Scott
I really enjoyed reading "Merchants of Deception" as it mirrored some of my experiences here in Australia. One thing did intrigue me though. While Eric made it to Emerald he was never cut into the real tool money whereas is seemed obvious others in the organisation were receiving a cut of the real money. Am I making a wrong assumption?
Just a little up date on Australia. Leadership is due to held here shortly. In days gone by it was held at either the Sydney Entertainment Centre (with Dexter Yager), Rod Laver Arena (home of the Australian Tennis Open) or the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. Now, held in much smaller venues in Melbourne, Brisbane & Perth. In Canberra, The BBS' have gone from the National Convention Centre to a room at the National Library. Interesting!
cheers
Paul
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http://www.amquix.info/feedback/feedback_mar06.html
Hi Scott, I trust you are well! Firstly, I big congrats…your site is great!!
I could almost devote my life to helping people escape the AMO trap….I know many people that have lost the ability to think rationally because they are very caught up in an AMO….mostly the IDA group here in Australia where we are from. If I can ever do anything, just let me know.
I found the Merchants of deception book very useful as well.
I was involved with IDA for 2 years, from 2000 to 2001. Towards the end more and more things seemed incongruent. I started to ask some hard questions, and do some research. Naturally, I came across the tools scam… My up line emerald admitted to me that he made 50% of his money from IDA. It wasn’t just that…I felt more and more that some serious misrepresentations were being made….to many lies…I had about 35ppl in my team, was bringing 20 to functions, but I still just walked. I came across your site also fairly early, and this was invaluable.
I had sponsored 10 personally….i was able to talk rationally with most of them…2 of them are still involved today I think!! Hopelessly lost…its sad. Anyway, I thought I would quickly send in my story and a quick hello, and ad my support. Lastly, I was hoping that with your wealth of knowledge, you would be able to clarify a few things that I have been curious about for a long time.
Re the Amway lines of sponsorship, is Jim Dornan down line of Dexter? If he is not, we may be able to uncover another big commonly lauded deception that "Dex is the biggest so therefore we all need to worship him and do what he says "I understand that Bill Britt is down line of Dex, is this right? Is Ron Purveyor down line of Dex also?? And does Dex have any meaningful leaders/diamonds up line? An N21 diamond told me once that he did….who knows...so many lies and misrepresentations abound. Is there some truth to a double crown (40 plus direct legs) in Japan? The lines of sponsorship have always fascinated me.
Actually, this line of sponsorship thing was one of the first things that I came across that started to make me suspicious. I was involved with IDA, but Burt Guklick and Tom Avalsgard were not in my up-line /line of sponsorship. So why were they paraded as such at functions? Also, IDA was purported to have 80% of the Australian volume, and hence they new what they were doing. It occurred to me that perhaps it was the other way around….IDA had simply attracted many different leaders and lines of sponsorship, because it paid out the most on the tools. So IDA today has at least 5 different unrelated lines of sponsorship/leaders and its very incongruent with what they say.
Later I discovered that the only crown in Australia, Mitch Sala, who heavily promotes N21, and all of his down line, who also promote N21, is actually a Yager diamond, down line of Yager. Somewhere along the line he chose to support Jim D. So the point is that there is absolutely no correlation between your real Amway line of sponsorship, and your tools/AMO up line/ line of sponsorship.
To me this is very damning.
Anyway, take care and keep up the good work
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http://www.mlmsurvivor.com/posts/post87.htm
Re: Amway/Omegatrend
My name is **, I live in Perth, Western Australia I am a person who has failed dismally at MLM.
I joined the "International Dreambuilders" (IDA) group of Amway distributors in 1985 and I devotedly stuck with the program for ten years which included the network break-up which took me out of Amway and into Omegatrend. I spent a lot of money on it and made very little money out of it.
I absolutely understand people's bitterness and disappointment from failure in this type of business which builds our hopes so high. Yet, I will never speak against it!
If it were not for these people approaching me and teaching me a better way to see myself and others and to deal with people in general I would not have attained the other successes in my life.
