Deceptions
 
 

Leaders say: ALL AMWAY DISTRIBUTORS CAN GO DIAMOND How's this?

Every fall , AMO leaders make their rounds speaking to the numerous Free Enterprise Day audiences in their vast organizations. They tell the many thousands of aspiring diamonds that they ALL, can, indeed make that pin level in Amway. Then they'll move on to the next FED and tell the next crowd of 10,000 the same thing. The truth, however, is in the math and just plain common sense. Amway has approximately one million distributors in the U.S. The population of the entire world (including children) isn't big enough to form the downline for a million diamonds. Actually, simple mathematics show that there is somewhere in the neighborhood of a one-in-20,000 chance of making it to the diamond level. So what we have is hundreds of thousands of distributors scheming and scrapping for that one niche in 20,000. This basic (but unseen and mostly suppressed or unacknowledged) condition, therefore, becomes the breeding ground for deception and all the attendant "the end justifies the means" excuses upon which the deception thrives.

Leaders don't say: HOW MUCH TIME, EFFORT AND EXPENSE IT REALLY TAKES TO "GO DIAMOND".

New and prospective distributors are not told up front how much time it actually takes to become financially independent in the Amway business, what their chances really are, how much of their own money they have to invest, how much effort they have to put in, how much rejection and humiliation they have to endure, how many friends (including family) they may lose along the way. Most distributors become aware of these situations the hard way (by getting hurt) and find themselves up to their armpits in debt, family conflict, frustration, confusion and chaos.

My sponsor spent the last 7 of his 9 years in Amway in what's called the "push to diamond". This involved 70 to 80 hours a week of constant effort into the wee hours of the morning. He did this for 7 years. This, in and of itself, wouldn't be bad if distributors were informed of it BEFORE they find themselves unexpectedly mired in the whole thing. Most distributors become aware of this situation "in process" and then have to decide whether "to swim back to shore and cut their losses or to push on to the 'Diamond Yacht' way out there on the horizon. But what makes all this even worse is that the "push to diamond" is really just cranking up the frequency of manipulations and deceptions and "making the decision" that the end justifies the means and "going for it no matter what". As Bill Britt says "I have the secret: just DO it. Make it a DONE DEAL."
 

Leaders don't say: THE AMWAY NAME UNTIL THEY'RE READY OR THEY'RE PUT ON THE SPOT

Distributors are taught various tricks and contortions that work to veil or conceal the Amway name during prospecting, a deception that continues through the process of inviting prospects to informational meetings and often right up to the very end of such meetings. The justification for this deception is as follows: Amway has changed but because of bad publicity and unfavorable media coverage people have unfairly negative preconceptions about Amway so it is necessary to conceal the Amway name until recruiters can present prospects with the truth. Well the truth is that Amway has earned this unfavorable reputation because of its tacit approval of the behavior of the AMO's that generate most of its income. The AMO's psychological manipulations, Christian fanaticism, deceptive tactics and unbridled obsession with materialism and Amway's tacit approval of this behavior has created the bad image. The only thing that's changed about Amway is the number of products it distributes and the amount of money it takes in because of the explosion of AMO's in the last 15 years. See next.

FOR EXAMPLE

Follow the link below to a letter that "Dr. Dave" gives to his downline distributors for them to show prospects. It's supposed to, with nary a word about Amway, create a "before we say the A word" embellishment of network marketing. When Amway is finally mentioned, credibility is established by association. That's the idea anyway. Notice the use of "credible" terms throughout the letter, i.e., "professionals", "tremendous success", "medical doctor" ,"Sears" ,"AT &T", "Mercedes",  "residual income" , "income diversification", etc. Then Dr. Dave mentions "hundreds of major corporations which have flooded to involve their product or service line with this marketing format. This is a lot of hooey. Ninety percent of the products from these companies are simply bought, warehoused and resold to the public through The Personal Shopper's Catalog.

