handful of distributors successfully run this business in a bonafide fashion (i.e. they had lots of retail customers), I found the "American Way" to be very deceitful in nature. My "Amway" experience to be a big learning experience. I now question anyone who tries to sell me on a business concept without letting me know what the product is within the first minute.

I applaud your efforts and look forward to viewing more of your site.

Dear Sidney,

I applaud your website I will pass all the info to my parents ex members from 81-89. I was just wondering what your background was with the Amway corporation as to you must've had a really bad experience with the company at one point or another and I was curious. I myself having been in and out of Amway as a child growing up around the cult and then years later getting talked into joining myself from people other than my parents. I saw good factors in the business but the end result was more bad factors than good. I don't think I personally am damaged or my family damaged enough to go on a campaign to speak on the evils of Amway or or warn others but I certainly support your efforts and others like you. Please write back and reply.

Thank you, my friend, for the information. I've recently been approached by a neighbor and feel I can make a *much* better decision on how to proceed with this… after looking over the information at this and other sites, I've come to the conclusion that Amway can work if a)you're hooked into a network of gullible folks that are easy accessible and b)you don't mind screwing over the majority of them.

I find it humorous that you would put all this time and effort into criticizing something that you obviously did not put the effort forth to succeed. You have taken the time to inform all the vulnerable people in the world that the great Amway monster will ruin their lives and steal their precious income. The problem I see with your information is that it is all about how no one will make money in the Amway business, why not talk about the job that they have now. I am an Amway distributor who has a wife and a new baby girl, I am not a Diamond or Emerald or even a Direct but I do know that with effort and persistence I can accomplish those levels. In my profession that I spent five years of higher education to secure I have reached the top, I was told last year that I was at the top of the payscale for my profession, which by the way is under $30,000.00 per year. So tell me should I just continue to exist and hope to win the lottery or should I try to improve my future by participating in my own business with people who will take their time and effort to help me succeed and not charge me for it.

I am sorry that you may have run across some distributors that misrepresented the business but the people that I am involved with are wonderful people who have helped me to become a better person who is more focused and has a positive attitude for the first time. Instead of spending your time and energy to spreading negative about something that is a bright spot in the lives of so many people why not spend your energy on spreading positive thoughts (which can be about whatever you want), there is enough negative through the media without amateur tabloids such as yours. I truly hope that you can find something better to do with your time because judging from this page you will need the time in the future when you try to retire from whatever it is that you do because I doubt that your financial situation will present the lifestyle that you could have had if you only could expand your thinking and believe in something. Please don't take that as a negative towards what you do for a profession just take it as a statement of fact, if you want to know what fact I am writing of all you need to do is contact Social Security and find out how many people actually do retire above the poverty level. You see the difference between you and me is that you have no chance of reaching the income levels that Amway distributors speak of and I do!

Thanks for the motivation.

Sidney,

I am writing to you concerning your opinions and dissertations on the Amway business. I am a CIO (Chief Inforamtion Officer) of a major company and also own two consulting businesses, one of them an Amway distributorship. I would like to bring a few things to your attention that I hope will give you a broader perspective on the business and the scope of people involved with it.

I have been associated and involved with the Amway business for many years. I am sure that I have seen just as much if not more of the multiple facets of this business as you. I have seen both good and bad, not with the Amway Corporation, but with people in general. I have never had anything but admiration, and respect for the company as I have seen them conduct their business afairs in a moral and legitimate fashion. When they have made mistakes, as all of us are not perfect, they have been willing to admit and correct them. Your comments about the companies involved with Amway as suppliers is true, however name me one reputable Fortune 500 company that is willing to lay its' good name on the line, if it is not to their legal satisfaction or benefit? As of today there are over a hundred companies moving their products, utilizing Amway as another distribution source. I would venture to say that they are not all wrong in their decision making process. As I continue to write further, I wish you to understand that it is not Amway that is the center of your concern, but some of the people who are involved.

Within the confines of my Amway distributorship, I am neither an employee, nor am I an offical representative of Amway or any of its' hundreds of goods and services suppliers. I am independent, but do follow certain guidelines in order to build my business legally. This is no different than if I owned a McDonald's, Wendy's, a car dealership, or any other duplicated/franchised opportunity. In each opportunity as in everything humans do, there are people who try their very best to circumvent rules that are there to protect and to serve them. Would you not agree that there a bad apples in every bunch? Then why would the Amway opportunity be any different? Is there a reason that the Amway opportunity should be held to a different standard than what other businesses are held to? Or people in general? I think not.

