Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Our Quixtar/Amway Global Story

I had never posted our Amway story and thought I should make a post about it. I had dreamed countless times about the glorious story of achievement, I would tell from the stage to a crowd of eager IBOs ready to soak in the nuggets about my achievements in Amway, but that was not the case to be.

We started in 2003 and were active till around end of 2009. By active I mean being out there more than 5 nights a week, showing 3-5 plans a week, attending all associations, flying/driving miles, doing more than 300 pv per month.

I was sponsored by my best friend whom I had known for around 10 years. I was new to the country. I had been in the US for only a month. My friend invited me to a FED in Minneapolis. He told me in no less words that I can forget our friendship if I was not willing to come to the FED and start the business. He in fact paid for my flight tickets, function ticket, starter pack and even paid for me to complete my 100Pv in my first month. Of course, I did repay all of this money, but this is how I got started. I went to the FED reluctantly but a lot of things talked about from the stage appealed to me and I decided to start the business.

Our woes started when my upline Emerlad decided in 2005 that he was going to get Emerald done no matter what and be a part of the upline diamond’s inner circle. So as a part of my upline starting emerald qualification, my sponsor started platinum qualification (Silver)- So we committed (Made to commit) 2500PV to be a part of upline’s goal. When we went 2500PV , we had no associating IBO. We bought more than 2000PV ourselves. We must have done retail about 100PV at the maximum and a few non-associating IBOs bought some big ticket items like e-spring. We bought a lot of jewellery. My wife who is a medical graduate and has a Master’s Degree was encouraged by upline to go to Nail spas and talk to the ladies there and sell jewellery. We had a long distance upline. So she had to do this on her own. When I think about my wife going to spas and selling jewellery for my idiotic upline’s goal-my blood boils even today.

Then we qualified for Ajmani Eagle leadership for the first time in 2005. We had 1 associating IBO who did 100PV and who was on standing order. The rest of the PV cheques we created by buying products and transferring the volume to inactive IBOs to create 5 more PV cheques. We were 8 SOT short to complete our Eagle parameters- So what did we do??? Our upline told us to buy just 8 Standing order CD for 4 weeks and 8 books for a whole month. BWW was not sitting there at the eagle leadership and checking who had 10 SOT or not or if we had 6 pv cheques or not- to this day, I wonder why the heck we were made to buy those extra standing orders and do extra volume to create PV cheques. For this we had to fly to the east coast- so more money had to be shelled out for flight tickets. There we realized many people had qualified like us, since many of the speakers kept saying that now that you have put your grandmother on standing order and have qualified, we want you to go back and fix your structure.

Most of the group my sponsor had put together at this time had vanished and he had decided to complete platinum qualification in 05-06 and be his upline’s third leg for his emeraldship. This meant more trouble for us as being my sponsor’s close friend and the system’s constant programming we were to become the scape goats. So the first month when he restarted platinum qualification we again did more than 2000PV. As soon as we did it, a big fight erupted between me and my wife due to me doing everything upline was telling without any concern for our future. When I talked to my upline emerald in qualification about why he was doing this to us- making us buy so much for his goals, he was so angry that we were questioning him and not being thankful for all the help he was doing- flying to meet us, and did a lot of guilt trip and made it clear that if we question uplines- we would not grow.



Our trust with our uplines had greatly reduced but we still believed that if what we did as told by the system, we will still win. We later realized that pretty much in all lines of sponsorship, the same thing is being done, but the system portrays itself as honest and full of values, so that the IBOs being exploited get the feeling that uplines may be bad but if you follow the system you will still win.

For the next few months there was no pressure and we thought that the uplines had dropped the idea of going platinum and Emerald. We did not realize that they had given us breathing space for a few months. It all started again from April of 06, when you had only 5 months to complete qualifications that year. April and May we again stocked up 1500 PV or more. June 06 was a big month as Kumar Go Diamond event was coming up in July 06 and we were highly encouraged to qualify for that event. At this point of time we had 1 active associating IBO who was on standing order- so the grand total of our standing order count was 2, including ours. In system they always teach from stage that you should have 20 Standing order when you start platinum qualification.

But in close quarters, in night owls uplines used to always tell that you cannot wait till you have 20 standing order and the perfect timing to start platinum qualification. So, finally in June 06 we qualified as Silver by BUYING MORE THAN 6000PV OURSELVES. At this point of time, our credit cards were maxed out because of stocking up products and all the other regular expenses involved with being a 100% core IBO. So what do our honest uplines do - My sponsor loans us $10,000 so that we can stock up products and qualify Silver. My up-upline emerald SMR calls me and this is what he told me verbatim - "You go silver this month and I will make sure you go platinum within the next one year". Guess how many calls I got from him after we went to Kumar go diamond? ZERO! He never called me even to just enquire how we are doing!

All he made sure was that his downline and brother RR qualified as emerald! My upline Emerald had the nerve to even call me in his last month of qualification if we were willing to buy 1000PV worth of jewellery. I still have my BWW calendar from that year, in which all the last days of my upline's emerald qualification were marked "PV deal", meaning my upline was convincing me/making me accountable for the goal we committed at the beginning of the month!

I still don’t know why I stayed in till this point or beyond this point, knowing fully well what crooks my upline were. I can attribute my staying in only to the bombardment of the teachings of the system and some cross line leaders, who seemed genuine and honest!

