Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Is Amway A Bad Idea?

One of my thoughts when I finally left the Amway business was that it was actually a bad idea to begin with. I joined because a good friend of mine had joined and had reached (at the time) the level of direct distributor. I didnt know exactly what a direct distributor was but I knew that it was a fairly high and significant level. My friend told me that it was a lot easier than he thought and that he could easily teach me the secrets of how to do the same thing he did. I started to think that perhaps I could also do the business and hopefully make a few extra dollars, which seemed desirable as I was still young and fairly new to the full time workforce.

So I eventually joined and I had pretty quick success, being able to sponsor some of my good friends and the excitement of the growing business made it seem as if everything was going just the way my friend mapped it out. That I would show the plans and people would join and my business would grown. And on the surface, it looked like I couldn't miss.

But as a few months passed by, I started to see cracks in my upline's teaching, although I didn't pass my "negative" thought to my downline. I saw the upline tell us to get out of debt, which was good advice. But then they would say it was okay to go in debt, but only to purchase Amway products or Amway training as it was an investment in our business. That began to raise red flags. Later, in a "movers and shakers" meeting, I hard some teaching about how you could miss 3 mortgage payments and not have your home foreclosed in case you needed cash to attend the next big function. I was starting to wonder if our leaders were interested in our success or just squeezing money out of downline.

Later on, in a smaller but intimate meeting, as Amway leader taught that we could even have our families skip a meal in order to buy another standing order because it might contain the one thing you need to hear to propel your business to diamond. When I heard this, I really started to question upline's credibility. The end finally came for mhen my upline told me to dump my fiance' because I could focus on my business better without her. That was the last straw and I left the business. Being that I was taught well, I never complained about it and just forgot about it.

Then I saw a magazine article exposing the tools scam. I eventually began researching about Amway and shortly later, Joecool's blog was born. I had concluded based on my research and personal experince that Amway was a bad idea and a scam.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amway is more than just a scam. It's a criminal enterprise.

Anonymous said...

My own opinion, for what it's worth:

In the very beginning, Amway might not have been a bad idea. This was when it was simply a direct selling business that was limited to a small-town locale, enabling some guy to pick up a few extra bucks every month from friends and neighbors who actually could use some of his products. Nothing at all wrong with that, I believe.

A young policeman in upstate New York, Charlie Marsh, selling Amway shoe polish to his fellow officers as a sideline... that was the good Amway.

What happened to change all that? GREED. LUST FOR GROWTH. A NEED TO EXPAND INTO AN "EMPIRE." Amway morphed into the horrid MLM scam that it is now -- a project for the recruitment of new IBOs for the sole purpose of draining them of cash for Tools and Functions and miscellaneous fees.

The Amway "products"? As we say in Noo Yawk, "Fuggedahboudit, buddy." The products are generic garbage of the most mediocre quality, and they serve no real purpose except as a legal fig-leaf for Amway's pyramid scheme. As a few Amway defenders have incautiously admitted in some of their posts here, they aren't concerned at all with retail sales to the general public anymore. That's "the old Amway."

The new Amway is ripping off new IBOs for as much as you can, before they wise up and quit. That's why one of Amway's defenders says that "This isn't a business opportunity about selling! This is a business opportunity about leadership in a business opportunity!"

Translated into English, that means: "This is about how to rip people off."

Anonymous said...

Dear Joe --

From what you say, it seems to me that your fiancee is the one who unwittingly saved your life. Your love for her provided the escape route from the Amway monster. You are a very lucky man!

Joecool said...

We have been married now for more than 20 years!

Joecool said...

The products are needed in order to keep Amway legal. But the real business is in selling tools and functions. The tools business and the Amway business are symbiotic and need each other to survive. The tools business needs the Amway IBOs to serve as customers and the tools business in turn recruits IBOs and teaches product loyalty and the 100 PV defacto quota.

Anonymous said...

it seems that its a rigged game. Many of the new diamonds and "up and comers" in BWW are children of diamonds...Nepotism. It seems that they are not earning "diamond" but rather having it handed to them to keep the power and tool money in the family. The old diamonds are still out there working the system hard. Guess there is never a retirement or the whole thing crumbles. Glad I saw through all the misdirection and half truths. I never knew I joined Amway until I got my binder with the Amway logo on it. Never mentioned the "A" word once. Cant believe this is still legal.

Joecool said...