I have come acrossed, met, and seen some of the types of people you have described in your page. I for one, have never coerced, used falsehoods, or lied to "convince" as the term you use, people to be involved with this opportunity. I, like you, would not want to be involved in anything where the truth wasn't told from up front. There are people involved in this business, like anywhere who do not have the scruples to tell the truth, are looking out for themselves, and don't care who they have stepped on to get there. However in the 20 plus years I have been associated in one form or another of this busiess (i.e. child, customer, distributor), I can honestly tell you there are more normal, honest, hard working people in this business than aren't.

On the subject of business support materials, or tools as you call them. They are not a necessity, nor are they required to build an Amway business. There is nothing that I have ever found or experienced where people sign anything stating that they must buy business support materials. It is a voluntary effort. Yes, it is emphasized, because, I like you would not want to go to a college that had no books, no library, no teachers that help pave our success path to a degree. Would you hire a carpenter to build you a frame for a new house without any tools? Can you find fault in this statement...." We are what we listen to, what we read, and who we are associated with?" Is that not true? If you wish to be a dentist, do you not associate with dentists, read books on dentistry, and listen to seminars on dentistry? The business support side is designed with one intention in mind; to give the average person every chance possible to get credible information, association, and reading material, to help him/her become as successful as he/she wants to be. I find that even in my job, that I read professional periodicals, listen to seminars on information systems, and I associate with my peers. I also have read many of the same books as are promoted within the voluntary system of the Amway business, such as "How to Win Friends and Influence People, Magic of Thinking Big, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." I have found no coerccion within the organization that I am involved with, to purchase, attend, or utilize any of the system available. I do not condone it with any of the people of our organization either. It is promoted as a way to help people move in a simpler way, without making the same mistakes others already have made. One question for you. Do you have the same complaint of McDonald's with them REQUIRING their independent franchise owners to follow their SYSTEM to the exact letter? If they do not follow the McDonalds system, they lose their OWN business, as McDonald's is only their supplier, as Amway is to myself. To add to that last comment, Amway does not associate with, nor promote any distributor related business support material matter.

To end. I do agree with you that there are many people in various distributor organizations that are unscruplious, which in turn makes it harder for good, honest people to overcome the objections of others. I challenge you to go to people from all walks of life, who have become successful (i.e.$500, $1000, $2000, or more a month, who havent' quit) and get their take on this opportunity. You have been so willing to give the negatives, why not give those that read your pages, the same opportunity to see the positives.

Thanks for reading this, and I do wish you well in whatever your life's endeavors may be.

P.S. I am not a Diamond, nor am I a "big pin" in this business, but one who has experienced both the negatives and the positives. The one thing I haven't done is quit. I know from my experiences in a job, that you will pay a price for success. Yes, it is high, but not as high as the cost of failure and quitting. Nothing good comes easy and there is always a hard road to follow. Take care.......

Greetings,

Although I didn't have the oportunity to read your entire web site, I apreciate the enormous task you undertook to put this together.

You really must have been pissed off, to do so much work!

Just wondering, since you mentioned Proctor & Gamble's lawsuit, why no mention if Amway does animal testing or not.

If Amway does do animal testing it would rally more people to your "cause". Of course if Amway doesn't do animal testing, I suppose you wouldn't say anthing because people would think rather highly of Amway, and we, or shall I say you, wouldn't want that..hmmm?

Well, keep fighting the good fight..I guess.

Sincerely yours,

Someone Who Still Works At The Hotel p.s. It is NOT Maria :)

I HAVE A FRIEND WHO IS TRYING TO GET ME BACK INTO AMWAY, IT HAS CHANGED SOMEWHAT FROM WHAT I HEAR, YOU DON'T STP, DON'T BUY BOOKS OR TAPES AND EVERYTHING IS DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR. I AM NOT SURE WHAT I WANT TO DO RIGHT NOW, THIS FRIEND OF MINE MAKE IT SOUND MUCH BETTER THAN 1 YEAR AGO. BUT IS IT REALLY ANY DIFFERENT?