MLM is not immune to people doing the wrong thing and it is just like any other business where it often seems that the rewards are not commensurate with effort. I eventually (it took nine years) made the decision that I had given it my best shot, and it was time to move on. When we get disappointed like this there is a grieving process which we go through. I stress GO THROUGH! We should come out the other side as wiser and better people.
I commend your web site for providing an avenue for people to express their feelings about their experiences and perhaps publish information on some of the bad guys. My experience did no involve any 'bad guys'. I had to take responsibility for my own decisions. I had to forgive "the business" for the unfulfilled expectations and forgive myself for my failure in it. If we hang on to the hurt, the disappointment and bitterness we are not moving on and we only hurt ourselves.
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http://www.apollowebworks.com/amway/mail/amreply26.html
Subject: My reply to your Amway page
Sun, 1 Mar 1998
Hi Russell, I have enjoyed your pages for a while and feel there should be an Australian link. So here is my very basic page...hope to hear from other Aussies. (Please don't mention my email or name...you just never know!!!!} http://members.tripod.com/~dreamsteal/index.html Hi (and G'day) I'm a former Amway distributor from earlier this decade. Recently I foundsome fascinating web pages about the motivational organisations that supplytapes to Amway groups and how the high pin levels make money from tapes andfunctions. I looked for information on the Australian motivational organisations but could not find it. So I thought I'd tell my story - andmaybe others can email me.
It all started when a parent at the local primary school wanted to show me a business opportunity. I was skeptical when the whiteboard came out and circles were drawn but did think I could market some products through my work (in a big firm) and especially liked the tax break idea for cleaning product samples etc...which turned out to be not strictly true. Anyway, I signed up and was in. I read through the manual and was worried about the 10 customer requirement, but was told not to worry about it. My sponsor and the upline people I met at my first meeting said it was more important to sponsor. I bought some tapes and books on multi-level marketing and left them with friends who were not interested, and my sponsor showed the plan to a friend who was not interested, having lived in a house with an Amway distributor. I bought loads more cleaning products than I would normally - i needed a clean house for when the directs dropped by. And I went to weekly meetings - more of that in the next section.
the system creeps in... Weekly meetings were in a large room with uncomfortable chairs in an officein an industrial area half an hour's drive away. The Diamonds did a lot of talking - I remember a suggestion to set up a Queen cookware club with six people so everyone got a piece each week. The wonders of water filtration and vacuum cleaning were explained and there was lots of circle drawing. Tapes were recommended - but I did not realise at first that they were not Amway tapes and when I ordered one about Singles in Amway through the catalogue my sponsor said I should be getting one of the other tapes. They were IBS tapesa nd were all basically success stories, with advice about following uplines and the system. This was System 2000 and you were meant to SUE (sell, use and eat) 200PV a month. I remember being excited when I made 3 percent...mostly through my own purchases. I bought sheets and socks through the catalogue though I could have got them cheaper at sales. I started thinking of everyone as a potential prospect, as the system advised. But I found that got in the way of normal social interaction. I was also associating more with Amway people - we had a Christmas BBQ where kids were present (contrasting with the kid-free policies for everything else)
reality sets in.. After a few months I realised that I was not going to sell heaps of product to fellow workers. I recall an Amagram which celebrated a woman who had achieved 9pc on sales alone...it struck me that few would do that for her to be written up. Nor were people joining me, except for a relative who soon decided she got better value in store specials. But my upline seemed excited and happy..I was a winner..and I went to functions. These involved interstate Diamonds crowing about their overseas trips and purchases (not catalogue purchases). I had to arrange babysitting and my expenses were mounting to hundreds of dollars. Then a friend lent me the book Amway - The Cult of Free Enterprise. It was an eye opener and reflected the pattern of what I had been exposed to. My dream was still there but fading. Finally I decided not to renew.
I would be interested to hear others' stories now I know more about how the tape and function profits work. That's basically the page. Hope you can post it...it's called dreamsteal's Australian Amway loserpage!!!
