Truth, the Enemy of the Amway Global Cult

In the past this blog has described Amway's entry into the Republic of India.  Anti-corruption author David Brear has described this entry into India as a 'Trojan Horse'. Right thinking Indian authorities have correctly deduced that Amway is indeed a illegality which violates Indian laws against Prize Chits and Money Circulation schemes. (What people in the United States might describe as 'pyramid' scams.)

 Now, it seems that Amway has gone on what Harish Bijoor describes in an online 'business article' as a media blitz to redeem Amway's tainted image in the World's largest Democracy. I must laugh about this authors use of

"micro-entrepreneurs"

(or as Amway calls them 'IBOs,' supposed 'Independent Business Owners'-an incredibly misleading terminology.)

Unsuspecting 'marks' recruited into the Amway cult have very little control over how they operate their supposed 'independent' business with Amway dictating BY CONTRACT what these 'drones' can and cannot do. Entrepreneurial and Independent 'business owners' these believers in the Amway system are not!

 Anyone familiar with Amway knows that recruits into this cult are taught to follow a very strict methodology: which is to buy and consume the intentionally overpriced products and recruit others who are then brainwashed with this same 'self defeating' strict code. Indeed, for Amway, a chain of customers is formed by its own sales channel 'non-distributors'. These Amway's drones are asked to devote themselves religiously to the  'pie in the sky' insane idea of achieving 'financial independence'. They are brainwashed by pictures of  successful upline distributors who are displayed 'living in the lap of luxury': driving expensive autos, vacationing on yachts, and living the American dream.

Amway recruits are 'schooled' by the Amway Kingpins to consume their own purchases. (Amway intentionally prices their products to be unmarketable to those not participating in the 'distribution channel' and the primary method the Amway Cult Initiator's (DeVos/Van Andel) have used to 'over-charge' for relatively mundane crap--vitamins, energy bars, water filters and the like--to extract billions in U.S. dollars and leave those who fail to realize an impossible dream in a carefully devised scheme to blame themselves.

For all intents and purposed, those recruited into this money circulating scheme are those who 'believe' the Amway message: that they can become fabulously wealthy by devoting themselves whole-hardheartedly to a 'narrowly defined' marketing scheme which can be described as a 'zero sum game' where nearly all lose their time, money and self respect in a futile attempt to recruit family, friends and strangers into Amway's carefully 'plotted' product pyramid scheme.

Truth is indeed the enemy of all cults!

Amway Imitator Found By Belgium Courts To Be Carefully Designed Pyramid Recruitment Scheme With No Real Retail Customers

Recently I received an email from Robert Fitzpatrick, a consumer advocate and prominant critic of 'multi-level marketing.' Mr. Fitzpatrick brought to my attention a Belgium court decision that found Amway clone, Herbalife, to be a disguised recruitment pyramid scheme.

The court found that Herbalife could not conclusively prove that it had any significant retail customers, and therefore all profits were generated via a never ending recruitment of new distributors.

Herbalife, Amway, and nearly all of their numerous MLM clones, seek to describe their own 'distributors' as 'retail customers.' Readers of this blog know that I have always maintained that the products these MLMs supposedly market are effectively unsellable to outside retail customers. The court correctly determined that Herbalife failed to prove that it had any real customers and therefore all commissions and profits were paid by the ever churning recruitment of new distributors.

I have maintained that few people signing up as a distributor in these MLM frauds ever make a cent of profit and most ultimately despair and quit. Many are decieved by the 'dream selling' nature of these MLM cons. They are lured by the potential of lucrative profits and follow a destructive course of action where their own money is extracted to enrich the company founders and a small group of distributors who sell 'tools,' useless propaganda that prompts the newly recruited distributors to convince even more of their relatives, friends, and neighbors into 'investing' in the scheme.

Mr. Fitzpatrick went on to say in his email:

If Herbalife is a fraud, as the Belgian court decided, it is one of vast proportions, affecting millions of people worldwide, year after year. Herbalife has 1.2 million distributors in 74 countries. Each year it enrolls hundreds of thousands more to replace the huge numbers who lose money and quit.

The full decision of the Belgian court is available at the Pyramid Scheme Alert website.

In the past Robert Fitzpatrick has called Amway the 'American Scam' and it is to the shame of all presidential candidates in the U.S. who accept campaign funding from these disreputable schemes spawned by a supposed 'cult of free enterprise.'

Rush Limbaugh and Amway's Richard Devos: The Hypocracy of Professional Sports Team Ownership

Controversial radio talk show host and entertainer Rush Limbaugh should consider becoming the owner of an NBA team now that his name has been removed from a list of investors seeking to buy a National Football league franchise, the St. Louis Rams. Obviously the National Basketball Association would be a better fit for Limbaugh since they obviously do not set very high standards for membership in their club for which I will explain. Consider the Orlando Magic owner, Richard Devos.

Devos and the late Jay Van Andel are the cult initiators of the 'American Way,' now known collectively as 'Amway.' For half a century, 'Amway,' has operated a monopolistic 'closed market swindle' while 'preying' on their own children, the prosperity believing cult adherents in what amounts to a form of 'advanced fee fraud' very similar in nature of one operated by Jim and Tammy Bakker. These 'true believers' now make up what British born author and guide to the Amway Labyrinth David Brear describes as 'the financial holocaust' having been flim-flammed into what pyramid scheme expert Robert Fitzpatrick calls the 'American Scam'.