I have read many of the responses that you have listed and all that I can say is this:

The people who are associated with Amway are no different than anybody who is associated to any other thing in life. I have noticed though that the majority of the people are motivated and excited by what they have found by thier association with other people in an Amway business.

The point that I want to make is that we all have our preferences about what we want to do or where we want to go in life and we should not be criticized or criticize each other for those choices. We should be supportive of them. If we don't want to be involved with what another person is doing, then we just don't have anything to do with it.

In anything that we (as humans) do, we do as individuals. Anything from walking to talking, we all have a certain way of doing it, and that doesn't make us wrong for doing it. It just so happens that many people will tie what a person does with an experience or story, good or bad together and automatically assume that the common denominator (in this case, Amway) is all bad. This mental activity has been more commonly refered to as "prejudice" and "stereotyping" which is something that everyone of us dislikes when some else does it to us. Sure...... some of the people "in" Amway are alittle excited when they talk about what they are doing and seem to be trying to "sell" you on it, but deep down in them they are trying to find a way to help someone else to find what they want in life just like someone is helping them.

They, just like anyone who drinks alchohol for the first time lose a little consicousness "under the influence". Whether it is alchohol or Amway the effects do wear off and or become more manageable allowing that person to have a better perspective of what's going on and hopefully become less assertive in there presentation of the material.

People don't need to be scared into doing anything. But it is possible that all of them were scared before they saw Amway and were only in denile. So they decided to do something about it. Should we be as hard on our neighbor or relative about the fact that they drive a "Ford" or "Chevy"? Does this make them less of a person? What about Coke -vs- Pepsi and so on? Again it is an individuality of ourselves the drive us to say "YES" or "NO" to everthing in life.

How about the speed limit? How many of us actually drive the speed limit everytime we drive? When we speed and get caught, we get to go to court and sit around with a bunch of other people who did the same thing, only it's not because we want to meet those other people, it's to try to save a few bucks…possibly. The meetings that are attended by the people "in" Amway are attended because they want to "make" money and that's how the learn to handle all of the "negativity" and "prejudice" and "stereotyping" that they are exposed to from the other people who don't understand about being an "individual". We are no less of a person for wanting to be individual in anything we do in life.

If you want something to criticize.........how about yourself? Is everything you do something that is approved of by everybody else? And if what you do isn't.... do you care if they approve or not.....NO! And that's because it's a decision that you made. Would you like to be supported...... everbody likes to to "patted on the back" and told "your doing a good job", it's human nature.

Before you get down on someone for a choice that they have made or the way they tell you about it, remember this....... How would you feel if someone said it to you?

WE ARE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OURSELVES, AND WE DON'T LIKE BEING TOLD THAT WE CAN'T DO SO! Remember that the next time some says to you...... "you can't do that", when there is "NO" reason why you can't, only that that person disapproves, and what you are doing is not against any written law.

I want to thank the host -Sidney Schwartz- for allowing me to express my opinion.

I would like to add to a previously sent letter by myself.

There alot of truths and lies in the world. After reading yet more of the posted letters, I see that everybody has a different viewpoint of which is which.

If you agree with something.... you agree.
If you disagree with something.... you disagree.

Consequently that also will determine your involvement. You participate or you don't. If you are waiting for someone to tell you to do something and then sit around and complain because they did......... GROWUP! and take responsibilty for your own life. Be objective to what you do before you are to someone else for what they do.

I must say that I think that there are a lot of wounded people on this page. People who did have bad experiences with people who are "in" Amway.

As I think I stated in my previous letter..... If you want to do something....do it. If you don't, then don't!

Quit complaining about this or that. You either did something about it or you didn't.

On the matter of the books that are read by the people "in" Amway. I think that alot of people on this page and the people reading this page fail to relize that some of those books and or the content have been around for many more years than Amway has been. They are read by millions of people who are not "in" Amway as well. If you haven't read any of them...... I think that everyone should read a few of them. I have. And I found out that the taxes that my parents paid for my "education" was miserably mispent. I have learned more about life in those books, both on the "Amway" list and off of the list.

Which brings up a point I would like to make about Amway. They DO NOT have anything to do with "TAPES' and/or "THE BOOK LIST". They are merely a manufacturing company. Everthing that has been complained about on this page is really all about people and the way they were treated.