Amazing, you actually joined and not once was Amway mentioned? Unbelievable!

Anonymous said...

The name "Amway" now carries the same hideous weight of bad connotations as "Bubonic Plague," "Adolf Hitler," "AIDS," "Josef Stalin," and "Pedophilia."

No wonder they don't dare mention in when showing "The Plan."

Joecool said...

That should raise red flags to anyone when someone is trying to recruit you into a business where the name is not revealed.

Unknown said...

You guys are all morons if you join a business and dnt apply your self to learn the business how do you expect to succeed.Amway is not a get rich quick company you have to invest your time and patience. Your upline is not going to know everything that's why you go to the functions and meet different people to better understand the company and how to be successful. I'm 27 year old I joined Amway about a year ago and now I'm making up to 4k a month and my new I.B.O I sign up are doing the same. So stop talking like you guys know what your saying cause you dnt. Word of advice stop blaming amway for your lack of believing in your self..I bet you guys are still at home working 9-5 with no time for your self because you can't apply yourself to be better I know cause I've been there. I really wanted to succeed so I did. And you can to dnt got to be Amway but what ever. And you guys are taking advice and listening to people who only been in the business for a month or two then quit cause there virginas sore Bo wo..anyway I'm here to say this people apply your self and believe in your self u can succeed in anything and dnt listern to these morons cause they are with a dead end jobs and got nothing going for them. I know cause I've seen it and it's sad.. Any way iam an Amway I.B.O AND PROUD TO BE.

Anonymous said...

Also making claims that they knew someone who retired at 25 because of the business must be red flagged.

If this was true that someone retired at 25 because of amway business then why they will get nervous when you ask proofs?

Joecool said...

None of the IBOs can name a single person who "retired" because of Amway regardless of age. Since they brag about retiring early with residual income, why can't anyone name a few of these "retired" Amway people?

Joecool said...

Your story reeks of BS. You're 27 making 4K in Amway and your new downlines are doing the same? LOL

Also, you go to functions and meet people to better understand the business? How can you do that when your upline leaders tell you not to crossline? You aren't to speak to other IBOs about how they are doing.

Believing all you want will not equal success in Amway

Anonymous said...

To Unknown of March 21:

You're lying through your teeth.

You say you make $4000 a month. That would be $48,000 a year from Amway. But wait... you say "up to $4000 a month." I guess that means some months you take in a lot less.

Your down-line is doing the same? Then why aren't you making MUCH MORE than $48,000 per year? Or is all of this just an example of "Fake it till you make it"?

And Joe is quite right -- you are NOT ALLOWED to talk with cross-line at Amway functions. So how the bloody hell are you supposed to be "learning" from them?

Don't try to come here and lie to us about your fake Amway business. We've heard all of the bullshit many times from many people, and we know all the phony stories about your "success."

You're "proud to be an Away IBO?" You might as well say that you're proud to be a jackass.

Anonymous said...

So often a brainwashed member of Amway comes on to make crazy claims of wealth without any substantiation. After a year making 4K a month? LOL Everyone here knows the "math" of Amway. To make that kind of money this guy would have had to have recruited like a thousand people, each one buying tons of Amway. Who are they selling to? How do you have hundreds of customers willing to buy products they can easily purchase at a local store for a fraction of the cost Amway charges?

Of course this guy isn't making that kind of money. It's part of the "fake it til you make it" form of recruitment. It's hard to pull people into the Amway cult if they tell the truth that they are struggling to find suckers and the ones they do pull in, keeping them when they find they are losing money hand over fist by buying products they can't sell, useless "motivational" tools and attending "rah rah" functions that are nothing more than bullshit artists showing purported slides of wealth to brag about.

But at least he didn't say his upline is an Amway BILLIONAIRE and that he owns several restaurants off the $10 bonus checks he gets from Amway as I actually saw another BS Amway artist do. lol

Joecool said...

I've been running this blog since 2009. Not a single IBO has returned here after a few years to claim that they have gone emerald or diamond and to rub my face in mud. Instead we see big talking IBOs making unconfirmed claims and then never to be heard from again in a few months

Joecool said...

Fake it till you make it is a common teaching, apparently in WWDB and I saw it in person when I was an IBO.

Joecool said...