 

Dr. Dave's "Credibility" Letter

Also check out the following SITE .See for yourself the creatively devious ways that the Amway "opportunity" is presented without a single mention of the "A" word. This is really quite incredible. Not to mention enormously deceptive and the perfect example of what I speak. Shame on these people.
 

Leaders say: AMWAY IS THE GREAT MARRIAGE SAVER

The leaders in AMO's boast about how the divorce rate in this country is between 50 and 60% and the divorce rate among Amway distributors is below 5%. This, however, is a devious and self-serving bit of number crunching that masks an incriminating and very likely possibility: most or all of this 5% get divorced BECAUSE of Amway and/or AMO mind manipulation. AMO leaders rationalize by contending that these marriages wouldn't have lasted anyway and Amway had nothing to do with it. This is simply not true. Amway (through AMO's) had everything to do with it in a vast number of cases. Further, from what group is this 5% derived? Diamonds and above? Emerald and above? Directs and above? Certainly this figure could not have come from the vast number of distributors involved in Amway below the direct level. How many out of this group suffer family destabilization and/or divorce? A great deal more than 5%. I challenge anyone to supply data with proof to the contrary.

Leaders say: NO ONE HAS EVER SUCCEEDED WITHOUT "THE SYSTEM"

It is true that a few Diamond distributors DO emerge in these organizations. But there is no proof that they wouldn't have made it without the AMO system. Or if they succeeded because of an AMO system it is simply because many AMO systems scoff at FTC regulations for multilevel marketing - regulations which prohibit an emphasis on recruiting distributors rather than retailing products. Indeed, if a distributor does attain the state of total personal and financial freedom it doesn't come from retailing Amway products but rather from sponsoring others who sponsor others and so on until an enormous organization is formed whose individual members all BUY Amway products. In my opinion this enormous emphasis on recruiting is a violation of the regulations set by the Federal Trade Commission to outlaw illegal pyramids. Further, the FTC-mandated 10 Retail Customers Per Month Rule is systematically ignored in favor of the faster/easier road to freedom of becoming a leader and building a huge downline that buys Amway products and Amway Personal Shopper Catalog items. Alleged illegal activity aside, the AMO approach to doing Amway is dubious at best, exploitative and unethical at worst.

DISTRIBUTORS CREATE THE FALSE APPARENCY OF GREATER SUCCESS THAN WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ACHIEVED.

In Amway's monthly publication, AMAGRAM, distributors, most of whom are members of AMO's and who have reached certain pin levels in the Amway business, are featured complete with their pictures, their occupations, where they are from, and the name of their upline sponsors. Most of those featured are NEW direct distributors. However, becoming a direct distributor is no indication of immense success in the business, at least not an indication of any attained state of personal and financial freedom. In some cases it's not even an indication that a distributor has made a net profit after all the expenses that it took to become direct have been considered. Yet this display of Amway achievers is intended to give the appearance that hundreds of distributors are succeeding in the Amway business every month. To get a real idea of the real success rate look at the numbers of emerald and diamond distributors.

UPLINE/DOWNLINE CONSPIRACY OF MUTUAL EDIFICATION

Heard of "check kiting", right? Well, now, courtesy of you favorite AMO, we have credibility kiting. Here's how it works. A new distributor is taught by his upline to create the apparency of success by conspicuous displays of expensive looking clothes, jewelry, hairstyle, car and the display of a "high class" demeanor. Actually, though, the guy (or girl) is broke, depressed, confused and doesn't know PV from VD. When this apparency is adequately created and approved by upline, someone in the upline, who was jump-started by the same "kiting" trick, will do a house meeting for the new distributor and at the meeting will brag to the audience about how great the new distributor is in the areas of character, integrity, energy and credibility. The new distributor then, in his interaction with his prospects and new recruits, will similarly embellish the success and character of his upline. Thus they alternate their edification efforts. Like check kiting, "credibility or success kiting" creates a "something" out of nothing. And, like check kiting, deception is the tool that makes it "work". Amway distributors doing this, however, don't see it this way. To them this is "dressing for success", "thinking it into being", "acting diamond so they'll become diamond."  Isn't this incredible?

 

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