Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Amway - My Upline Has My Best Interest At Heart?

A shocking testimony!

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87404&page=3


I have a similar experience with Amway and my marriage. My dh was totally taken in....we had no job...no money.....and my doctor had us over to 'visit' and we spent over $100 to get a basic start-up kit! Plus, we still had to buy more motivational materials AND for the kicker....drum roll.....my doctor decided I needed to stop breastfeeding my then 10 month old baby so that dh and I could spend more time recruiting our down-line. That way baby could stay with a sitter (she ate every two hours around the clock). I did not want to do this. This was my third and last baby, and the only one I had successfully produced milk to feed. But dh was adamant that Amway was more important (even when I pointed out to him that we had already spent more money than we had and my parent were supporting us!), and he would NOT let me feed my baby again! Instead, my baby cried and cried, I cried and cried, and we had to sign up for WIC to get formula. Because of Amway. Sick.

And, dh made me listen to these motivational tapes every time we stepped in the car to go anywhere. They made me sick. Down right sick. The most important thing was making money and having more, more, more. And leaving your kids to make this money was necessary. Being content with where you were in life and being happy in your current job was NOT ok, and forGET being frugal: spend, spend, spend....especially to go to meetings, meetings, and more meetings to meet wonderful Christians that had wonderful money in our wonderful up-lines.

Sick. It was just.sick.

Doctor and dh told me I was going to make my dh fail. It would be all my fault because "I" wasn't "doing my part". Nope. Taking care of 3 small dc, the house, the cooking, the laundry, the bill-collectors, etc. while dh went to meetings instead of to job interviews.....that was failure as far as Amway was concerned. Because I didn't go with him. I didn't hire unknown sitters to stay with the kids. Sick.

Finally, I sat dh down and told him if Amway was his thing: fine by me. But I wasn't interested in a group of people that thought money was more important than their children and their families. If he wanted to pursue it; fine. He could do so without me. I would just stay home and hold down the fort. But I would no longer use their inferior products (dh made me purchase their disposable diapers which leaked like mad and cost twice as much). If he liked a product and wanted to use it: fine. But I was purchasing products that worked for me. (I also hated their shampoo/conditioner and laundry detergent and make-up)

I can not tell you how relieved he was when he finally admitted to me that I was right and he had been totally taken in by the 'life-style' that was constantly put in front of him by these people. He apologized for the breast-feeding thing that could NEVER be recaptured, he applied for real jobs, went to interviews, got hired, and we could finally pay our bills.

And, all those wonderful Christian friends he had met? We never saw or heard from a one of them again, and my doctor 'recommended' me to 'someone closer to where I lived'. Yeah, right. Sick.

I hate Amway.

19 comments:

John said...

Well what can I say? They were taken for a ride rode hard and thrown away wet. it is a shame that they could not have experienced a more peaceful and happier situation to a wonderful opportunity

Joecool said...

Levi, even though not all IBOs treat others this way, how often is too much? It's like I've said all along, IBOs are their own worst enemies. Critics are often just pointing out something that an IBO has done or said, such as this story.

John said...

one incident is too much but sadly the opportunity is cheap enough to start up that 12,000 new IBO' join every day but most of them into leaderships that you and I can both agree to being corrupt. Leaving very few to ending up into downlines such as mine who teach hard work , morals,decency, and no glamour.

Joecool said...

Levi, it is unfortunate, but most groups push tools on their downline and do not emphasize selling products. Most people do not like selling things so it is easy for upline to promote "buy from yourself" as a business practice.

John said...

But they basicly do buy from themselves. Also, how many times (especially women) do you get a deal, a great product or service, or recieve something that you end up just loosely telling someone else about? your friends your family and even co-workers. But when you know you Stand to make a profit in the matter it's like that sales consience steps in and they feel bad for making money doing word of mouth advertisig. but like i always say this is Direct Sales if you cant sell dont do the business. But keep in mind i have people who tell me " levi I like the products, I think I evenknow a few people who might like them too but i just don't think i can do the business"

Joecool said...

But Levi, buying from yourself makes you a customer, bot an IBO. Nobody actually makes money buying from themselves. In what other business besides Amway do people teach business owners to buy from themselves almost exclusively?

Awesome!!! said...

Not true Joecool. If you own let's say a car factory making sports cars, you would turn to one awesome car your factory does make, maybe even custom made. So, you end up buying it from your own business. To me that just makes sense. Only to a blind man does that not make sense.
Also, last time when we were talking about the $9/month paycheck assumption, you were unable to expand on the conversation. Why?

Joecool said...

Ok, so let's say I have to pay $30K to puchase the sports car. I sell them to customers for $50K. But to support my business, I buy it from my own business at my cost of $30K.