My sponsor did complete his platinum qualification and my upline his Emerald qualification in 2006. My upline Emerald cut a wonderful cd in where he talks about how he has made it in Amway. Sadly, his wonderful cd with a beautiful story does not tell the ACTUAL story about how many trusting IBOs he has exploited on his way to Emerald, how many IBO's bank balance he has wiped out, how much of a crook he actually is and how low he would stoop to achieve his goals.

Another big thing was our wedding. According the "system" you need to be legally married for people to trust you, so you cannot hang around for too long telling this is my fiancee, girl friend, etc., Since we had some resistance from our families for our wedding, we could not get a traditional Indian wedding done in India when we wanted it. So our uplines recommend us to get secretly married here, which we did. Everything was fine after our wedding, except for the fact that we both were feeling guilty. So we wanted to go to India and get a traditional wedding done. Whenever we talked to upline about this, my upline emerald RR would say "If you want to go to India, you can go for 10 days and come back. But if you want to go platinum in the next 1 year, then forget about it. You cannot go to India for 10 days and then expect to go platinum within the next 1 year. Your platinumship will be delayed by at least 6 more months." The truth was actually not that - it is to keep us here until he qualified emerald. Every time the wedding topic would come, he would pretty much black mail us with the same lines. So we were forced to stay here until he qualified emerald. But after that, he never really cared. The ultimate turn-around was when he told me a few years later he and my sponsor friend were wondering why we did not go to India and get our traditional wedding done any sooner than we did.

Next two years, no pressure to stock up products, though in 2007 in a major fight with uplines, we let them know what we really thought about them. We still believed that if we did what was taught by the system, we could still be financially free.

In 2008, my sponsor decides to start q12 qualification and his upline founders emerald qualification. This time they knew we would not buy a single extra product for their qualification. So, they come up with such a brilliant idea. At this point of time, Amway was giving 20% Pv/BV uplift for all online customer orders worth $75 or if you reported any customer order that you made from your inventory more than $75. My upline gets password for my Amway account and all our downlines and reports everybody’s personal purchase as customer order, so that they would get this 20% uplift. So this way, they exploit Amway’s promotion to get extra free PV. This happened for a couple of months and a few IBOs decided to drop out not wanting to be part of this team. One of my close friends and downline IBOs quit at this time. He at least had enough integrity in him to quit as soon as my uplines started the "real deal" on him and his downlines! I lost a good friend from my life! When I confronted my upline and asked him why he is being so dishonest, he said “Why would Amway have such a promotion if they know that people would misuse it. He said Amway wants people to take advantage of this 20% uplift promotion”. How could you ever argue with somebody who is hard headed and believes what they are doing is right?

Finally towards the end of 2009, when we had a chance due to our international trip to not be a part of system for about 3 weeks, we finally started asking ourselves why we are in it, when we are not making any profit, when our relationship was so sour due to the arguments about this business, when we were made to feel like losers by the system for not making it inspite of all the HARD work that we were putting in with no results to show for, when we were not winning in it and when we were not seeing any chance of winning in the next few years?? We decided we had had enough and not to be active with the system anymore. Even at this time our upline tried to influence us and keep us in the business and we were not willing to agree with him. We are so glad that we made this decision as we are so much happier and we dont have false hopes anymore.

We would have easily invested more than $80K in our Amway journey- with doing 300PV every month- most of these products that we had never used prior to being IBOs and would have NEVER used if we had not been a IBO, with all the flights we had to take to support our long distance groups, all the flight tickets to attend Go diamond leaderships- the money does add up to a staggering number. We had spent more than
$20K just for my upline’s Emerlad qualification. More than the money the time we spent, it pains us to think about the relationships that we had failed to nurture, the careers we had not paid attention to and the mess it created in our personal lives.

We have started our journey back to normal lives and we are glad that we came to our senses atleast now. Life is actually going great now. We took 3 quality vacations, have saved up a lot through our job incomes and are looking ahead for a great future!

And I am not saying you should not join Amway/BWW. Join it and make money honestly. Do not become part of anything dishonest, even if your upline does it and recommends it to you. Just because 100 people are doing something wrong, does not make it right. Have the guts to do it right every step along the way and achieve your dreams!

50 comments:

  1. I'm not quite sure how to react to this post. To be honest my initial reaction is actually to take offense at YOU for damaging Amway's reputation. You clearly broke many Amway rules and guidelines to reach "fake" Amway qualification. You even faked BWW qualifications.

    Yet you clearly seem to think this is all your upline's fault? Yes, they may have been dishonest too - but weren't you also actively breaking rules and being dishonest?

    Why were you doing that? What "hold" over you did you sponsor and upline have that would make such behaviour excusable and absolve you of responsibility?

    I'm guessing from parts of your story you may be Indian - was there some cultural imperative that made you feel you had to "obey" these people? What were you thinking?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. After reading some articles online and attending an Amway function,

      I just want to be straight to the point in revealing the only way to succeed in amway, and its not glamorous at all. Kinda like a facade.

      Gather a bunch of slave, work them and push them to buy PV products and sell it to get the whatever gem ranking; in order to get profit sharing incestive

      Then Mentor slaves to create more slave farms for your benefits.


      Quoting an relevant piece of commenting from another blog:

      "Scamway, I mean Amway, is not a business...it's a way of life. The coaching and dream-building that is involved is how they brainwash yourself into believing that what your doing is the right thing.