In a recent blog post on Quixtar Cult Intervention, Brear details how the present Amway world cult evolved from an earlier 'snake-oil' 'Nutrilite' vitamin swindle started by the late Carl Rehnborg and his business partners Mytinger and Casselberry. Devos and Van Andel co-opted Mytinger, Casselberry and Rehnborg's questionable 'Multilevel Marketing Strategy' and have once again made Nutrilite 'Double X' snake oil supplement the flagship product of their assault on the wallets of 'Independent Business Owners' who, in the end, are generally left holding the 'trick bag' once Devos, Van Andel and the Amway 'Kingpins' make off with their cash. Brear rightly describes the 'Double X' vitamins as a 'Double Cross' on those folish enough to believe the Amway 'reality inverting' 'land of will' myths. Cult adherents (IBOs) purchase these 'snake oil-like' tablets at an extortionately high price in the 'pay to play' Amway game of greed. Rehnborg's 'soups' formulated into compressed tablets had once been occulted to be a cure all for nearly all of man's ills and have always been offered up in classic 'huckster' fashion. Rehnborg, Mytinger and Casselberry have since disappeared from their 'confidence game,' but the game they invented continues now under the Devos, Van Andel 'Amway' Banner. In a past blog post, I described how 'Nutrilite' fathered Devos and Van Andel's 'American Way.'

Rush Limbaugh and Rich Devos are remarkably similar personages, both wealthy supporters of conservative right wing Republican ideologies and candidates they believe support their pro-big business conservative view of the world. Rich Devos heads up the Amway cult adherents, while Limbaugh heads up his drone like 'ditto-heads.' Both groups are bombarded with 'mind numbing' 'reality inverting' rhetoric. Many of Limbaugh's group purchase the Limbaugh Letter, while the Amway group is extolled on the virtue of purchasing their rhetoric in the form of 'tools' from the Amway 'Kingpins' who operate a secondary 'closed market swindle' known as the 'tool and function' business.

Significanly enough, both Devos and Limbaugh have criminal histories. Devos was involved in the defrauding of the Canadian government in a import tax evasion case for which Devos and the late Jay Van Andel agreed to pay Canada 25 million dollars to avoid spending time in Canadian jail cells. Limbaugh, an admitted oxycodone pain pill addict was involved in his own 'doctor shopping' scandal and agreed to a plea agreement to keep himself out of a jail cell as well.

Both Devos and Limbaugh can be described as controversial fellows whose right leaning rhetoric borders on the psychotic. Devos espouses a narrow 'dominionistic' view of the world and is an avowed homosexual hater. Limbaugh spews a rabid hatred of anything 'Democrat' and brands anyone supportive of the Democratic platform as a 'liberal kooks.' Devos loves to paint his Amway Scam as 'big business' and uses this as cover for his unjust enrichment. Limbaugh not surprisingly is also a supporter of big business and detests any move by the present administration towards effecting any type of social change like health care reform. Limbaugh has also been known to make what many people considered controversial statements against African Americans.

Devos's Amway, much like Bernie Madoff's former 'investment business' is always represented as 'legitimate business' although it actually is a Ponzi-like scheme which has miraculously been allowed to continue long after the truth of this affair has been revealed to the mainstream population. Devos has managed to keep Amway alive through a half century of scandal by carefully protecting his self interests with cash suckered from those foolish enough to believe in the swindle that began with Rehnborg. Political contributions and support of key Republican politicians, many of which have since been involved in their own scandals, have helped keep Amway operating and off of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission regulator's hit list of scam companies.

I, therefore, to be fair, propose that Rush Limbaugh (a veritable Saint compared to Rich Devos) be allowed to become the owner of whatever professional sports team that comes onto the market to include even Devos's NBA Orlando Magic. The good people of Orlando and NBA fans everywhere deserve better than a known 'criminogenic' swindler owning a team that nearly won the NBA championship last season. Although I am not a big fan of 'entertainer' Limbaugh, I believe his money came to him honestly, not the result of an enormous swindle, and he should indeed be allowed to buy into the NBA owners club!

The Smoke and Mirrors of Scientology and Amway

Possibly the most well known of cyber battles in the Internet era has been the struggle between ‘Anonymous’ and ‘Scientology.’ Anonymous might be described as a movement of non-violent detractors who come together in a common cause to reveal the 'dark side' of Scientology and form a ‘Yang’ for the Scientology ‘Ying.’ There’s nothing unusual about large cults drawing detractors. All cults seek to control the information and thereby disguise ‘their dark side.’

Cults like Scientology throw up ‘smoke and mirrors’ and seek to ‘monopolize’ information revealed about themselves. They generally seek to isolate their cult initiates from information that is critical of their criminogenic ‘dark side’. They always seek to monopolize the mind of their adherents. It is only when the cultic leaders loose control of their ‘monopoly’ of information that their plans perish. Reference the infamous Jim Jones’s of The People’s Temple? When Jones had discovered that his monopoly of information had disappeared as ‘critical scrutiny’arose, he chose to implode his cult, refusing to be held to account for fraud, subsequent misdeeds and, in the end, murder.

Scientology is an insane denial of advancements in science and technology, especially in the field of psychiatry and psychology. Adherents of Scientology are asked to believe some of the most intellectually mind-numbing myths ever presented to mankind as religion.