How much money did I make buying a car from my own company?

And I don't know what you refer to about a $9
paycheck.

John said...

The only problem with the buy from yourself theory is that there is the fear of saturation. But since sites like yours and diamonds and thier flaws keep people in the dark people will never join quicker than they are turning eligible to join the business.

Joecool said...

Levi, I have no beef with people who are joining to sell products. It is when IBOs are deceived or lied to about fabulous wealth from Amway, that it becomes a scam. Upline will use these goals and dreams as a way to sell their cds and function tickets, and claim that this is the key to succeeding in Amway.

Anonymous said...

There are many types of people in this world and many types of people in amway. Some are bad and some are good. If this nation can elect a smooth talking, greedy, babykilling man to the white house, that "may" not even be a citizen. Then I suppose there is even those bad and "Greedy" people in amway. However, as it states in the book I follow (the BIBLE) we are ALL accountable for what we believe and the decision that we make. If you are in an organization that is filled with OSMA OBAMA types. Then you need to be cautious and realize it is there wallets, not yours that they are interested in. As with my AMWAY and those I belive in and follow. I will never do anything to harm or denagrate another person. However, OSMA OBAMA and his kind are in this world and all we can do is remove them from power in upcoming elections. We must do the same and REMOVE and PUNISH any and all persons and organization that would prey on others just to make $$$$$$$$$$$$$ for themselves.
30 plus years in AMWAY and I have gotten many things out of my time. Maybe not tons of money, but I have gotten what I have EARNED.
As the BIBLE tells me you reap what you sow and not always when you want it. Preperation for the benefits that are given us takes much longer time for some of us. Remember, I have 30+ years and many great friends, wonderful memories and unwavering faith that with the proper effort and "HONEST & LEGAL" ways of doing business I have arrived.
WISE UP people, you are responsible, you are the solution or the problem.
Let us give back to AMERICA and TAKE back America from all those in power that want CHANGE, that will only hasten our decline as a once great and GOD loving AMERICA.
My ranting is done.
From : A 30+ YEAR AMWAY IBO
that is happy and gald to be an IBO in AMWAY...........

Joecool said...

Anonymous, what will uplines reap when they are lying and deceiving their downline about the vital need to buy more and more tools?

What did the Bible say about the rich young man? What did the Bible say about the love of money?

Gina said...

LOL...I didn't vote for Obama!!!! I love how these out of their minds IBO's who look to blame political views as the reason we are critical of Amway. Funny stuff.

So Anon is a 30+ year IBO huh? And hoes it going after 30 YEARS?? Soak it up THIRTY YEARS....shouldn't this IBO already be a super duper double diamond platnium titanium dragon slayer? Shouldn't he have gold plated toilets and permentent residency on Peter Island?
O wait let me guess...he didn't focus on the biz, he didn't listen to upline, he didn't buy enough toold blah blah blah....THIRTY YEARS!!!

Anonymous said...

I was in Amway, then Quixtar, a few years ago. I have never had a bad opinion of Amway, just IBO that give it a bad name. There was an Emerald named Lonnie Purkiser that was in Winters Marketing that was as bad as they get.

Multiple affairs in his down line, swindeling downline for more than 100K in bad investment schemes. My upline was crossline to him and owned a successful bar. My upline went Direct in about 6 months and this Emerald sat down with our team and told us that we should transfer into his group if we wanted continued success. This was a guy that totally abused his position. Sad thing about it,was he had some really great people in his downline and was the epitome of everything wrong. I heard that he was recently finally kicked out of Winters Marketing for repeated ethics violoations.

But either way, that is not Amway but rather bad people in Amway

Anonymous said...

^ lol yeah. sure.

Anonymous said...

Actually Lonnie works with Larry and Joe M directly now. Funny to hear people talk about things they "heard"lol... Also to any parent who would let someone dictate when and where to feed their child probably isn't intelligent enough to work in any type of business involving creating sales teams and being a respectable business person.

Anonymous said...

whatever that means...

Anonymous said...

Hard to find worse scum than Lonnie Purkiser. He had a 6 month affair with my then wife, I divorced her. He had hoped to push me out of the business, have her divorce me and keep her around. Slimy Lonnie and dumb ex-wife. Found out that he had multiple affairs. He "transferred" my strong downline legs out from underneath me. All while trying to act as if he's a Christian. There is a special place in Hell for Lonnie.

Anonymous said...

Well I'm many years late on a comment to this post but as I was googling amway and dissing them via Facebook I ran across this. I just recently had some "Christians" send us through a similar roller coaster. Luckily we did not end up signing up. They were mind playing deceitful "friends" out to "help" us aka business snakes wanting money. It's ridiculous. Amway is ridiculous.