Amway By Any Other Name: Just As Bad!

I have been writing a blog entitled Quixtar Cult Intervention. Due to Alticor's 2007 announcement that they are going to dump the Quixtar name and begin calling the North American operations Amway Global, I am also following suit and beginning my new blog: Amway Global Cult Intervention. To folks who read Quixtar Cult Intervention, this new blog will be more of the same Amway criticism and discussion begun there. I considered re-posting most of my QCI posts on this blog, but decided that I would begin posting original content here instead.

Most people are aware of Amway, which has since the year 2000 been operating their North American Multi-Level Marketing Company as Quixtar. Both the Quixtar name and the Amway Global name will appear together during the transition period. The name change is supposed to herald a new direction for Amway. It would appear that 2008 has seen a renewed emphasis on distributors actually retailing some product. Whether this actually happens is hard to tell. Amway's hands seem to be tied from the standpoint of carrying through on their retailing objectives. The reason being the top kingpin distributors, who basically hold cult-like control over their down line distributors. Their objectives and the company's objectives many times seem at odds.

Quixtar/Amway Global distributors have been lured into the business by tactics developed by the kingpin motivational organizations. Many people are recruited into the business after being told that Quixtar/Amway is merely a supplier. The Motivational Organizations claim to be in possession of all the "secrets" to becoming a wealthy big shot in their business. This creates a problem for Amway. Many of the distributors remain much more loyal to their up-line motivational organization than they do to Amway.

Last year, a large group of "Independent Business Owners" defected from Quixtar/Amway after several of the kingpin distributors quit/were fired from the IBOAI. Kingpin Orrin Woodward flexed his cult-like influence and IBO loyalty to Quixtar/Amway quickly became disloyalty; the IBO Rebellion was born. Estimates that as many as 100,000 IBOs soon resigned. Recently Amway has alleged that as many as 31,000 former IBOs have signed on with a competitor MLM, MonaVie, who market a health drink product.

Amway has operated a Multi-Level Marketing Business that has a nearly 50 year long history in the U.S. and has in recent years expanded into many of the world's economies. Emphasis on foreign markets is an attempt to exploit people who have not been exposed to Amway's bad reputation and scandals here.

Amway returns to a name that was the "poster child" for MLM reform in the States not so many years ago. Quixtar, Amway's more recent incarnation, has also been sullied by a pervasive "tool" scandal and the criticism of former insiders turned whistle blowers. Operators of MLM schemes and scams have a much harder time recruiting new distributors among a better informed public. The Internet has become the primary means for critical information about MLM corruption to be disseminated. Prior to the Internet age, Amway distributors basically could operate with a mostly uninformed public.

Amway Global Cult Intervention exists to help prevent good folk from becoming involved in Amway Global (or most any other MLM) which basically are money extracting scams. People signing on as a partner in one of these pyramid sham businesses generally become badly deceived dreamers who do all the buying of incredibly over priced products and the mostly worthless books, tapes, and function tickets: all in hope of keeping their “dream” of future wealth alive.

Sadly, the number of people failing in these phony recruitment businesses are nearly everyone--there being a 99.9% failure rate. Only a very, very small number of people succeed in MLM. They are the entrepreneur who started the MLM, and the early adopter kingpins. If you are not already in one of these two distinct groups of people, your dreams of success are destined to remain only dreams that will have you squandering time and money resources which would be better used elsewhere.