      Why would that be necessary? Because it involves taking everything you know, everything you do and flipping it upside down and starting over.
      You have to believe that you no longer need to run down to the store anymore and buy toilet paper when you can order Amway products.
      What if I have massive diarrhea and ran out of Amway toilet paper? Nope. Sorry. Have to keep washing my butt in the shower till my Amway order arrives.
      In my opinion, Amway keeps people indoors and ignores retailers. It takes away your God given right to walk outside and go to the store, get some exercise, and see what new items are in the store you can purchase.

      It seems like Amway promotes obesity by keeping people locked up in their homes and glued to the Amway homepage looking for toilet paper and soap. But wait! Hold on here! Why would anyone want to do such nonsense? That's what the tapes, cd's, seminars are all about...keeping you brainwashed into believing that this lifestyle is whats best for you on your silly adventure to rich-ville.

      The one thing Amway is good at is getting you to be a proud member of the NFL club (No Friends Left). Heck, I reached Diamond NFL level in about 2 months...no one wanted to talk to me because they were afraid I was going to sell them a box of soap. I left their business, too silly and ridiculous. You have to have the mentality of a used car salesman to even have a remote chance at this sorta lifestyle. It wasn't for me. I had a trunk full of tapes and cd's and zero in the bank. Lesson learned.
      John."

      Delete
    2. "...take offense...for damaging Amway's reputation..."

      Funny, because Amway's reputation is already at rock bottom.

      Delete
    3. agreed, its always the ones in amway who get offended because they are still bein brainfed and brrainwashed.
      im trying to open my friends eyes and see that working for "the man" isnt all that bad. i made an honest 46k salary, 3 weeks vacation and a comfy but flexible 8:30-5 job. i dont have to worry about selling soap or pills and i get a check based on my hours not based on people receptiveness to products..

      shes been in amway over 2 years. its June now, since January she hasnt made A SINGLE DIME yet shes still spending money on meetings/ conventions/ cd's/books... its all a bunch of garbage if you ask me

      Delete
    4. Dear N.,

      It's nice that you have a job you like; you must feel fulfilled.(Do you?) The business you work for is owned by 'the man.' What's the ceiling on your income? Any move-up potential? Are you 'going' anywhere? Or are you stuck?

      'The man' can pull the rug out from under you any time, & you're jobless, money-less, unless you get another job quick, which 'man' can pull the rug out from under you any time, & you're jobless, money-less, unless you get another job quick, which 'man' can . . . very insecure life, actually. You don't have control. Of your own life.

      What retirement is 'the man' building for you? Looking good? None? Does 'the man' care about you, really? Or do you have to care about yourself.?

      If you get sick or injured, will 'the man' do your work for you, keep your salary coming in & 'help out, so you're not poverty-stricken?'

      There is no magical, sweat-free, rainbow-land on earth where everything about earning a living is easy & free. We all have to pay the price for the situation we want. If you want to control your own life, you have to pay that price. The tag on that is very expensive! You work your tail off. For very little reward in the beginning. Statistics are that new businesses, of all kinds, don't make a profit for 5 years. Most new businesses close down in the first 5 years because they're underfunded. Without 5 years of income put away to survive on, don't open your own business! Don't try to control your own life.

      The recommendation from Amway training corporations is to keep your job from 'the man.' While you develop your new business. No risk, financially, to you & your family. Just lots of hard work & sweat for about 5 years. That's the price of control of your life.

      Apparently you don't want to pay that price. You don't want to work that hard. Your choice.

      Good luck.

      Delete
    5. Dear Ex-Eagle,

      Your upline was rotten - dishonest. Good idea not to stay with them.

      There's rotten, dishonest, unreliable, incompetent people in every business. If you have a rotten, dishonest, unreliable, incompetent dentist, does that mean you'll never go to the dentist again?

      The above experiences you had are sad, that such wrong exists & hurts so many people. I'm sorry that ever happens to anybody! Life is one big schoolhouse. Those people & experiences were "Corrupt People 101."

      There are many other classes in the class schedule on earth. "Fine, Integrious People 101," "Perseverence For Goodness 101, 102, ..."

      "How could you ever argue with somebody who is hard headed and believes what they are doing is right?" Report the dishonest people to Amway Corp. & let the law handle them. Wrong is wrong, no matter who's doing it.

      Blessings to you & your family.

      Delete
    6. Quixtar/Amway, where your personal life (if you have one) becomes your business life! After your day job, your after-work time is spent poaching at the local bookstore, coffee store or some retailer using BS pick-up lines on folks who want to be left alone & not patronized! All Quixtar/Amway recruiters I have run into talk to me like I was born yesterday & am some gullible idiot! All that money they spend on their CD's & Motivational Tapes must by orienting them to BS marketing skills! Yeah, I'm going to waste my life selling soap & laundry detergent for 3 to 4 times the cost of what it costs at the local grocery store! If Amway/Quixtar Poachers are ethical, why aren't they direct in the first meeting & say what business they're in instead of giving the run around of, "what's your phone #," "our senior business associate is visiting from.... & please come meet him," & "am I understanding you correctly that you don't want to make money for almost no effort?" WOW! Ironically, many college kids in their early 20's fall for the Amway/Quixtar BS.

      Delete
  2. Yes, IBOFB, blame the victim and give upline a pass.

    ReplyDelete
  3. He's the victim? The guy actively went out of his way to knowingly fake qualifications. He was clearly a perpetrator, not a victim.

    And nowhere did I even remotely give "upline" a pass. You just can't help but make stuff up can you?