Amway, is the ‘religion of business.’ Scientology is the ‘business of religion.’ When Amway looks in the mirror, the image of Scientology looks back. This gives new meaning to the expression ‘smoke and mirrors.’ The smoke seeks to disguise the ‘dark side’ of both cults. For more information about Scientology and Amway click here.

Amway Global Incorporates Fraud to Make Claim to be #1 Online Retailer of Health and Beauty Products

It has been reported that only 3 to 4 percent of Amway's sales are made to persons outside of Amway's 'distributor' networks. So, in other words, 96 to 97 percent of all of Amway's sales are made to the distributors themselves, who in the end sell and 'distribute' next to nothing to non-distributor true 'retail' customers. Therefore, these so called 'distributors' end up being the end 'retail' consumers themselves. These sales--which are contracted online--are not technically made at retail, but at 'distributor' discount; or if you prefer at the 'middleman' price.

Amway promotes a fraud of titanic proportions by claiming to be the '#1 online retailer of health and beauty products,' an incredible lie that even the IBO 'distributors' themselves seem to accept, although they are clearly not 'retail' customers, and they generally only manage to make token sales to actual retail customers.

Amway Global is selling 96 to 97% of their health and beauty products to their own 'supposed' distributors, clearly the middleman in Amway's failed distribution system. Only when any of these middlemen distributors make a sale at the suggested retail price, can these product sales be considered 'retail.'

Isn't Amway Global guilty of false advertising? Shouldn't an investigation be launched into these patently fraudulent claims? Claiming to be the #1 Online retailer in health and beauty is an ironic lie, and in my opinion deserves to have the federal regulators look into this matter.

What is amazing here is that Amway's prosperity dream duped 'defacto slaves' buy all the overpriced, mundane products and then accept being called 'retail' customers by Amway Global in many of their reality inverting online claims to be #1. These folks end up being the end consumer of hugely unsellable products in order to participate in Amway's 'closed market swindle' where they are the only customers of any significance that Amway has to brag about. Indeed, economists might accurately describe Amway products as being sold in a monopoly market. Those familiar with Amway know that IBO/ABO 'distributors' are taught to exclude 'negative' (brick and mortar) products from their homes and only buy through Amway. It has been reported reliably that Amway 'upline' distributors many times audit (inspect the homes of their downline 'distributors) to determine if these guidelines are being strictly followed.

It is this author's belief that Amway's Nutrilite and Artistry brands are not exclusive--unique--products, and can indeed be compared to hundreds of vitamin supplements and makeup products currently sold nationwide through traditional distribution methods. Avon, I believe actually sells more makeup, and as far as vitamin supplements are concerned, Nutrilite is well behind in market share compared to the well known 'One-a-Day' brand (to name just one competitor from amongst hundreds that market vitamin and health supplements).

Obviously the Federal Trade Commission seemingly has no problem with Amway representing their sales to Amway distributors as retail sales. They have done nothing to put a stop to this incredible consumer fraud. Could it be that they believe that all these IBO customers only sign up as distributors to receive the 'distributor' discount?

Allowing Amway to use blatent fraud of this type only serves to permit others to become victimized by Amway's incredible 'closed market swindle,' which is wide scale 'consumer' fraud!

The fact that Amway openly describes their distributor sales force as 'retail' should say it all! The fact that the dupes buying the overpriced mundane makeup and vitamins allow themselves to be called retail customers seems to signify exactly what kind of pyramid scheme Amway is operating. To Amway, all purchases made through their online order system are considered final 'retail' sales, even though those people doing the buying are technically not the retail customers Amway should be boasting about. The Amway products are priced so as to make further retail sales beyond the distributors nearly impossible. It is only Amway's monopolistic 'closed market' which makes these sales possible in the first place. Now you know!

Amway Violates India Statutes While Representing Their 'Closed Market Swindle' as 'Free Enterprise'

India is truly a remarkable country. Possibly readers might not realize that India is the largest democracy in the world, having a diverse population which is only second to China in total number. India boasts the fastest growing economy in the world for some years running. Also India is home of the hospitals of the world, possessing one the most efficient health care systems available anywhere. If all of this wasn't incredible enough, India is home to the largest motion picture industry anywhere, producing more movies and features than even Hollywood USA.

A fellow of India, Shyam Sundar, a retired journalist, has taken a stand to warn his fellow citizens about the menace that Amway and others MLM frauds represent. Shyam describes Amway's purposeful violation of Indian law to those citizens wise enough to hear his message. Amway in a recent press release is seeking to have their direct marketing swindle 'regulated' and therefore 'legitimized' in India.

Pride, hard work and the 'themes of social justice' have made India one of the grandest of recent world success stories, all balanced by their historical struggles and the wisdom of the past personafied in Mahatma Gandhi. Indeed, the best legal minds of India, the High Justices have held in a 2-1 majority opinion that Amway violates India's laws against money circulating 'prize chit' schemes. Shyam points out that it is crucial that Amway advertisement be strictly forbidden in India as it promotes a violation of India law, the bedrock of India's democratic republc.

Promoting crime is in and of itself a crime, and I expect that the proposed ban in India should be imposed, all in compliance with Republic of India statue.

