Over the many years of Amway's existence, their reputation in the US and Canada has tanked. And it's not due to Amway the corporation, but rather Amway IBO leaders who teach and condone unethical behavior. Of course, I don't know of any significant measures that Amway has taken to discipline some of their wayward IBOs, but that's another story. However, it's apparent to me that some Amway leaders really are just not good people. They will do and say anything even lie to recruits to make a buck off them. They will sell false hopes and dreams to make their living.
During my blogging career, I've seen young people who were discouraged from attending college so they could build an Amway business. I've personally seen people go bankrupt and lose their homes because they followed the advice of their all-knowing uplines. Sure, people have some responsibility for their actions, but I feel as if some of these kinds of actions by some IBOs and IBO leaders is predatory and focuses on people who can least afford to funnel money into the business and the leech teaching systems such as WWDB or Network 21. Downlines are taught to trust in their upline and to follow their advice, and to make it worse, the uplines then blame the IBOs for any failures.I've seen ridiculous product claims such as people claiming that bottled water could cure ills and make you athletically superior. Of course, this water (Amway perfect water) costs about $50 a case when you could buy 8-10 cases of water at WalMart for the same price. They claim superiority in their vitamins without unbiased scientific evidence to support their claims. Perhaps that is why the Amway vitamins seemingly are consumed nearly exclusively by IBOs themselves. Nobody except IBOs buy the stories and the prices of Amway diamonds.
Despite claims by Amway supporters and IBOs that things are changing in Amway for the better, there is plenty of evidence that nothing has changed. Outrageous income claims. I thought the Dateline show in 2004 exposed some crazy stuff with an IBO leader claiming that people could earn $250K per year with a part time effort, but then my friend Rocket (another blogger) finds this gem with an IBOAI member and crown ambassador in WWDB/Amway claiming you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month: http://rocketsrants.blogspot.com/2011/09/amway-guys-they-sure-say-stuff.html
I wonder if Brad Duncan himself even makes that kind of money. Ironically, his triple diamond brother (Greg) wasn't even close to that when his chapter 7 bankruptcy papers were exposed in 2009.
To Amway prospects and apologists, the Amway corporation itself may be perfectly legal, but the root of many evils comes from Amway uplines and AMO leaders. It is for this very reason that many get turned off just at the mention of the Amway name. Amway can stop them, but they don't.
But Joe, the AMO subsystems are legally independent bodies. They function simply as training schools for those who want to follow the Amway racket. Amway in Ada, Michigan has very little effective control over their actions.
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