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  4. Did you not see the part where upline was a trusted friend. Thus when the upline "decided" to move on, there was pressure on downline to produce. I'm not saying the downline was guiltless either, but both has some culpability in this.

    Yet your initial reaction is to blame the victim?

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  5. My initial reaction is that THIS GUY was actively and knowingly dishonest. HE did these things, not his upline. Was he a "victim"? Maybe - we don't know the other side of the story. We do know HE was clearly a perpetrator of fraud.

    It's perfectly understandable to act on the advice of a "trusted friend" for a while, but when it's more than clear that "friend" is encouraging you to do dishonest things - well, clearly he can't be trusted, so why would you keep doing them? At what point can you keep blaming someone else for your own clearly dishonest actions?

    Frankly I'm tending towards the view that "like attracts like" and in this case "crooks attract crooks". I'm more concerned for the honest people he dishonestly recruited, and the IBOs of integrity he impunes by association with blogs like this - they are the real victims, not "exeagle". He knew what he was doing was wrong, and he continued to do it not once, not twice, but for three years.

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  6. Well, IBOFB, it's like I have been saying all along. Amway's bad reputation is not Amway's doing. It is bad IBO behavior and in many many case, bad practices taught by bad upline.

    Having said that, Amway could have done more to take more visible corrective actions but it appears that they haven't done anything of note to weed out the bad leaders.

    So while the bad reputation may not be all Amway's fault, I am fairly sure they could have done more to prevent themselves from getting that reputation.

    You have to remember that certain groups teach very strong loyalty, which in many cases in something IBOs adhere to because it can and has in the past, affected an IBO's ability to share in the tools profits.

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  7. Amway can't take action if they don't know about things and have evidence, and this guy clearly isn't going to report it as he was as crooked as his upline. What would you suggest Amway does? They already ask for info on, for example, customer sales - this guy simply lied to them. How does Amway protect itself from people lying to them?

    some more discussion on this post on Amway Talk

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  8. How hard would it be to infiltrate some meetings of various LOS on a spot check basis?

    If you see leaders telling people to skip paying their rent to attend functions, or to buy 5000 PV so you can go diamond, they should be penalized in some manner by the corporation and if egregious enough, these violating IBOs should be booted.

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  9. Well, it would be incredibly difficult to "infiltrate" anything other than major events - there's far too many "minor" events. As it is Amway has the right to attend major events and usually does. There's someone at ours, sitting at the diamond tables, virtually the whole event.

    Having said that, I doubt anyone promoted buying 5000PV yourself to go Diamond, and I'm not even sure that happened in this case - was it upline that suggested that, or exeagles way of reaching goals set by his upline?

    As for booting people, if they're repeat offenders, absolutely.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You're right, they won't say buy 1000 PV or anything like that from stage. But I heard something similar in our group. My sponsor was trying to qualify for platinum and he called a meeting for the movers and shakers and asked us to up our PV commitment. So singles were asked to commit to 200 PV and couples 400 PV. It wasn't extreme like this story, but as you say, buying PV to gain a pin and loading products is a possible rules violation. 5000 PV sounds a bit extreme though.

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  11. Well, if Amway really wants to take any action, all they have to do is contact the IBO whose personal volume is more than 75% of their group volume. I doubt if all the IBOs whose personal volume is more than 75% of their group volume receive correspondence from Amway asking how come their personal volume (which does not include customer sales) is 75% more than group voulume- because we did not receive any such communication.

    Now in my line of sponsorship, they have come up with another genius idea of shipping all your personal purchase to a fake customer id- ur neighbour, relative or somebody- So as far is amway is concerned now, through such fake customer orders, these IBOs are not violating 75% rule. My downline IBO went 1500PV recently through such orders- personally buying around 800PV and doing some retail and his single downline IBO buying 400-500PV and doing some retail. All this will never stop. Upline IBOs will find a new crop of trusting IBOs whom they can teach/indoctrinate their philosophies.

    One could do a Phd thesis on why IBOs stay in inspite of knowing their uplines are crooks. If I point out things that were taught by uplines/system that made us do what we did, IBOFB and all Amway supporters would just keep repeating what he thinks is true.

    I am firm believer of Napolean Hill's statement "You can never win an argument" and I will close the comments in my blog from now on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You raise good points. And I also suggest that Amway should set up a mechanism for victimised IBOs to report fraudsters in their uplines.

      Delete
  12. All this sounds very familiar. Though we were in amway way back 94-2000 , motivations, actions of uplines are very similar.

    even we were brought into the business by our close friend/colleague. we were also new in the country :)

    Good thing is only time i bought into the uplines schemes was early in the business when i went 1500 PV, buying artistry kit, vaccum cleaner, couple of old water treatment systems.

    Good thing is we quit thanks to my wife who was not sold on these schemes. She was trying to support me all the while even when she did not agree with the scheme.
    we had our fights, I still remember the night when i got angry with some thing she said and I screamed at her. I still remember her face, like frightened cat.

    thank god I quit in 2000 and the guild feeling lasted at least three years. now it is all part of the bad dream in my life.

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  13. desi dude,

    Were you with BWW as well?

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  14. IBOFB you sir are an ass. I was at this function and I remember Kumur saying he bought water treatment systems to get him over 7500 PV. YOU DENY THE MANIPULATION THAT THE BWW SYSTEM PERPETUATES! As far as I am concerned these upline cult leaders are destined for a eternety of damnation.