Shyam Sundar has in the past revealed to a world wide audience, the white underbelly of 'money circulating' schemes; more commonly referred to as 'pyramid schemes' in the United States. Amway, permitted to operate their carefully disguised and conceived systematic swindle as a 'legitimate' business in the United States for what they themselves represent to be 'fifty years'. The Utopian State of Amway, a labyrinth of independent corporate structures, now operate a world class' racketeering operation. Only in recent times have the nature of cults been revealed, described and somewhat understood. The white underbelly of corruption is an open secret, much more pernicious than one might at first believe. Amway corruption operating on a scale so vast as to be imaginable!

There is nothing original about Amway, which in many ways is an extension of American Fascism, all carefully disguised as capitalistic free enterprise. The Amway Labyrinth is correctly described as being organized along 'mafia' lines by law professor G. Robert Blakey. Amway, the twenty first century version of the Cosa Nostra, now operating their closed market swindle world wide. Where the Godfather saga seems to end, Amway corruption expands unmolested, except of course by the wisdom of Gandhi's India.

Amway Global's Fast Track Swindle

Amway Global is now advancing a new strategy to supposedly help brand new distributors--clueless marks--to become profitable faster. (yeah, sure?) They have named this new strategy Fast Track but it would be more appropriately named Fast Scam or Fast Swindle.

Supposedly, advancement in this, the newest wrinkle in the 'closed market swindle' requires the new, very impressionable IBO--over a three month period of time--to self consume at least 300 PV worth of Amway's monopoly priced goods, and then retail another 150 PV worth to non-IBOs retail customers. Additionally, the IBO must recruit, not one, not two, but three other IBOs--er suckers--like himself who also want to join in this 'fast track' prosperity dream and also buy and sell all the Amway required extortionately priced products. Should this fast track IBO achieve all the stated goals, having jumped through each and every hoop, then Amway provides him with a $200 bonus check. The IBO has been swindled, as well as helped swindle at the least three other people in the process--not to mention those that are potentially swindled by any of the three recruits. Instead of being on the glorious Amway Fast Track to profitability--my God what a scam--the new IBO joins the ranks of the taken and most likely is too bamboozled to even realize it. The Fast Track, therefore is not the reality inverting myth presented by Amway towards making an IBO profitable sooner--but is indeed a fast ride (like on the traveling sales crew van) into an utter swindle, a form of chain reaction scam, where AmScam Fast Tracks their own take--all from the taken.

Now, let's examine exactly how this works out to be a swindle by doing some simple math.

Amway, at the end of the 3 month period receives: 150 PV X 4 X 3 = 1800 PV. Since 100 PV represents about $300 in actual purchases, Amway then records sales of $5,400* minimum from all participants joining in this Fast Track swindle. The Fast Track IBO supposedly purchases for self consumption, $900 worth of goods and then supposedly sells another $450 worth of goods to others. In addition to this the IBO must recruit and make certain that each of his three recruits also buy and sell a similar percentage of products. The original fast track IBO has over the three month period purchased with most being for self consumption $1,350 in over-priced goods and receives a very small stipend-like commission on the $1,800 worth of goods his three recruits buy (are swindled out of). The IBO will receive a check for about $90- $150 on his own 'fast track' purchases which includes what amounts to a rebate on his personal consumption netting Amway sales of $1,350 for goods that are generally for their distributor's self consumption, never to be resold again.

Looking at how this all works out for the original fast track IBO believer:

This IBO must recruit (at expense) three other people, all who must 'miraculously' join into the fast track prosperity dream scheme, achieve the exact same goal of buying 300 PV and selling an additional 150 PV to retail customers. This is all mostly an impossible task which, in the end, works out quite well from Amway's end of the take. What really does this new IBO actually get and how can this ever really be profitable: $900 dollars of monopoly priced products (which according to pricing calculations could have been bought at a potential savings of at least 33% simply by buying a similar product at a discount brick and mortar retailer). Therefore, the IBO loses about $445.50 in purchasing power right from the beginning--if indeed not more based on Amway's monopoly priced wares! The IBO will receive a stipend-type checks for somewhere between $90 and $150 total for the three month period (save for a potential carrot on a stick bonus of $200). So the potential IBO loss now stands at $445 minus scrawny check from Amway of between $90 and $150 resulting in a gross loss of anywhere from $355 to $295. He then miraculously achieves his fast track status and gets a $200 bonus check from Amway. So, he is still in the hole to the tune of anywhere between $100 and $150--this after grasping the AmScam golden ring--Now for the rest of the math problem. You dear reader must do the math on this one.

The fast track IBO has not accounted for all his/ her operating expenses; all the overhead, gasoline, motel stays, insurance, and hourly time spent. Notice, these out of pocket expenses do not include the monopoly priced MLM propaganda tools which are pushed like dope on all newbies in the Tool Scam. Tools are mostly useless tapes and literature heading up the business cult official playbooks of deceit. Notice that out of pocket attendance at Amway quarterly rallies as well as various other seminars are pushed all by the kingpins...

...a secondary swindle which supports the original Devos-Van Andel closed market swindle.

Conclusion, no matter how you do the math, all these folks believing in the Amway dream--those who don't reenter reality--lose money--usually in the tens of thousands and will continue to lose money throughout their relationship with the Amway closed market swindle unless they personally manage to convince enough others that Amway is not a swindle, something only a small percentage (in the thousandths of one percent) actually manage to do. Sadly, Amway tries to convince every one that they can be that 1 in a 1000. Do the math yourself. Amway seeks to cloak their scheme in mind numbing jargon, all designed to make fools out of their prospective victims.

