Why I Don't Care For Amway

 Once upon a time I was an Amway IBO. This was back in the 1990's. My first brush with Amway was being invited to a "beer bust" while I was in college. I remember showing up to the party only to see my friends in the house wearing suits and with a white board set up. I recall thinking WTF?? Anyway, so as to not be rude to our friends, I stayed and saw the plan and left afterwards thinking what a dirty trick it was to invite us to a beer party to show us the plan. It sucked.  A friend who attended the beer bust with me, had a discussion about whether money could actually be made.  But we dismissed the idea shortly after because we didn't see any real prospects.

Some years later an old friend of mine contacted me and wanted to explain a business proposition to me. He showed me the Amway plan and of course, I only had a bad experience with it. I told my friend to call me later if he actually makes any money off it. About a year and a half later, my friend calls me and tells me he is now a platinum. It got my interest as he said it was not hard and he could easily guide me to do the same. I bit the bait and joined. I actually moved up the ranks quickly, reaching the 4000 PV level in about 6-7 months. But I also realized that moving up was exciting, but my net profit was still practically zero. And along with zero profit, my upline expectations went up. I was supposed to "submit" and do what they say. And there were extra meetings and functions which were at my own expense.

That's when I realized that the whole game is a scam. Yeah, I figured that the diamonds might have it good, but for everyone else, it was a scam. Sure, you can out gain your sponsor and sometimes, a person even breaks through and goes diamond. But it's quite rare and people who achieve diamond can easily lose it, as evidenced by all the former diamonds.

But what I realized that for the rank and file and even the Platinums, it's a scam. You are basically selling false hopes and dreams. You get some young and motivated people to join but the reality is that an excess of 99% of them will fail and most of them will lose money, some lose significant money. But for most, they never even had a chance when they signed up. That's because to perpetuate the scam, prospects are told only the best-case scenario and not what's likely. They aren't told that most people do nothing or that most cannot sponsor anyone. Products are difficult to sell and that a neutral price comparison would be damaging to Amway.

Instead, we were told to be open minded.  we were told not to talk to family and friends about the Amway opportunity, listen only to upline (who have a conflict of interest), and to never quit. This is all great advice for the upline diamonds who greatly benefit from this advice. Especially since they profit from almost everything you do. They tell you lies about being a nicer person or strengthening your marriage through Amway but once you are signed up, it's rarely about how much money you are making. They want you to enjoy riches vicariously by living your upline's dreams. They often think their diamond walks on water when in reality, they are just lying and deceiving downline in order to sell them tools and functions.

Your diamonds might be living their dreams, but they do so by taking advantage of their downline while pretending to be their trusted advisors and mentors. And that's one of many reasons why I dislike Amway.