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  15. Yeah Reissman i remember Kumar saying that and also him saying the month after he reached 7500PV he fell back to his orginal PV level of 1000 or 1500PV. Also he would say he never hit the in between pins like 2500PV, 4000 etc the first time he went 7500 (meaning he directly went from 1500 to 7500). So when he was requalifying again he hit these in between pins.

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  16. reissman,

    BINGO!

    Ex Eagle,

    Are you interested in transitioning from complaining about Amway, and doing something to fix it, so others aren't financially and otherwise abused, as we were?

    ReplyDelete
  17. I feel Amway is not responsible for all the junk. They stand by what they say. Also not all LOS may be so extreme like mine.

    It is just that Amway does not have much control over how the teaching systems work! They do not sit at night owls or Amway reps cannot go to IBO's homes to check what is done.

    All one hopes for is that Amway IBOs know that if they are dishonest and do bad things, it will come to light some day.

    And then warn other guys joining Amway/quixtar (or those are building Amway and are at lower levels) about potential troubles they should watch out and avoid.

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  18. Amway is responsible. Perhaps I can explain it better on the telephone. Name a day/time, include your time zone. Here's the number: 760-569-6000, and the access code is 975016#.

    ReplyDelete
  19. alot of comments to read, but you can't dump your money for a qualification. just takes longer but in the long run you will win. don't try to do it at one time. will not work! bad upline and all that will give any company a bad name. just saying

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  20. Hi ExEagle, while I do sympathize with you and see that you were obviously under a strong influence of your upline, I can't fathom why you would continue doing things that put you in such a position. 6000pv purchase is like $15-20K. Where would you come us with such money so many times? I find it hard to believe. Our uplines teach us never to buy pins...NEVER. Period.

    One more thing I was wondering, you mentioned in the beginning of your post "We started in 2003 and were active till around end of 2009. By active I mean being out there more than 5 nights a week, showing 3-5 plans a week, attending all associations, flying/driving miles, doing more than 300 pv per month."

    With this work ethic why were you always stuck with 1 associating IBO.

    I am sorry... I don;t want to sound inconsiderate, but your story sounds grossly exagerrated.

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  21. Dude.. I would told my sponsor/upline off a long time ago and maybe even joined another LOS.

    Now stop writing about it, like its Amway/BWW fault. You are inadvertently hurting other honest IBOs

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  22. CAM Rohit, Honest IBO is a oxy-moron term. If you are honest, you will be just an IBO. never expect to go beyond that. Honest IBO is an oxymoron. If you naively believe, uplines are honest to you and have your interest in their dreams, I am sorry dude. all their care about is them and their family. if you want to see, stop PVing for few months, stop SOT and skip few meetings. you will know.
    Ex-Platinum in famous diamond-ship in Gala LOS.

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  23. Congrats on quitting amway, great healthy decision for your life,family and profession.

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  24. Here's the mistake you made from the beginning ... you joined with the wrong network. 80% of Amway's income that they distribute go towards people in Network 21. I'm working the business through network 21 and have unbelievable amounts of help from my upline. You were just unfortunate that you were not connected to a great LOS and a great networking system. You might be turned off it by now, but my suggestion would be do your research properly, and find a great team to be a part of through network 21. Otherwise goodluck with everything!

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  25. The actions taken by supposed leaders in the business are the real reason Amway has an image problem. It has great products and is a great opportunity but the often the systems are the real problem.

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  26. I dont see a single sentence explained here is true.its a utter nonsense STORY.. he bought himself 6000 pv ..give me break buddy!!!!!..IF you dont have guts to stay in this business please quit..dont blame anybody else for that..after staying in business for so long if it didnt work than I must say u r the biggest idiot I have ever heard of.

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  27. Anon at Dec 7th:

    Yeah right. Everything that is said from the stage is the truth and nothing but the truth. Experience of IBOs like me who dont have any guts is all my own imagination

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  28. Anon at Dec 7th. The naive excitement is good, we have all been there professionally bashing all the internet negative thinking that whoever agrees to build the business is good, whoever doesn't becomes an idiot. Trust me, just like exeagle, we have all been there. You might think that we are idiots, but in the long run, do one thing. Do a profit loss statement balance sheet for your business. I will give you 10 years. Let us see who the idiot is, who loses friends, who loses all the saved money. Exeagle is a story of someone naive believing everything what uplink said (because it is a friend), but after sometime observing the true color of manipulation. Business definitely teaches nice people skills which when used by right people with good heart and mindset, can build a long time big business. But people like exeagle uplines are the most common category. When they join, they really have unfulfilled dreams. But what happens? They sponsor people, they invest in people..true, but at the same time, they stay long time in the business not sponsoring people. They have handful of people. They would have mentioned about their goals for so many years that suddenly they realize it will be a shame if they don't get it done as it is long time since they joined. What is the result? They go 7500 like a punishment making use of every one in their way. Even though the business supposed teaches you to build people make money, most people have this whatever it takes to get it done...The result the uplines earn the pin (just one time) because nobody is around..Downlines become sour people as it leaves bad taste. Some of the down lines like Exeagle feel the need to expose it so that more people do not get sucked into this. But you are one genius who have learned to build the business profitably. You have so much time that you go to ExEagle's site and feel the need to give your 2 cents because you think that you are brilliant. That is where the downfall starts. Exeagle is not going any where, we are not going anywhere, Go Platinum the proper way. Show me your personal volume. Show me your profits. Show me what your biggest pin in the team has bought for themselves. Show me the personal retail data. I am sure your uplines taught you "Success is the best revenge" Why don't be man enough to take the challenge and prove us wrong? If you don't, you are the Makku (Google it to find what that means)

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  29. Anon on 12/13/11:
    Would you care to share your story?