Sure Amway has lawsuits. What company of their size hasn't or won't have them. I'll bet that there is a fair number of you reading this who still can't resist those frenchfries and stop in for a quick meal or hot coffee at McDonalds. Dispite the fact that some lady either spilled "hot" coffee on herself or the employee of McDonalds did, and she sued them for a cool million and got it. Does that make all of the people associated "in any capacity" to McDonalds bad?

Think about your opinion of the Amway Co. -vs- the people making money through the distribution of thier products, whether "they" use them or not. Is it the company that made you mad........ or just one or maybe even a few of the people "in" Amway? If all of you realized that it's not the company name that makes you "cringe" when it's said, but that it's some of the over zealous people and the horror stories that your buddies told you, not to mention the ones that you read on here.

Give the Amway company a fair shake and take an honest look at the way the money is made through the Amway business plan or system, and you'll find that there is possibilities there, all of the over zealous people aside. After all, I know that your not letting any %&@#**^#@!!@ at the place where you work keep you from working and picking up you paycheck.

I suggest that everybody read a few of those books so they have a less selfish viewpoint of the world. I know that Andrew Carnegie was not "in" Amway. I know that James Allen, and Napoleon Hill were not. And I'm sure that Jesus was not in Amway. Yet, books that have been authored by these people or the Bible that was written about Jesus all have information that parallel each other.

Frankly i think you are full of s--t. why don't you remove your lies from the internet and get a f-----g life

Hi Mr. Schwartz,

just wanted to drop you a line to let you know how useful and informative I have found your site. An individual whom I work with is an Amway distributor. He recently (3 days ago) approached me to show me "the plan". While I had no intention of joining at the time, I had to find a way to delicately explain to him WHY I wasn't interested.

I guess it was a little like finding data to back up a hypothesis. I had heard indistinct rumblings about Amway in the past; not really caring, I ignored them. Your site enlightened me sufficiently to make a half-intelligent argument for not joining Amway. Furthermore, it gave me enough ammo to thoroghly discorage my co-worker from trying to recruit me.

You're doing a good thing here. I can only hope that more people who are approached by Amway representatives have the opportunity to go through your web site BEFORE making a decision. Alas, not everyone is on the 'net (yet).

Take care, and thanks again.

I have read most of your page and other anti-Amway pages and noticed in the comments from others that you have discouraged a lot of curious people from even investigating the Amway business.

You have to admit that all Amway groups are different. Some may be corrupt and others may be sincere. There is really no way of knowing witch is witch, unless you have had some experience with each of them.

Instead of discouraging people based on the worst groups, I would suggest that people who are at all interested, go to some of the meetings, listen to some of the tapes and read some of the books. Get to know the people in the group, to see if they are credible. This can be done without spending any money, just some spare time.

If everything seems satisfactory a starter kit can be purchased for around C$200.00, witch includes products and all the information on how to conduct the business, There is a 1year money back Guarantee (get inf.) if you are not satisfied with it.

A person really doesn’t have anything to loose except a little spare (television) time, to get first hand information.

A friend of mine has just joined Amway as a distributor in the UK. After reading your pages, I wondered just how big Amway is over here, and are the US horror stories repeating themselves for us British??

Apparently he's reached his 3 percent mark, and has already tried unsuccessfully to snare me into the business.

Hello again, I visited your site last year when I got involved with the Amway Corp. and I must say you are always a joy to visit. I often ecourage new distributors to visit your website so they can see what someone who not only didn't build the business, but in order to sleep at night has chosen to spend her time creating a website complete with all the reasons that everyone else should remain with her in the 95% club. I am 22 years old and will retire in Dec. at the age of 23. I could stop working now, but on counsel of my treacherous and evil upline Crown, Dan Williams, I have decided to diversify my investments to the point that, if I needed to, I could live out my days on dividends. When will you retire?

Sleep Well!

Hello there!

I would like to thank you for your informative site. I have been looking at the Amway business for the past several months and your site has given me the info needed to make my decision.

I am now an Amway distributor. I rejected the first several people who wanted to spondor me because they were affiliated with the Britt or Yeager groups. The others I rejected because they would not tell me they were Amway distributors when I asked them what business they were in. I found a good line of sponsorship that does not encourage going into debt to learn the business. If I am not interested in a tape or book, I do not get it. If I can't afford to purchase a tape or book, my upline loans me a tape or I go to the library and check out a book. No pressure, no debt. I was also given realistic information by my upline before joining.