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The following testimonials are from the following source:
http://www.htmlgear.tripod.com/gw/guest/control.guest?u=dreamsteal
Thirteen years ago, I was an Amway distributor (in Australia) for about 6 months. The main reason I left was the pressure to constantly be selling the business plan at every opportunity. I was uptight and nervous everywhere I went. I couldn't relax at parties or when I was shopping. I was always looking for "prospects". You don't look at people as just people but rather as potential prospects. I would rather be poor for the rest of my life than suffer the social leprosy that goes with selling the Amway dream. Your only friends end up being those in "the business". Luckily, I didn't try and sell it to my good friends - I left them alone.
Unfortunately, one of those friends ended up joining a few years ago through someone else. She said it was a "buying groceries on-line" business. It wasn't until she sat me down and started pitching it to me that I realized it was MLM. I said I had been in Amway and that I wasn't interested in doing it again and she confessed "one of the businesses involved was Amway". I remember thinking "wow, they've become even SNEAKIER". I'm so embarrassed about having been involved with them and ashamed of some of the sneaky tactics I used to get people to the meetings. These tactics are encouraged by everyone in Amway under the guise that some pushy salesmen have given Amway a bad reputation so the word "Amway" is a no-no.
By the way, just before I joined I had planned to take my time, sell people the products and then mention the business plan if they liked the products. But the minute I joined I was immediately pressured to call everyone I know and have a meeting at my house the next week! He was going to show up at my house and present the plan. I tried to tell him that I didn't want to do it that way and I got a lecture about how there's only one way to build the business - quickly! He was going to turn up and that was that. None of this was even mentioned before I joined which I think is deceptive. I ended up begging people who I knew to come. I didn't want to this now pushy guy to turn up to a empty room. I told them outright that it was Amway because I didn't want them to feel deceived so not many turned up. However, there were a few people I called that I hadn't spoken to in years. I did the big "I have a business opportunity you might be interested in seeing" pitch (that I recall is published in their kits) - never mentioned Amway so they came over completely unaware of it. I'll feel terrible about that for years to come. It was flat out deception which is openly encouraged by everyone in Amway and printed in their materials.
These poor people didn't sign up. I know in their minds I'll always be remembered as "that Amway freak" and that makes my skin crawl. I wouldn't have joined either had it been pitched to me through one of those creepy meetings. My sister lied to me to get me to accompany her to one of the weekly meetings so I knew what I was going to see. She said it was near a dangerous area and she needed someone to walk with her to the meetings so she could feel safe. She admitted later that she lied and that she felt bad about it (she sponsored me but dropped out soon after I did).
Deep down I knew that if the product/business were good enough, it wouldn't need so much deception to sell. I also feel bad that there is no way to get through to my friend.
Amway "converts" don't listen. I didn't listen when people tried to tell me it was a bad idea. I feel immensely sorry for people that are having relationships ruined by this business not to mention their finances. They seem to get people when they are emotionally vulnerable. I had just come out of a horrible relationship with a crippled self-esteem and my friend was going through the nasty breakup of her parent's marriage when she joined. They make you feel loved and tell you how great your potential is but if you quit they never speak to you again even if you said you were going to try your hand at something that would potentially be successful like your own business.
Keep up the good work - I know you must endure a lot of vitriol from brain-washed distributors who accuse you of being a "dream killer". Even if your site got through to one of them, it would be worth it. They give you the "well, there are bad salesman everywhere" line I see - but you have to question a business that recruits any old person regardless of their background. As long as you have a couple of hundred bucks, they don't care who sells their "product" and they rely on many other unqualified people to guide them (up lines
Well yes, the dream did sound good, and true, for some it works. You'd need a combo of Type A personality, a willingness to burn off all your friends and every relationship you've ever had, plus a fair dose of luck to get anywhere near platinum, let alone diamond. We went hard, to the detriment of our family and friends - call it lack of perseverance, whatever you like, but instead of achieving financial security, we ate, cleaned, and showed the plan to our financial loss.I do love the concept of MLM, however convincing others as to the merits of "the business" is almost impossible. So I'll just enjoy my present lifestyle because "money isn't everything", and I value my family and current friends.All the best to those who want to give it a go - it has to become your life, so count the cost before you sign up. There is a stigma attached which you'll never shake despite the back slapping from your uplines. PS: they still make the best cleaning products :-P
I am a former Amway distributor. I reached the Ruby level and had broken a Ruby Direct and an Emerald direct. That is two seperate legs so was very close to being pearl and Emerald.