The fast track to Amway profits is merely a pipe dream Amway has carefully devised to expand their own bottom line, all at the expense of every Amway believer who willingly flush their own money down Amway's loo in this newest wrinkle in AmScam fraud. All the figures work out in Amway's favor, while they conveniently pass all overhead expense onto their new independents, who must pony up their money to cover Amway's legitimate marketing costs. Significantly enough, new Amway promotions are usually headed up by the Amway kingpins (tool sellers), and their business cult downline followers who head up new swindles--like last years Perfect Water Scam. Oh how glorious!

The Federal Trade Commission should indeed do the math as well. It doesn't take one long with a piece of scrap paper and a pencil to do the math here friends. I am sure that with the advanced computing power of our government, a simple calculator, they might see what kind of fraud Amway's Fast Track swindle really is. Significantly enough, most people taken in advance fee swindles usually drop out of the swindle long before there is any conceivable chance they will be that 1 in 10,000 swindler who actually can in any significant way enjoy the tool scammers take. Only the DeVos and VanAndel Crime families and the 'top of the pyramid' kingpin distributors achieve this pie in the sky glory. To everyone else, good luck, you defiantly need it!

END

(*) Amway's take in total sales--if all distributors are successful) may actually be larger since the fast track IBO and the three he personally recruited will go about trying to pull more victims into the swindle as well thus adding to the total Amway sales take. (Exactly how long it might take a successful Fast Track IBO to receive a $200 check could potentially take some time, as fulfillment by all recruited participant requirements may require additional time to verify. All recruited IBOs significantly must qualify; while the likelihood of this actually happening being rather long, thus allowing Amway to keep their $200 carrot.

Gary Ridgeway: How to become a better person in Quixtar/Amway!

There is a taped interview with Ridgeway where he claims Amway made him a better person because he claims he didn't kill as many people when he was doing Amway. It has been on You tube. Of course, he killed people over several different years. Exact count of bodies while he was in Amway, most likely unknown. Whether he killed anyone he actually personally encountered while 'practicing' Amway, most likely unknown. He was however an admitted predator of 'ladies of the evening.' He therefore kept some pretty unsavory company at least." Significantly enough, Amway, and therefore Ridgeway, always like to represent themselves as 'door to door' sellers; salespeople in an industry that Phil Ellenbecker, proponent of Wisconsin's Malinda's Law, has documented to be rife with horrific crime and human abuse.

Amway can't have it both ways; they can't be a door to door sales company (as they claim to be) and also be far removed from the horrific affairs that true door to door industries are known for. They are the 'deep pocket' scoundrels which lurk behind the Direct Selling Association and are most likely the largest single 'quiet' opposition to Malinda's Law in the State of Wisconsin, proposed legislation which seeks to reign in direct selling abuses and more closely regulate a corrupt/mafia-like industry. To succeed against the DSA, one must actually succeed against the hidden enemy, the extracted filthy lucre propping up the DeVos and Van Andel vast Amway World Cult! Their supposed success based on a 'closed market swindle' of incredible proportions.

A person may become a better con man in Amway, not necessarily a better person from the standpoint of morality. A person joining an organization run like the mafia may possibly have their financial situation improved, but aren't they corrupted by that very same corruption?

Amway is a reality inverting affair, a complete perversion of old time faith, and also one which--significantly enough--has in the past depicted itself to be a God fearing, Right leaning, Christian affair--while all the while carrying out fraud on an incredible scale! Money is the god for which these cult initiates worship.

Isn't it absolutely ironic that the very same thing that these cult believers worship is the exact same sacrifice they make to their Amway God?

Who cannot recall the fake money raining down on the stadium of people in Dateline's 2004 Expose on Amway Corruption? Significantly enough, they use this very same lust for wealth as evidence that they are merely a business organization; a fraud that helps keep Amway's criminal money extracting fraud operating and one of many reality inverting myths that British born author, David Brear thoroughly describes in his guest articles on Quixtar Cult Intervention.

It is significant that Gary Ridgeway also dreamed the 'Amway Dream' all the while possibly carrying out some of the most gruesome murders in modern times!

The Amway training tools--a con themselves--teach adherents of the 'closed market swindle' basically how to become a more effective con man while also claiming to be just another of these 'door to door' salesman. The traveling magazine sellers are just the tip of the ice berg in what most people consider door to door selling. The youth on the traveling sales crews are simply amateurs compared to the Amway operated con game, where social networking seeks to circumvent the cold door knocking approach which is widely understood in the door to door scenario. Amway cult initiates do their door knocking in a carefully well thought out deception, usually incorporating the infamous curiosity invite; therefore they work in a significantly different manner than the magazine sellers, whose door to door con only appears more obvious. Of course appearances can be very deceptive indeed.

The desire to swindle on a large scale basis is at the heart of both the fly by nights (like the traveling sales crews) and the supposedly legit Amway World Cult. Both incorporate recruitment into their pernicious affairs. The lives destroyed in the process are meaningless to either group and of course the Direct Selling Association has blood on its hands. Anyone opening their door to either industries is a potential victim; sadly, the Amway victims many times are financially victimized far worse than someone being scammed out of a few thousand in a magazine sales con or check washing scam. Amway cult members have occulted themselves as independent businessmen for decades, a reality inverting myth--since the cult initiators hold all the cards in their carefully constructed contract all supposed independents must sign. The cult initiates are the willing recipients of deceptive propaganda, and monopoly buyers in what David Brear correctly has described as a closed market swindle of global significance!