I have looked through the catalog and done a lot of comparison pricing at the local store. If an item is cheaper or the same cost (including shipping) I buy from Amway, if not, I do not waste my money. Some of the cleaners are higher priced but I buy them because I have tested them and found them to be better than anything I have tried at the local store. My upline knows this and does the same. The way we look at it is this- no one store has everything at the lowest price. Amway is starting to realize their high prices on some items and are lowering prices to be more competitive. More items are working their way to reasonable prices.

I guess the bottom line is to get in with a group that is honest and realistic. This is a business and should be treated as such. It takes hard work and honesty to run a business. I worked in an electronic store for a year and realized that while some prices were better at the local K-mart, people still bought from my store. Why? I was honest with customers and told them the truth. The customer liked the honesty and bought from me anyway. The same goes for Amway. The response is far better when I am honest. This is how I intend to run my Amway business. I will be open, honest and enforce the 10 customer rule as is done with me and my upline.

Honesty is alive at Amway. You just have to look for it. This same rule applies to any business.

Thanks again for your page. You helped me look for an honest person to deal with before joining Amway.

It happened to me. I thought no way I'm too smart, I'll never fall for a get rich why you stay at home scam but I almost did. My neighbour from across the way stops by my house and asks if I'd like to make extra money, "No you stupid shit, I hate money now get away." Of course I said sure, but here was the catch, "We have to do it right now because it's my only free time, no Mr so and so, wake your wife up even if she's deathly ill." So I did, man, it took me about 45 minutes to kick this loser out of my house. I can't believe I listened for that long. But who cares I have something more important to share with you and your dedicated audience here. It's just a simple observation I made while cruising your comments. So I say on to my greta wisdom, well not great but you get the idea.

Well let me see, I went over alot of your comments from people and one thing has stuck out in my mind. The fact that the people who were affiliated with Amway who posted comments to you seemed to be very hateful and spiteful couldn't have just been a coinceidence.

Is it just me or does everyone affiliated with Amway who made comments here think your "a loser, with nothing better to do and they hope God takes pity on you." Listen to yourselves you bible beating fruitcakes. You want someone to die and his family too because he creates a forum that allows people to stand up against your scam and by the way, gives you "Scamway" people a place to post your response to him. By the way the majority of you Amway people who stand up for it must have very low education levels. Why you ask, half of you can't spell the other half cant's create a proper sentence or paragraph. Besides, you lawyers, doctors, pawnshop owners, etc. who made your commetns here and support Amway. Herding patients through your waiting rooms and handing out penicillin like it was candy, defendeing people who shot and killed a little girl on street corner because it's their right and making money from people's misfortunes and need the money so they sell their prized possesions. You people are the real dredges of society and as you fruitcakes would say "May God have pity on your souls" because your the real scum of the earth.

By the way, print my name, print my e-mail, I don't care. Why you may ask? Well because in my spare time I am some sort of a computer guru and if any of these Amway freaks start sending me hate mail or anonymous hate mail(not as anonymous as you think people), I'd have a field day with their servers and trust me I feel no way about making their spiteful, hateful lives even more of a challenge. Peace man and keep up the great work.

Hello.

I know that your site is mainly dedicated to anti-Amway sentiment, but I feel it important to tell you something personally.

First of all, I am an INACTIVE distributor. I have been for about a year now. I've been to Bill Britt rallies, the whole nine yards. My group is made up ove several cultures and religion, as I reside in the suburbs of the very diverse Washington D.C. metropolitan area. As far as Amway being some christian cult, how can that be when many of the people in my group are Moslem and Hindu. I'm not a Xian of the right either so, whatever. The buisness is primarially based in the Bible belt. Of COURSE there are going to be ardent xians preaching every chance they get. Why does that surprise you?

Secondly, the reports of selling tapes as the primary buisness is unfounded. One quote from one diamond is not enough to convince me that Amway is corrupt. The way I recieved tapes is from largely from borrowing them, and the $70 function I paid for was paid for by my upline, as well as the hotel room. Tapes accompanied the cost of the ticket, and I got to keep them. An Emerald there didn't mind me taking the bed and slept on the floor.

