The Bait And Switch?

 I believe Amway is used as a bait and switch scam by the diamonds and other higher up pins. They show off luxurious lifestyles, mansions, sports cars, jet skis and other displays of wealth. Most of us familiar with the pitch have heard the lines before. 2-5 years, part time effort, built it right, build it once. Do what we did, and you can have what we have (quotes from a diamond). Early retirement, making major purchases in cash, financial freedom. I mean, who wouldn't want that? Apparently, many do and are willing to give Amway a shot, even if they think their chances might not be good. I believe the same reasoning goes into increased purchases right before the Powerball lottery numbers are released.

But the insidious part of the Amway business is that the diamonds lure people into the business under the pretenses that "anyone can succeed" or that everyone can succeed, but only if you follow their foolproof "system" consisting of cds, voicemail, books, seminars and what some call "the core steps". What is really disgusting about this entire process is that so many good and talented people have come and gone through the system, only to fail, despite doing what they were advised or told to do by upline. My former sponsor for example, sponsored over 100 people and was uber hard core for many years. He peaked at platinum (non Q12) and fell back and has never reached that level again. It definitely was not due to a lack of effort or not doing things right.

My sponsor was not alone. I did what was advised and went up to 4000 PV, only to find that there was no net profit. I wised up and got out of the business shortly after that. The truly sad thing is that many people hang onto Amway because they feel like failures if they leave or that they have no other hope of financial success without Amway. This is also a byproduct of upline teaching that most of us have no chance to be financially successful without Amway. Ironically, the vast majority of people would be no worse for wear or better off without any brush with Amway. Most people snap out of it quickly, but some people bite hard like my former sponsor, who is still toiling away after more than 20 years. What's worse is my sponsor was/is a physician and he is probably farther away from financial freedom than most people is a similar occupation.

So, in summarizing the scam, the diamonds lure people into Amway with great displays of luxury and wealth. They say that anyone and everyone can possibly achieve the same by following their system and by participating in their tools system (cds, books, seminars). What ticks me off is that these hucksters claim all the credit for any tiny amounts of success but blame anything less than success on the individual. They'll call it personal responsibility. These diamonds are liars and cheats. They have never been held accountable for the failures of even the most earnest of IBOs who followed their system. The excuse being that the IBO did not work hard enough, or they didn't do thing exactly right. That is total BS.

The vast majority of people fail in Amway because Amway is designed that way. Their common 6-4-2 plan consists of 79 IBOs. One is a platinum and the rest are not. When you consider that these 79 IBOs are all active and receiving bonuses, this is not a realistic group. A more realistic group will be 200 or more downline IBOs. Many doing little or nothing and the rest scraping up enough PV to make someone a platinum. Thus, one two hundred is one half of one percent. And that's below the going average of success for someone reaching platinum, and this was confirmed on Amway.com.  According to Amway, about 1/4 of 1% reach platinum.  Imagine the rate of success for diamond? It's a tiny fraction of one percent. And that's just to reach diamond, not to maintain it.

Come join Amway and get rich. That's the pitch. The reality is the diamonds and above are getting rich selling their downline training on how to success in Amway. A classic bait and switch scam. The tools business is the "real" business with higher profit margins than Amway products and less people sharing in the profits. Amway is just the front for the tools business to exist. I believe this post clearly explains how Amway is used as a bait and switch scam. Beware!