Folks who fall prey to the deception of the Amway Dream are in a 'reality inverting black hole' and are forever changed. They follow strange gods indeed, and their family members are left to yearn for their son, daughter or family member as they once knew them. Adherents of these cults, whether it is the traveling sales crew or the pernicious 'the business' cult are all somehow changed significantly enough that their own family members do not even recognize them as being the same person. Family is alienated and must watch from the sidelines as these former family and friends are swallowed up in their worship of the AmQuix god. The offering up of gold to the gods soon follows; the same thing which significantly goes on in another pernicious world cult headed up the Sung Yung Moon.

Horrific stories exist in the door to door industry, all of which Amway Global significantly claims to be part of. They take their place along side of the other bad players like Kirby, Southwestern Company, and all the sundry fly by night traveling magazine/household product hawkers, the door to door knockers. Intent to defraud and fraud are most likely to occur, no matter how one opens their door to these scoundrels.

Update: I've added a short video to this post. Amway indeed can make you a better person, even if you don't have time to kill! To see additional Ridgeway/Amway videos, click here.

Amway's Dick DeVos Nightmare Comes to an Ends Peacefully as Dick Wakes Up!

It is a cruel World for wealthy Michigan Republicans, specifically Dick DeVos. He has the wealth of one of the most prolific World Cults and Pyramid Schemes at his control to expend on political aspirations, but he is obliged to wear Amway Brand cement overshoes from the Quixtar/Amway Catalog while wading through the deep waters of Michigan politics--sort of like a shark avoiding his own kind; because it his blood that is in the water!

I am guessing that other Michigan Republicans are breathing a sigh of relief today, as Amway Crime Family Dick has announced that he will not be making another run for the governor's office. Dick Devos ran an unsuccessful 2006 Republican bid for the office spending more than $30 million dollars of his own dirty money in an embarrassing failed attempt. In a major twist of fate and bad Amway Karma, the Democrats and Jennifer Granholm didn't have to actually make up any dirt against Dick. They ran against the Amway pyramid scheme and paraded Dick's disembodied head next to a cartoon Egyptian style pyramid doctored up to look like Amway corporate headquarters. As funny as those commercials were, they were also very effective, because ironically enough, they had the the spirit of truth in them. Dick indeed had dirtied his own hands in the Amway product based pyramid scheme having served as Amway President from 1993 to 2002. In an effort to distance himself from the bad karma of Amway, Dick renamed the company Alticor in 2000 and also renamed the Amway North American scheme to Quixtar as well.

Amway announced in the fall of 2007 that it was dumping the faux Quixtar facade and renamed the questionable North American MLM operation back to Amway with the 'Global' tag being added. Obviously the failing Quixtar 'tool' propaganda inspired 'distributors' would now be harnessed to the Amway Global mother-ship to empower their dream inspired scam on themselves. (So much for all the buffaloing that the 'distributors' had heard about having their 'independent' businesses being 'powered by Quixtar' which proved to be incredibly anemic and under-powered in the end!) Alticor has heralded 2008 as a year of change and has spent a considerable sum on a reputation rebuilding media blitz hoping to restore confidence in the Amway moniker. Dick threatened to unleash a new round of Amway pyramid bashing, a potential Amway public relations nightmare at the worst possible time.

Amway Global's hopes of renewing a positive relationship with the public in general has been over-shadowed by their own Dirty Dick DeVos's disastrous 2006 bid for the Michigan Governorship, where Amway was justifiably paraded out as a money extracting scheme to Michigan voters. I am sure that the present Amway executives and advertising and PR departments were not happy about the idea of Dick potentially announcing a second potentially disastrous run for the Governor's Office. The 2006 run was a public relations nightmare for Alticor which cannot shake the Amway moniker any easier than Amway Global can shake off the disastrous Quixtar Dateline Expose revealing distributor kingpin malfeasance. To corporate Amway, Dick represented a flaming bag of dog pooh that was about to be placed on the porches of Michigan voters again and the fall out would once again be nationwide.

My sense of the situation in Michigan is that a huge sigh of relief has come to the Ada Amway Globular pyramid scheme headquarters and also to Michigan Republican's who now can make a legitimate bid for the Governor's chair with Dick's millions of dirty money and Dick out of the race. I surmise that Dick's money and that of Amway co-founder Rich DeVos--may not be completely off the political table, but he is. In announcing his intentions not to run for Governor in 2010, the Michigan and national press have been very kind indeed, not mentioning the 'Amway brand' cement overshoes Dick clomps around Michigan in. The news media in Michigan, much like Dick's Republican Gubernatorial hopefuls obviously fear Dick's money as well and are not drawing the obvious conclusions that I have in my humble blog post today. Thanks to the World Wide Internet, at least my view will be presented to discerning readers of this blog and most notably to the pyramid scheme executives who secretly read my thoughts online.

Dick's backing away from his political aspirations is the sigh 'not' heard around the World! but then again, the national press, and particularly the Grand Rapids area press, seem to be in the pocket of the pyramid schemers as well, with Amway advertising money always being sought. I might suggest that Forbes do a story on these developments, since they have recently also used the pyramid word about Amway in a recent scathing article about former Amway Kingpin, Orrin Woodward. For additional background information on Dirty Dick click here.