My kit was paid for by a friend who decided he wasn't interested in running the buisness, and my upline refunded the money even after the due date (30 days) was up. My friend decided just to give me the $150 for the kit. He thought that Amway was a good thing, and decided that even though it wasn't for him, he wanted me to have a chance to do it.

In addition, the fact that few Amway distributors make it to Diamond is no secret. On one of the tapes I was loaned, this is even pointed out.

I am also currently testing for a black belt in Martial Arts and I asked my instructor how many people pake it to Black Belt. About 1/2 of 1%, she said. Does that mean that no one can do it? There are people in wheelchairs in my stlye that have made it to black belt, and people with mental retardations that make it to Black Belt. All it takes is a whole hell of a lot of effort and an incredible amount of work. What percentage of people make it to the Ph.D level after entering college? Less than 1%. Does that mean the rest are stupid?

As for pressure, after buying me a ticket to a rally, and loaning me tapes, and driving me to functions, I told my sponsors and upline that I was going to college and I'd thingk seriously about building the buisness. Although they had my phone number and address they never called. Oh, the pressure is horrible.

As for lawsuits against Amway, so what? Every major buisness gets sued all the time. If lawsuits were any indication of unethical behavior, thenMcDonalds and IBM would be the antichrist. Oooo 10 Lawsuits in 10 years for a 7.2 BILLION dollar buisness. McDonalds gets more than 50 lawsuits A YEAR. So what?

Lastly, it is illogical to think that Amway is a scam. Firstly, it doesn't work as a scam. Say you manage to scam 20 people into buying kits. You have just made a cool buck fifty. Reputation is EVERYTHING in this buisness. If you are shown to be anything less than exemplary in your personal ethics or business ethics, people drop out of your group and you lose buisness. Recruiting a bunch of mindless automotons simply WILL NOT WORK to create buisness. To build an amway buisness you have to be willing to work, and change yourself for your buying habits, and build interpersonal skills. The average schmoe isn't willing to do that.

To Quote Bill Britt, "You can't SELL someone a turning point in their life." (emphasis his).

Anything about amway draining your bank account is ludicrous. You don't have to buy anything you don't want to. You are truly innane if you think that people can be "pressured" into buying everything they don't want to. I was in Amway officially for 6 months and unofficialy for two years and I havent't spent a dime. I suppose I could tell you how even though I have decided not to work amway right now, I still listen to the tapes and they help me do well in school.

But I suppose I am just some hopless misled fanatic, who spent nothing in the buisness and got a whole lot out of it.

My parents left Amway because they could no longer keep up with the grueling schedule of the weekly meetings and monthly rallies. I had a sister born in 1985 and it was hard for my parents physically and financially (because they were tapped by years of tape of the week other tool and product purchases) to stay with it.They don't fully look at the experience as a negative thing but I tell you I am now sufferring because they never had a college savings plan for me because they threw all their hard earned money into THE BUSINESS.

Hi

we recently were subjected to a "re-structurization"

our personally sponsored has requested a group reliese to move two above us because we took a break from the system (not amway and are now considered inactive) so we could start a family and be full time parents ( thinking this was understandable and honourable).

B advised M ( our sponsour's Sponsour) to advise our distributor to by pass us and not to associate with us because we have membership in more than one mlm.

According to amway we are doing everything as far as upholding our dist. agreement.

our distributor was advised by amway to individually confront all parties invoulved

A few points about our Distributor

He does not like promoting the product he just wants to sell kits

He is now only pushing 600 pvs but before we took are subatical his organization went up to 4000 and i beleive it was partialy due because we promoted the product.

This is just some rambling due to the shock. My DREAM BUBBLE was that our upline would be supporting the success of our organisation if we weren't there. m tells me and our downline that we are out in left feild and because of an "ABC" building method we are an offshoot of m's "A" leg and it is not m's priority to help our Distributor unless he gets reliesed and goes directly under him. Now our Distributor insistes that this request is all his idea… well.

I'm pissed because :

1)If our Distributor got just alittle help… well who knows

2)Restructurizing of organizations is not in the plan

You have saved me alot of time and aggrivation in trying to get a straight answer about Amway income. Thank-you

What a neat site. Well done. The animations weren't overdone, like on some other Amway sites. Well organized and presented.

Oh, and did I mention the quality of the content? OUTSTANDING!