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  30. Part I

    Exeagle:
    Just like yourself I got started about a decade ago and I graduated top of my class and got multiple job offers. RIght around the same time, I was exposed to this opportunity by a person who went to school with me. I saw the plan and it made sense. I loved the association where people spoke positive and felt these are group of people who are growing somewhere in life. I started showing the plan and noticing most of friends and families were not excited about it. I felt that I will prove them wrong by succeeding.

    As I was making good enough money from my workplace, I wasn't counting money for the standing order, 300 PV (1000$) and the trips to New Jersey where the leaderships were happening. We were 11 wide paying 7 PV checks and were profitable. I liked everything what the business has to offer, what the speakers said and the whole nine yards. When things did not happen, I did not google the internet to hear other people's experiences.

    I was part of Rishi and Shampa's team who were new Emeralds. Very aggressive funny couple. There are lot of doctors who were involved which gave great credibility to the whole thing.

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  31. Part II
    Main problem started when one of the uplines decided to go Q12 and Emerald. They said " We are counting on you". I had vowed that I will do everything in my side to make it happen and so are my cross lines. Upline went Emeralds and we were talk of the town as we were one of the people who made it happen. There are few months where we did personal 2000-3000 PV. We had about 40 people in our team and we did not make anyone buy extra stuff as we were not comfortable doing that. Uplines directly did not force like Exeagle case, but since we knew them for 4-5 years at that time, they said stuff like "whatever you do for uplines someone will do it for you". Since we were making good money we made it happen. We had extra E-Springs, Atmospheres to make the entire city clean. Finally the day came where I lost my job and my wife was taking care of the household. Within months, she lost her job and we were making roughly about 800$-$1000$. We were spending about 1000$ on the products and another 300$ on tools, associations etc. Whatever we were spending before, we had to slow down and watch what we are spending. Uplines who had set higher goals had the same expectations that " we will do whatever it takes". The moment we talked about our financial situations and what is happening, they said not to worry and focus on the business. Well, the months of qualification started and we couldn't do extra volume other the regular 300 PV (even that looked like a big chunk and we started charging in the credit cards). The moment we backed of and started talking about financial situation, they started putting us through guilt and saying stuff like , "Are you fired up'?" What happened to you? Can't you retail? Retailing can take care of your financial situation?

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  32. Part III
    Uplines starting calling our people and started mentioning that they need to stretch to make things happen. We had built tremendous relationships with our team and they were comfortable with us all the time and after they started getting calls like these from uplines they expressed their dissatisfaction about getting calls during work hours, late hours and felt pressured. I brought this to my uplines attention and they got defensive and they mentioned that everything they did was to help my team go. I had told them that I am not comfortable with this pressurizing and told them to slow down and back off. This was the time I really slowed down to think what me and my wife have accomplished for the past 7 years. We had a sizable group making about close to $1000 bucks but again whatever we built , our uplines destroyed and our team started to exit away. Long story short, I started seeing the rift between my downlines and uplines. Even though everybody seems to be having good time, there were lot of undercurrents. There was a Q12 ruby in our diamonds team (Bald Bengali couple) who always built the business with many people. He was going Emerald 10 years back. He is yet to go Emerald. Rishi and Shampa, our upline Emeralds were talk of the town when I got started. He was like a body guard to Kanti Gala and were powerful speakers. Now I am not sure they are building the business. The last Emerald in our uplines team was my uplines which was several years back. I am just talking about upline Diamondship which is TD and Suparna. If the business is growing in leaps and bounds, wouldn't you expect more people to go Platinum, Emerald and Diamond. I am not talking like it is everyone else responsibility to move on. I slowed down and looked at my financial cash-flow. My wife and I worked hard to find a good job. It doesn't have the promises of business but at least I felt I do not have to give false promises to people saying in a period of 6 months, you will make $3000.
    I am able to sleep better. When I was actively building the business, my uplines gave lot of guilt trips. My sister was getting married. We went home for four days and behaved like guests. On the outside we said we built the business for the family. Inside we hardly spent time on anything. Anything we enjoyed we had a side order of guilt which was killing us. Last three years we took good vacations, cruises, everything self paid but no debt.
    What is my conclusion? If you have a good upline who lets you be you and build the business with right mindset who never pushes you for volume and never pushes you to buy extra tools (when you already have it), keep building it. Build it once, build it right. Please do not manipulate your hard earned relationship to get PVs. I enjoyed the business when I built it right. The moment my uplines started pressurizing my team, my fun ended and they lost us and our team. Now, they might have to do the same thing with different set of eyeballs (maybe talk about us as someone who lost their dream, whatever!). This is not the way I choose to lead my life.

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  33. I agree with that Joecool said. It isn't Amway that does people wrong, it's bad IBO's. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I hope that you don't think of Amway as a bad company for that bad experience, but your uplines weren't being very good. If this business is done the correct way as well as with time, patience, and hard work, it really can thrive. I truly believe that because I have seen many people that I am close to begin to thrive in this business. Unfortunately there are people out there that don't do it the correct way and screw themselves and other people over. I've seen that too, and it does make me angry. I also agree with the anonymous statement above me. I do understand you being skeptical about Amway if you've had bad experiences like this BUT, I've said this before and I'll say this again: BLAME THE BAD IBO'S, NOT THE COMPANY!

