Amway Amway Global, Quixtar My own Amway/Quixtar experience. Internet

You may have failed in the Amway business, but there are plenty of people that are successful in this business. The Amway manufactured products are excellent. The starter kit and all products have a 90 day money back guarantee. The functions and motivational tools are optional and this is stated clearly in the documentation when you sign up. Many of the platinums and above profit from the motivational system, but this is no different from any other profession. If your job expected you to go to a conference and speak on stage, ... you would expect them to pay you as well. 

I see you are much younger than I and I would guess that when you hit 45 years old after working the same job for 25 years, you will probably understand why so many people are working the Amway business. Qualified Amway Diamonds definitely make $250,00+above and this income is also stated in the most recent Amway financial documentation. Most likely your upline Diamond was not qualified if they were not showing that level of income. But even unqualified Diamonds at the Emerald level are still usually free from the 9 -5 daily job grind. 

The latest Achieve magazine shows many new Diamonds, Emeralds, and hundreds of new platinums just in the last 12 months. So, the business works, but you chose to quit trying and that is why you failed. I am making money with the Amway business and I have never been afraid to say the word Amway. My parents achieved Diamond level in 1979 and they have never had to go back to work at a job, $750,000 home paid for in cash, no debt whatsoever, plenty of money in the bank, and a strong six figure income with the Amway business. With the experience that I have had, in my opinion, the Amway business is the best and most reliable MLM business in the industry. 

Are you aware that u just said it works and didnt realize it. 1 month u got a check. The next  month u got a better check and the next month it got better. You just gave up. If the numbers are rising then keep pushing. Thats the plan. Now the way u apply yourself is the outcome u get. Your friend wanna sell now and then to his mom a product here and there and no one else then thats him. He didnt put in the effort to sell therefore no check. U gotta work at your job to get a check right?  U didnt even mention if ur friends were spreading the info to others to build your team. Its not an easy thing to do. It takes years for active business owners to get where they are even if its at $1500 a month. Yall didnt even try. As for Sam that just meant you got with the wrong upliner. There are some like that  but not all. Get wit a team thats active and going somewhere. That was on yall. Amway not paying people all that money just for sitting on their asses with their hands out expecting money to fall out the sky. It takes money to make money. If it was that easy there would be no reccession. Everyone would do it. Take yourself serious.

Great report Bart!  You shed some light on the company for me.  I went through the exact same process.  Actually I pretty much got harassed to goto the first meeting from what I thought was a good friend.  It took them 3 hours or business bullshit talk to finally tell me it was Amway.  And after I walked out and told them I was no longer insterested they still kept calling my cell and my home phone number for the next 3-4 months!!  AARGH!!  After 6 months, they stopped calling, I think they got the message.

I just stopped my girlfriend from joining this scam! You just saved me a headache lol! THANK YOU HANK YOU!!!!

You have eloquently and succinctly covered every angle of this scam.

If you were in Amway (or whatever the hell they're calling themselves nowadays) for long enough, then you probably know that the founders are d**k DeVos and Jay VanAndel.

These two are from the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. While I admire their philanthropy, imagine how much money these two must be making off this gig considering the following:

I graduated from GVSU. I took many of my classes at a campus that is named after d**k DeVos, because he put up a huge chunk of the money to build the beautiful structures that comprise the campus.

My daughter received surgery at DeVos Children's Hospital.

Across the street from the hospital is the VanAndel Research Institute (they do medical research, I'm pretty sure they're not developing energy drinks there).

The largest sports/entertainment venue in the area is the VanAndel Arena. My graduation ceremony was held there, as was a kickass Rush concert.

Fine arts (operas and what not) are usually conducted in DeVos hall.

The finest hotel in town is the Amway Grand Plaza.

Basically, about half of the buildings in downtown Grand Rapids have either "DeVos,"  "VanAndel," or "Amway" in the name. Without the money these guys pump into the local economy, Grand Rapids would look alot like Detroit.

Again, I admire their philanthropy. But sometimes I think it may just be a means to keep local officials off their backs. The last I heard, they had a combined net worth of roughly 6 billion dollars.

I've studied Amway for many years, after my brother-in-law tried to sell me on it during my first year of law school. I could tell right away that it was a scam.

VanAndel and DeVos were childhood chums who, about fifty years ago, developed what was basically a granola bar. They were run of the mill snake oil salesmen, and marketed their product as a cure-all. This venture was somewhat successful at first.

However, when the FDA stepped in and told them that they had to stop making false claims about the health benefits of their treats, they devised a new plan: get other people to sell the product and "encourage" them to tout the health benefits that the FDA already said were a no-no.

These recruits would be independent contractors so as to shield VanAndel and DeVos from any liability. To make the prospect more attractive, these independent contractors were allowed to recruit other independent contractors and share in the commissions. Nowadays, people who are not a part of this enterprise, refer to this as a pyramid scheme.

This paradigm began lining the pockets of our Dutch friends in a BIG way. So they initially expanded the operation to other health and beauty products, and the program has evolved to where, nowadays, you can buy pretty much anything through Amway.

In the 1970s, a federal court declared that Amway was an illegal pyramid scheme. They have gottten around this ruling by getting rid of "front end loading" (read up on it, it's too complicated to get into here).

The gist of the ruling was that, if less than 70% of sales were not made to non-Amway distributors, the operation is illegal. This is still the standard today.

However, most who have analyzed Amway product flow will tell you that FAR more than 70% of end consumers ARE Amway distributors, meaning that the vast majority of Amway sales are made to IBOs, not to people outside of the organization.

So, technically, Amway is likely still in violation of the law, but its just too hard to track effectively, and believe me, these guys have some GOOD lawyers.   

Long story short: the OP is right on the money, and I'm glad he figured this out before he got in too deep. Amway makes its money from its own distributors. Distributors who are making money are not profiting from the sale of Amway products, they're making money off the motivational materials!

And, in closing, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER follow the advice of Robert Kiyosaki. He's more full of s**t than a KOA outhouse.

Best regards!