The election of Democratic candidates nationwide and the Republican failure to deliver up Michigan for John McCain probably had something to do with Dick's grim decision as well. The Right Wing rarefied atmosphere must have Dick's Dad Rich sporting an oxygen tank and riding around his Ada kingdom on a hover-round as Mr. Obama goes to Washington! Amway/Quixtar 'distributors' like ostriches might keep their heads in the sand about Amway corruption while Michigan voters do not.

Reader, have you been recently shown the Amway plan to fantastic fool's gold. You've found the right location in cyber-space to avoid the Amway nightmare as well. Keep coming back because like any intervention, it only works if you work it!

Enjoy the You Tube video below where Dick says "I've been Amwayed!" (Why not, so many other people have experienced the effect as well thanks to Dick, his Dad, and the now deceased Jay Van Andel.) Desi Indeed!

Rich Devos Contributes $100,000 to Prevent Recognition of Gay Marriage By the State of Florida: Protesters Appear Outside Amway Arena

Bigotry comes in many different forms in our day and age. Gay rights have increasingly been recognized by various state legislators and courts. Class warfare between gay rights advocates and anti-gay organizations have been more and more common. Many people believe that gay bigotry is Biblical. One such person is Amway co-founder Rich Devos, Billionaire former owner of the Orlando Magic who over shadows all affairs Amway. (Mr. Devos transferred ownership to his children with Bob Vander Weide being named official owner.)

Alticor, the parent company of Quixtar/Amway Global has recently engaged in an Accreditation of the tool and function businesses ran by their “top of the pyramid” kingpin distributors. A core part of their effort is to outlaw intolerance and bigotry is the implementation of a “Right to Differ” rule that states intolerance will no longer be accepted from Amway podiums, training materials or distributor recordings. Well known distributors like Dexter Yager have in years past used these venues to preach hatred against others to include non-distributors.

Amway is correct in enacting their right to differ rules, but at the very same time, their co-founder--by his own actions--has sought to stifle recognition of gay marriage. There seems to be very little tolerance in the heart of the Amway co-founder for homosexual and lesbian couples in the face of the “Right to Differ” rules being invoked against Amway kingpin distributors and their down line followers.

There is news that pro-gay protesters have appeared outside of the Amway Arena in Orlando, Florida, where gays and their supporters have protested what they feel is Amway funded bigotry. Their right to differ, they feel, is being ignored by Devos. Devos, I might point out has stepped down as President of Amway and lives out his retirement years giving speeches and controlling the purse strings of his Republican causes which have helped keep Amway operating in the face of recent Tool Scam scandals and a IBO rebellion of up to 100,000 distributors.

Amway has always promoted leadership and emulation of its leaders. If Mr. Devos's leadership is to be followed, then religious intolerance and bigotry is promoted to the devotees of the Amway's product based pyramid scheme (known to the rest of the world as the American Scam). This is a question of hypocrisy of the highest order. I am not trying to represent that homosexuality is either good or bad, but it just happens to be an increasingly accepted fact of life in our society for which legal protections are becoming common place. Our legal system increasingly seeks to prevent discrimination in housing, jobs, health insurance, religion and social and religious organizations--especially those which receive federal funding.

Amway has in the past requested and received tax concessions from law makers and the federal government. (Click here, here and here for more details.) I suggest that public intolerance by Rich Devos seeks to disenfranchise gays and lesbians and that any further requests for “special status” by Amway be carefully examined. Is Amway serious about enforcing its own “right to differ” rules and allow openly gay people to participate in their pyramid scheme? If Amway distributors are prevented from making anti-gay and anti-hate speech from the Amway stage, isn't it highly inappropriate for Mr. Devos to use his Amway profits to crusade against gay rights? Could protesters be coming to your next Amway rally?

Amway: How Deregulation and Lack of Oversight by the Federal Trade Commission Has Allowed Corrupt Business To Victimize Their Own!

The national media is just full of bad news recently: predatory lending, the mortgage meltdown, the banking crisis, and now the insurance meltdown and the AIG bail out. Amway, a multi-billion dollar business that masquerades as a online retailer of health and beauty products fits right in with all the other predatory businesses that deregulation and the lack of oversight has wrought. Amway pompously touts itself as free enterprise and has supported right wing causes that have preached about getting government off of “our” backs for what seems like decades. Amway really wants governmental oversight off of their backs so they can ride their distributors backs, the. Independent Business Owners they depend on for their supposed retail sales.

The public has been asleep at the wheel. Our elected representatives have allowed money from the likes of self interest inspired big business to subvert the interests of the common working people who have to survive in this world which has been taken over by greedy interests and the likes of Amway and the failed Enron. Where is the real compassion of our leaders for the people who are losing their homes? Indeed the meltdown on Wall Street effectively has robbed millions of people their hard earned retirement nest eggs. Amway has basically fleeced people of potential retirement money for years and left them holding their empty dreams as well. People believing in the Amway dream many times believe that an Amway residual income will be the ticket to living the good life in an early retirement. They fail to see all the horror stories this line of reasoning has wrought in the nearly half a century Amway has been fleecing their flock of duped dreamers!