I saw you had 24 pages of comments on your site. After reading in full the first 2 or 3, I skimmed the next couple, then just read the last one. Way too much for me to read in one sitting… and it's pretty much the same stuff, variations on a theme.

I found it quite interesting to compare the pro-Amway (anti-your site) and anti-Amway (pro- your site) messages.

With a few notable and exceptional exceptions, the proAm's responses were: Emotional
Ad-hominem attacks ("get a life", "loser", etc)
Not uncommonly, in ALL CAPS
Frequently filled with misspellings and poor grammar

while those who were antiAm were, without exception:

Fact-based, often telling about their Amway nightmares… uh, stories
Literate
Well-written and thoughtful

I especially got a kick out of the guy who started off by telling you what an unbelieveable waste of time your site was, then spent the next thousand words or so tearing your site apart. A lot of time and effort and thought (well, maybe not much actual thought) spent on a site that's a waste of time!

And I was amazed at those who bragged about the piddling amounts of money they were making annually after putting in X years into 'The System". I mean, folks who were presumably writing with a straight face, happy that they were making $700 annually after so many years put into Amway!

I have been getting up to speed on Amway over the last couple days after seeing some of these sites mentioned in posts on one of the consumer newsgroups. I had heard Amway described as a cult before, but never really 'got' it til now. Now I understand, and it's downright scary. You are doing a valuable public service and should be commended for it.

I just wanted to let you know I am a Amway distributor, but not really doing anything with it at the moment. My response to you is, Taking all the diamonds in the business what if you told them they were full of it and couldn't make it on your statistics, Wouldn't that be a dream crusher? If they were to follow you they would be broke. I bet they are happy they didn't. By the way, are you a millionaire yet?

Your homepage helped me understand some of the tactics that these maketing groups use. Recently a friend asked that I attend a meeting for a "business opportunity". I asked if they had anything to do with amway. He told me that some of the products that they delt with were Amway products, but he assured me that the majority of their products were name brand items (cars, electronics, .....) The group is called International Leadership Development or ILD. Is there anyway that I can find out information on these folks before I attend one of their meetings??????

I looked through much of your homepage and printed lots as a reference.

What I want to know is who are you? Assuming that all you have presented is true, what is your reason to spend so much time on Amway? Why have you annointed yourself the savior of the world? What makes you so involved in debunking Amway? What is your income source? Do you profit by your activites? When I see this much effort, Sidney, I begin to wonder?

On the plane back to New York a few days ago I met a lady who worked for Procter and Gamble. She told me she was JOINING Amway and that the reason she had decided to look into it was because her company had virtually threatend their employees with termination should it be discoverd that they were interested in or active in Amway. She explained " This told me that Amway was so successful that it was a real threat to P&G!" . At this point, working for P&G for over 10 years and finding my income and future limited (as do many) I decided to look into something with a future for those who were industrious. She researched it and decided to become a distributor. She did NOT try to get me to join but was happy to tell me her adventure.

She also told me that her soon to be sponsor told her that 80% of the people who join Amway (like most people) do nothing more than buy at a wholesale discount. 20% do something of significance and "10% do very well." Not much different from any other business, just less startup cost and more opportunity. This did not sound like a cult rap to me.

Bottom line, if you have the courage to answer my question honestly:

1) Who are you and why the crusade? I am sure I am not the first to ask so just send me the same stuff you have prepared for others. Pardon my skeptiscism but you are teaching it and I am sure understand.

2) Considering the communication I have heard and what I have learned since, It sounds like Amway is very upfront on what it promises. Sure they tell you it is possible to get rich. It is. I have since checked it out. No one promised me a rose garden they said it was simple but LOTS OF HARD WORK AND LONG HOURS WITH NO GUARANTTEE. Did not sound like a cult. Do losers who have failed have to blame someone other than themselves? Is this the reason for so many negative on this page?

Dear Sidney,

Thank God for your Web site. I am an International student at Rhode Island College. Two days we had an Amway presentation in class by one of the former students of my college professor. Boy, was that a show! I read some of the stories and the presentation that this Amway representative gave us coincided with what some people had said on your web pages. I tried to contradict and question the validity of this typical sales pitch, and I could not help but notice that this Amway rep. was getting quite annoyed with me, and she did not answer any of the questions that I asked. How is this "cooperation" if someone is getting a percentage of what I earn? I pointed out that I still could not help but notice the hyerarchy in their structure and that their shaaring is not really equal. She shrubbed off pretending that she does not understand my question. As a psychology student, I was surprised to what extent they used appealing to emotions of people instead of critical reasoning, and actually saw how it works on some of my classmates. I felted discussted and cheated out of the class. I was very glad to find your Web site which will help me give an awsome presentation tomorrow to warn people about potential dangers if they are considering getting into this "business". Amway is evil. Keep up with the good work!!!!

