Sorry if the blog has been slow I've been on vacation with my wife for the last week. We had a great vacation in the south pacific and will be planning our next vacation very soon. It looks like Japan ot Korea is our next destination later this year. And guess what? We didn't need Amway to be able to afford or have time off for these exotic trips. I'll be bacl blogging regularly again soon but I wanted to update my readers so they don't think I quit and "walked away" like Amway diamonds (LOL).
I may be doing some articles on Herbalife soon, who modeled their business, but Herbalife is currently under investigation from the FTC for being an illegal pyramid scheme. The problem as I see it, is that the FTC has no clearcut definition of a pyramid scheme, thus leaving the courts with past cases as precedence to make rulings.
I hope that the FTC will require major reforms to MLM, including an easy way to determine a pyramid scheme and a legal and legit business. It seems that MLM is litterered with scams like Vemma and nothing happens to stop them ubtil it's too late and the damage is done. That's MLM's advantage. They can violate and be cauht years and years later when it's too late for significant reforms can be made and compensation to the victims. Maybe the FTC vs. Herbalife will effect change. It not, I vow to keep up the fight.
7 comments:
Herbalife, Amway, Vemma, Monavie -- Jeez, how much of this MLM shit is going on?
I think the main law/regulation that the FTC should impose on Amway and WWDB is full disclosure and honest advertising in all in-person and oral communications. There are laws against false advertising in the media, but what about commisioned Amway salespeople (IBOs) who falsely claim when presenting the plan or the WWDB system that the success rate within the system is 100% when it's truly only a fraction of 1%?? If IBOs were forced by law to tell new prospects that only less than 1% of IBOs make a profit and near 0% have financial freedom in 5 years, then that would end recruitment PERIOD.
Amway conveniently distances themselves from IBOs becauase they are "independent", but Amway should be held liable anyway because they benefit from lies and deceit used to recruit more IBOs and to sell product.
Even if Amway distances itself, then the FTC should regulate WWDB and other motivational organizations that use false in-person and oral representations about the odds of success. Hell, even lottery and sweepstakes ads have to tell you the slim odds of winning and they could not get away with claiming a 100% success rate as WWDB falsely claims.
Jerry, I agree. I don't believe Amway should be able to hide behind the claim that they cannot control what their distributors do or say. Amway cleverly set it up so they basically have people who pay Amway to be Amway employees with no wage and no benefits.
Being that IBOs must pay to "work" for Amway, why should there be a 100 PV minimum to earn a bonus? Why isn't 3% paid on 1 - 299 PV? That seems only fair.
You're right, Joe, and welcome back from walking the beaches of the world : ) If Amway gave a bonus on less than 100 pv/month, no IBOs would buy the $300 worth of crap every month from Amway to 'make the first fucking circle work', and IBOs would just recruit recruit recruit, which would benefit WWDB and the other 'motivational' organizations, but hurt Amway very badly. And then ultimately no IBOs would make money even after recruiting a huge downline, because everyone in that downline will avoid buying overpriced Amway crap as much as possible.
Joe,
If you are going to do great articles on Herbalife, may I suggest reading up on Bill Ackman and Robert Fitzpatrick? They have done fantastic work on the subject, and Bill Ackman has made it his mission to see Herbalife shut down for good. He is the CEO of Pershing Square, and a multi BILLIONaire hedge fund manager (I guess I'm trying to say he's qualified on the subject).
Robert Fitzpatrick has been around forever and teamed up with Bill. He has done many years of research and work against Herbalife and other MLM companies, has a great understanding for the current laws, and great ideas on how to reform the laws that essentially give free reign to these companies.
Between the two of them, they have brought information back to the public and given an open support system to the people who have been damaged by this situation. This video...is rather long, and doesn't need to be watched all the way through, but it does show the work that these two have done to stop Herbalife.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNnRhkLMuJw
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