When I first started the business we used the amway Books and tapes and was a huge supporter of the company and the company functions. We wre in a fostered downline and had no help at all from upline past our immediate upline direct. We had heard about all the help that was being provided to other groups and sought them out. This was a bad move. We got involved in an AMO and our business went backwards from there. While we were building the business the Amway way we were doing well...when we changed things went downhill.
I eventually got out and when I did threw thousands of dollars worth of useless tapes on the tip...couldn't get refunded...they weren't Amway supplied.I defence of Amway itself. The business is or at least was a great business until it became prostituted by the money hungry, theiving, lying higher pins who make most of their money from books, tapes and functions. By the way this all happened in Oz not overseas
This is great! I have spent a whole day reading stuff about Amway. I was in Amway/A2k, the Australian sister website to Quixtar for a year. This is what happened. Perhaps being a bit naive I believed I could make 3 Grand a month with the coming internet explosion. I bought tapes books read everything, went to every open, went to conference nights, spent thousands. I found that the motivation given would last as long as it took me to drive out of the carpark, then doom set in again. I was technically proficient at showing the plan. Probably too good as they scared of every prospect. I showed probably 50 plans and a bunch of home group plans. When I had gotten to the end of my list i had no IBO's.
My wife stopped being interested after three or so months and I was doing it on my own. No one joined, my wife grew increasingly distant, my upline repeated the same stuff, I began to lose hope. I basically realised that It didn't matter how hard or much I wanted it, If no one below me could do it I was stuffed. June 2001 we started having big fights. My wife put down every aspect of the business and made me stop the shopping order. Then we actually saved some money! I realised that even if I made money I would be going to functions and associating with amway people all the time on my own. Then one day it was either amway or our marriage and the house gone. I look back and feel ashamed of that time- a nightmare.
It can work for some but like others say, can you live with those under you losing money all the time. That day I stopped was a brilliant day. Ironically, the "dream" of staying home, playing guitar and writing albums is actually closer at hand, now I work from home on the net, and play guitar in the times when I would have been attending bloody functions. And seeing the plan 50 times- aaaggghhh.Please email me if you have experienced similar hideous scenes or want to argue with me about how brilliant amway is- can't wait.
Guess the old saying goes with Amway, "if it seems to good to be true, well it probably is".The tapes, the books, the meetings and all that pressure. I didn't make anything but boy did my house sparkle!One interesting thing I noted was the number of Amway marriages that broke up - and the more motivated person of each couple would pair off with another equally motivated person from another marriage - 2 marriages would break to form 1 new union. This new couple (both so motivated) were unstoppable in their pursuit of new recruits. I heard of 4 such break-ups/get togethers in the year I was in. Did anyone else hear of similar stories?
I was so excited when I first saw the circles drawn! (back in '89)I spoke to everyone I knew and they all said no! I did not make any money and spent hundreds on the S&R's/books/tapes and self purchase of the products. I discovered on several occasions that I couild get the same product at the supermarket for LESS THAN THE WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTOR PRICE! I have friends who have prospected us and they say the same things they did over ten years ago!
I still go into a nervous sweat if I want to talk to someone about a great product I have discovered. I did get something good from my Amway experience and that was thru the positive thinking books - that is where my mindsets began to change. There are so many opportunities out there, especially now we are well into the Information Age.
So keep looking, and keep dreaming! PS Please don't use my email for junkmail or any money-making schemes. We have ours already
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