Thanks for putting together this information. 2-3 times a year, I am approached by an Amway (or Shamray) person. I have been looking for information that I can rebut them with. I had a friend who lost his career when he left it to sell Reliv (pyramid scam that pushes vitamin supplements). He has been struggling ever since.

I am a * in an organization that recently broke away from another, larger organization that has been mentioned quite often on your site for many 'system' related lawsuits, etc.

I have recently begun to receive knowledge (limited) of the next 'level' of business within the system: that of the profits available off tools and functions. Much to my dismay, that is.

Would a report that my wife and I put together highlighting the actual costs of functions/tools in our organization be of interest to you ? I contrast the costs vs the revenues from ticket sales. The profits are staggering.

We are currently not participating in our system for the reason that I can no longer say the things I have been taught to say (and had meant when I said them) and look at myself in mirrors. This is a statement from a person 'so close to direct, I could smell it', so perhaps there is some greater validity in my disillusionment. In other words, we were making 'product' profits already.

Accurate Thinker

Hello Sidney

Just a short email to let you know Amway(Australia)are advertising on prime time TV here in Sydney Australia. They must be getting desperate for distributors again after so many have left in recent times!!

Dear Friend,

I commend you on this site. It is great that someone has taken the time to help the poor brainwashed perple who stumble into the Amway Cult(as I call it!).

Two years ago my daughter and her husband got involved in the Amway scam. It took about two months before it was their life. Their children were orphaned, if you know what I mean. All the values we taught by daughter as she was growing up were a thing of the past. I have to admit, that a program that can change all the values you have learned in a life time is quite powerful. Their life became one lie after another, in the name of God. I am really surprised that more religous groups aren't up in arms over what they see in this group. It finally erupted when I decided that I was not going to become a parent again to children that had two healthy but brainwashed parents. I refused to keep the kids while they were spending every minute listening to bull. I told them that I would call social services if they didn't give the time necessay to raise the family that they had conceived. I also told them that they would not carry their lifestyle into my house. It was a powerful week of events and by the grace of the family, that we spent so many years bring close together, it somehow got through to them.

I am glad to say that it has been a year now since I got my family back together. My son-in-law and daughter thank my husband and I on a regular basis. It was a lesson well learn for them and I hope more people will read some of these letters and look around at what they have done to their family.

Everyone is so busy looking for something to believe in. I say, believe in your family and you will fine all you'll ever need in life. The family is the money, happiness and God all of us are looking for.

Thanks for a place to speak out.

After reading the "Your Comments" section of your website, I noticed that many of the negative responses you've recieved make some sort of allusion to religious doctrine. I couldn't believe that one of the letters actually threatened to "make you pay" and "your family, too." I believe that most organized religions are forms of mind-control, as well. I guess that if a person is susceptible to one form of mind control(like Christianity), he/she is easily susceptible to another(like Amway).

Sir;

I was in Amway back in the 60's. The only problem I had was with my distributor(my ex-father in law). I think Amway products are the best. I use them when ever I can find someone selling them.I made money selling Amway and the people under me made money. The problem Amway has today is in every sales position. Uou have the SUPER SALESMAN. They will tell you anything to get your money. Look at the TV any time after midnight and early in the morning.SUPER SALESMEN will lie and they know it's a lie, but someone is going to believe it's true. How about the SUPER PREACHER in Dallas. He had millions of Fools sending him MILLIONS of dollars EVERY MONTH. ALL I can say is "there's a fool born every day" and the SUPER SALESMEN will find you.

I was just about to sign up,but your informative page has given me an incredibly different view on amway. I was going to sign up under a "very good friend" , but comparing his techniques to what you identify as the big scam i can see you are telling the truth. I truly feel sorry for my friend and i hope that i can show him this information without losing his friendship. any advise you may offer on the latter would be greatly appreciated.