LOL. I'm ignorant? I'm not the one losing money in Amway. You are! I always get amused when Amway folks like to name drop with "partner" stores like starbucks, Disney, etc. All that means is you get to sell their stuff on a commission only basis. It's a good deal for starbucks for sure. Funny how IBOs don't mention Enron an WorldCom, also two of Amway's former "partners". What happened to those "lawyers" back then?

I couldn't succeed? By IBO standards, I was very successful. I was at 4000 PV with eagle parameters. But that level makes no money because of the business expenses (functions and standing orders primarily). Investing in tools is BS. The tools do not increase business volume. They just suck your bank account dry.

You want proof? Try this link:

http://www.amquix.info/duncan_bankrupt.html

Anonymous said...

A website made by you or what? There's has to be "statistics proof " of how you say no one suceeds I'm making good money and on a level thats not your buisness and I can show you proof of that, I make more money then you, I'll show you! Ill come back here so you can see your wrong. Your just a negative person but I'm here in Hawaii having fun don't got time for you have a nice life I'll enjoy my beach in your honor ����

Anonymous said...

Ill be glad to invite you here but you said it's a scam so no.

Anonymous said...

Joe, the guy is the typical Amway asshole. He posts his comment twice (do they all have that sick habit?)

He believes the crap about Amway "partnering" with Starbucks and Best Buy... what an idiot! These big companies just let Amway sell a few things for them. Just because you run a hot dog stand on Wall Street doesn't mean that you're "partnering" with the stockbrokers.

The guy is an illiterate buffoon. He's a perfect example of the kind of dope that Amway aims to recruit.

Joecool said...

This person sounds like a newbie in Amway. The newbies all like to brag about "partner" stores but they dn't really understand that all the arrangement is that Amway IBOs get to sell their stuff on a commission only basis.

It's a great deal for partner stores ut not such a great deal for Amway IBOs.

Joecool said...

LOL. I'm from Hawaii so I enjoy the beaches quite often.

I don't say that nobody succeeds. I know some people make good money from Amway. It's just that you aren't one of them.

There are statistics to show Amway sucks. Go on Amway.com. The average IBO earns $202 a month and that's gross income. It is also after Amway did not count 53% of their IBOs because they were deemed "inactive". Thus the real average income of IBOs is less than $100 a month. Those are stats provided from Amway.

So if someone made a million bucks in Amway, then there's more than 8000 IBOs who made nothing to average it out to $100 a month each. There's also a statistic that .26% of IBOs reach the Gold direct level. So that means about 1 in 400 reach the Gold direct level where they might earn $15K a year gross income.

Factor in the cost of tools and functions and that $202 per month average ends up a net loss on average. Now you have actual stats that you can refer to and it's not pretty for Amway.

Joecool said...

By the way my big talking anonymous friend, if you're claiming you make more money "than" me, I need statistics and proof. I'm not sure how you can claim that when you don't know what I earn. But I guess it matter not because I bellieve you're just lying and blowing smoke anyway.

Joecool said...

I already live in Hawaii so I don't need an invitation. Of course any people earning actual money in Amway in Hawaii would be known since Hawaii's a small place so I would assume that you're a nobody who's not making any money in Amway.

Anonymous said...

To Anonymous at 6:51 PM --

It looks like you're chickening out.

Anonymous said...

Want to see my stack of money

Anonymous said...

Do not join Amway. I feel bad for the people that go thru with joining.

Anonymous said...

Do you know anything about the buisness for you to be saying " I feel bad for people " your not in it right now right ? There's always going ti be someone saying something negative about every buisness , in every company there's a blogger writing and ok it's freedom of speech but if you don't have a valid answer to back up your words , this guy probably is making money from us to be checking on this website and clicking on it many times ! People that talk negative are either failures or they don't know what they want in life ! If this is not for ok good ! But there's other people who are interested and like I said say whatever you want but until you experience it than everything changes !

Joecool said...

LOL, people might say McDonald's coffee is too hot or that WalMart has slippery floors. But for Amway and other MLMs, they are called scams and pyramid schemes.

Anonymous said...

3 years I made No money witnesses marriages destroy over Money the events the pressure the system is designed for you to fail who in the fuck need $500 worth of shit monthly???? I don't spend $150 in Walmart in bullshit a month wtf I don't know why I did it it was for me a social event plus I was selling the dream remember nothing but gas listening to the same bull shit every other day let's dream lets fuck so we can have little brainwashed amway kids yeaaa I say I am not pressuring people anymore the is ridiculous so I quit is sad but now I can sleep by 8pm if I want 2