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  34. Wow. Exeagle. I am sorry to hear your sad story. I am surprised you and your wife decided to get personal advice on when and how to get married from your upline.
    I never realized uplines give marital advice on when and how to get married.
    I guess you were operating with child like faith like "Kumar". Unfortunate.
    My wife and I were in business between 1999 and 2005. I guess the story is similar. My wife was a little smarter i guess. She did not let me buy more than 900 PV to reach a pin. So the highest pin i ever hit was 1000. Oh no it was 1500. That particular month my upline and I together convinced a downline to do 600 PV so we could go 1500. I did not feel good after doing that and my downline quit after that.
    Its been 7 years since i quit. and Life is a lot better without all that pressure to build a CAM business.
    I took the positives from my experience and am better off being away from my LOS. Though I must give credit. Sugeet got me reading PMA books which still serves me well.
    But there is hope for quitters. Amway is not the only way to financial freedom and peace of mind.
    I pray for all those souls who have been abused by poor practices of many IBO's / LOS. Because there is a way out. If there is a way in There has to be a way out.
    And maybe Amway is the ticket to freedom for a few folks like 5% of people in any line of business are successful. I am sure there are 5% of Amway IBO's who do make it. Good for them.

    For all others, Its not the end of the world. There is more to life than business and money. Like Family maybe. I know some IBO's would say thats loser's talk. But business, career, life everything grows at a natural pace for every individual. Let nature guide you. I am better off today because of sum total of all the experiences I have had.

    Peace to exeagle and all poor souls who have been disillusioned by their upline.

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  35. I'd like to chime in and say that AMWAY is ultimately at fault. I claim this because Amway does not hold the Amway Motivational Organizations (BWW, WWDB, TOP4, etc) accountable for their actions. If they did, you would not hear about problems like this, such as frontloading and the "tool" money.

    In fact, Amway should eliminate all AMOs and create their own "company wide" tools. This would eliminate 99% of the bad publicity you hear about Amway.

    Even though there are lots of honest IBOs, and Amway is a good company with good products, the Amway Motivational Organizations abuse, mislead, and deceieve their distributors. We all know the Diamonds make 60-80% of their income from the tools, not from Amway. It's almost as if Amway exists to support the AMOs, not the other way around.

    Amway should clean house and terminate every kingpin distributor with their own AMO, they should eliminate all "systems" and use a company system instead, and they should revise their rules and policies to prevent these bad things from happening in the future.

    Just my two cents.

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  36. I think that if your upline told you to kill yourselves you would even seriously think of that possibility. If they manipulated you to spend money, get married, and do all those bad things, you could do whatever they wanted. In this case they used you with Amway. But that corporation doesn't have the guilt of your manipulated actions. It could be any other thing. I am sorry for what happened to you and your wife, but i think that your blog is useful to people that maybe are in a manipulated position as you had in or out Amway. But don't put the blame on that corporation. I hope that you never repeat that mistake and get manipulated again in any other business or in life.

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  37. My upline hot-shot platinum quit business, and my upline hot-shot emerald is now a platinum. My sponsor is still in business, but most all of that platinum's LOS also quit. I am still clinging to my upline as I see good in his eyes. I feel I can succeed in this thing, but sometimes question when I read this or when I see someone who is a platinum quit. Wonder what he knows at his level that I do not at a 600PV level. I have a really successful job, and several other financial undertakings, and I make more money than they show on paper that a Founders Emerald would make. I hope God shows me the way.

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  38. "The Business" can be compared to filling a sieve. There are constant losses of your downline quiting (draining the sieve). There are only three ways to succeed to Direct Silver Distributor. Get more IBOs into your organization faster than the ones quiting. Second way is to push product on your remaining IBOs downline. Third way is to have party's or door to door retail sales. I primarily used the first method. I did not like the second method, and refused the third method.

    Once IBO's get to the Gold level, or Direct Distributor, they begin to also make a commision on the books, tapes, and seminars etc. This is called the "System" that everyone hears about, and is linked to Dexter Yeger. You hear constantly that the "Secret is the System". The diamonds are not lying on that part. That is where they make 80% or more of their incomes. There are diamonds that do not use the system. But overall the groups using it far outnumber the latter. The tapes are akin to listening to motivational speakers. So yes, it is addicting.

    I was involved for 6+ years. I enjoyed the positives, and hated the negatives. You get squeezed from upline trying to obtain their goals, and you get negatives from your downline. More time was wasted constantly putting out fires so to speak, than the reward. There was also an incident of an upline Silver pushing products for PV, so he could qualify for the next pin level; along with the system of books, tapes & and seminars to the downline.

    When we complained, Amway forwarded the complaint to the upline Diamond. The Diamond let us know that the entire business was his, not ours, and to shut up, and do as instructed by upline. So, we totally quit, along with our downline. Within a few years the Silver's entire group quit, and he had to start all over. His Saffire initially went on to work with other legs, then retired ( a.k.a. sit back, do nothing and collect checks until they stop when the sieve is empty).

    As for being a member of Amway, yes they have good core line products that they manufacture. They also had name brand merchandise available at very small commision rates. The one thing I did not like about the online shopping was that "Amway" did nothing to try and save on shipping costs. They consistently would ship one item in a box that could hold 6x as much. That just wastes the IBO's money.

    As for income, I think my largest monthly cheque was about $1500. Usually the cheque was $100-$300. My expenses were regularly $500-$1000 monthly, when you factor in fuel, babysitting, books, tapes, functions, seminars, and annual conventions.

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  39. One thing I have observed about the Amway/Quixtar types is they're condescending & very patronizing when they talk to you. Just like telemarketer calls where 99.9+% of the folks on the other end will hang up (or say no & hang up) the Amway/Quixtar types work the same way. There will always be one (or two) idiots with no street-smarts that fall for their BS & get sucked into wasting their free time, being manipulated & sometimes coerced into something that gives nothing in return. All the Amway/Quixtar types I have met don't own fancy cars or big houses & don't go on lavish vacations! They spend their free time hanging out at Best Buy, Walmart or Barnes & Noble trying to chat it up with folks with an ulterior motive. Most folks figure them out & cut them off. There is always the one (or two) that will make the mistake of giving them their phone # & soon after the harassment process begins. I found Amway/Quixtar to be more of a "cult" that a "business!"

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  40. Get away from SCAMWAY as soon as you can people. I have watched this company single handedly ruin my sister in laws life! She spends all of her time doing this, makes NO money, and her sweet daughter is suffering because mommy is never home (she is almost 2). I can tell you that you will destroy all of the relationships that you currently have with people who truly care about you. You will become extremely defensive about Amway and will not trust anyone besides people within that group. Starting to sound like a CULT, hugh. You will undoubtably be brainwashed in to thinking that Amway is the ONLY way to succeed. I beg each and every one of you in your next meeting to stand up and ask "how many people in this room make 5k per month off Amway?" If there are any (not likely), follow that up with "How long did this take you to achieve?" More than likely people will be pissed that your asking questions. "Just trust in the system," they'll say. And, by the way 5k per month is NOT a lot of money. Think really hard about why Amway makes it so confusing to figure out how to make money or when you'll do so. When applying for a real job would you accept the position if they gave you no details about your compensation? Jist show up and will give you a check at the end of the week! Seriously! Please, people, I emplore you to use your common sense. These people are scamming you. IF it sounds to good to be true then it probably is!!!

    Do yourself a HUGE favor and take all of the time that you dedicate to this SCAM and spend it with your families. You will be a much happier person.

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  41. For some people, who has felt forced in the Amway business, they can/will feel it is some sort of scam and later on get burned out.

    I have been in Amway for about five years and the people never bothered me about how slow or fast I was. I might of been less knowledgeable about the way to run it but I was never forced by my uplines to get serious. My uplines always encouraged me and still spoke with me when I was moving slow.

    I started moving fast again, but not because of my uplines but because i saw an opportunity to share with someone about the business and saw how much it excited them that even I got excited again. I never let my membership expire because most of the time I was more of a consumer and my uplines were always there when I wanted the new/old products to be explained to me.

    Thanks to my downlines, I am where I am today even though at times I myself was slow at it because i was still learning and trying to understand the terms between sponsoring and purchasing.

    Here in the Philippines there is really no need to sell the items but become a consumer and encourage others to also become consumers and mostly only sell when an opportunity is there through your testimony.

    I myself am more of a person who would rather recruite so that my new downlines can enjoy the discounts they can now be obtain from their signing up. Almost like becoming a member of a near by Costco.

    To gain a more positive feeling towards joining AMWAY, it would be best to read books by John Maxwell and Mary Christensen.

    www.socialchanges.info

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  42. Many of you are saying that Amway is a Scam and that they brainwash you into thinking a certain way, well they dont. Yes, thats my opinion that they dont but I know many successful IBOs in Amway that have been able to live the life they have wanted to. If you only think one way, then how are you going to fulfill what you want to do. Everyone doesnt have the same dreams and ambitions. Your upline and support team are there to help you. If you want to move fast and go up the pin levels then they will help you. If you want to go slow and try products for a little while and then get serious they are okay with that.

    They want to see you succeed. If they didnt want to help people, then why would they be doing this. You arent forced to stop going to your favorite stores for products. Just because you are in Amway doesnt mean you have to only buy from Amway. I have people that only use Tide laundry detergent because they have always used it and dont want to switch to LOC. I dont use all the products, that doesnt mean that im not successful in what im doing. You are not forced to do something you dont want to do.

    Your upline will show you ways to make more money but if you are perfectly fine where you are at, great. Amway helps you achieve financial freedom that you wouldnt be able to get from working a 9-5 job, you trade your time for money. If you want more money, then you have to work more and give up your time to do the things you want to do. Amway lets you build your business and have time to do things you want to do. Ive been able to travel to different states for conferences or meeting new IBOs. They are not saying quit your job, build your business to where you are comfortable and if you still want your job with what you make a month then keep it. Amway does not force you to do anything.

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  43. Another Nightfox23 from Arizona.

    What a laugh. Why not most of you accept the fact that in ANY type of business, whether it be brick/mortar, franchise, MLM, non-traditional..... there is no guarantee for the level of success you desire if you place a time limit or effort limit on it. And that most do fail in ANY business due to incompetency... not the system. When even a small percentage succeed using a particular system, then that means it works. The rest who fail, fail by quitting. If you do anything long enough, you will see results. It took Edison 1000+ tries to the lightbulb right. If he just gave it a whirl like most people do (in everything in life) most of you would be sitting around bitching about why it's so dark in here.

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