Amway is just such a predatory entity seeking to serve their own greedy self interests. They have basically flown under the radar for years. Why should people get up in arms about a company that makes fools of the soap selling neighbors? After all, it was the neighbors that got themselves involved with these scoundrels in the first place, right? Just as the borrower of sub-prime loans can be blamed for signing a contract that doomed them from the start, the victims are usually left to take the blame. Amway has successfully adopted the tactic of teaching the distributor that failure is the distributors own fault. If you lose money, or if you can't sell any products, or if your dreams of going diamond never come true no matter how hard you struggle, the company has washed their hands clean of any responsibility! The victim has to take the blame for playing in a game where the cards were heavily stacked against them. When Amway talks about how successful their business is, they are really talking about how successful they have been at making their own distributors the victim in what amounts to a bait and switch Ponzi game of insane proportion!

Amway represents the biggest fleecing of its own people ever unleashed on the American public. In recent years, the bad truths about this con job of a business have slowed recruitment and profits here; so to continue to expand its base, the rest of the World has become the focus of their product pyramid schemes. To understand this situation, nearly 4 out of 5 dollars that come in as revenue to Amway come not from the US market, but from the expansion into foreign countries where people new to capitalism mistake Amway's scheme for a legitimate business. They buy into what most citizens in the United States have over time come to realize is a losing enterprise.

President Bush had the bright idea that our health care crisis could be solved by having all citizens invest their medical savings in the Stock Market which the Republicans have touted as their free enterprise solution to the escalating cost of health care. Might I add that it would seem like the stock market itself was being touted as one big pyramid scheme itself. What deregulation has done for millions of Amway victims it is now doing for the common men and women who had the good common sense not to get involved with Amway but are ironically being victimized by the same type of deregulation. The victims are different but the victimization is the same.

In many ways the victims of predatory lending or bad investments are made to blame for their belief in the systems that never had their best interests in mind. Welcome to the world of greedy businessmen who look out for their best interests and use what ever means possible to bail themselves out and leave the people who have lost holding only their empty bag of dreams.

It was okay that millions of Amway duped distributors have lost their money to pyramid scheming executives at Alticor. Amway has been touted as a cult like endeavor bordering on religion. “What Jesus has done for others, he can do for you! This is well and good. What Amway has done for others (99% lose money), they can do for you! This is a shame. Amway indeed sells hope with the soap; the problem being that as the soap stops selling at the distributor's door, so eventually does the hope. Who makes all the money in the Amway Land of Will Scam? It is the con men sellers of monopoly products and the pyramid sellers of mostly mundane training propaganda,also a monopoly business for the top of the pyramid scheme kingpins.

People investing in their Amway dreams may wake up some day and realize that their nest egg has been squandered on Amway crap; lost the same way many other Americans have lost their savings in mutual fund accounts and bad investments. The Federal Trade Commission has permitted the fleecing of Amway dupes because the money taken from the pockets of these victims has funded the lobbying by the Devos/Van Andel empire to protect their fleecing of the flock.

Amway Global Cult Intervention urges people who are the intended “marks” in the Amway product pyramid scheme and the tool scam to get out with whatever money they can. It is sort of like wanting to get your money out of an insolvent bank before a run on the bank leaves you wiped out. For those considering this to be a potential business opportunity, do the math, do the research. I believe in the end you will discover that Amway indeed will do for you what it has done for many millions of others, make you the loser in their pay to play game of greed designed to make you lose. MLM pyramid schemes, who needs them? Persons being exposed to MLM opportunities and searching for real information about these scam business opportunities can find links at the bottom of the Quixtar Cult Intervention sister page. I recommend Pyramid Scheme Alert as a "must read" for people new to the topic of multi-level marketing, network marketing and direct selling which are different names for which many schemes go by.

The Coyote is Warning the Sheep Dog That The Wolf Wants To Munch Sheep For Dinner! Amway Global's PR Department Is as Ingenious as Wylie Coyote!

No, I don't have to make this stuff up. It is way too ironic to ignore and again, I cannot resist making Amway's Public Relation hacks the subject of todays posting on my blog. Of course, there is always some type of scheme or scam going around in an attempt to raid someone's checking account or steal someone's identity. This is what Beth Dornan, a Amway/Quixtar company blogger is warning her readers about in a post that went up on Amway's Inside Quixtar website.

What we have here are Public Relation folk at the AMERICAN SCAM warning folk (mostly their own con men and women) about another scoundrel's scheme to wipe out their checking and savings accounts and/or usurp their identity by purporting to be phoning about jury duty and fooling dupes into giving out their personal information allowing the schemer to exact the dirty deed. This is not the first time the Scamway folks have warned about another's scheme as I reported in an earlier article you can also read here.

The not so good folk at AmScam are placing themselves at the helm of their Consumer Alert desk once again and are acting as if their very own schemes, scams and cons do not exist and are self righteously pointing their own badly blackened pot handle at the black bottomed kettles again! I don't know about you, but the release of these warnings by Scamway about another feller's scam is so very funny! I've been laughing about it for nearly a whole day now. It is not that the scam Amway is warning about which is comical, but the audacity of Amway/Quixtar to raise any issue about another's misdeeds while they themselves have a huge “mote” in their own eye: The American Scam!

Might we not examine this situation just a little closer? Amway, which has recently been operating under the name of Quixtar, who have their own army of con men and women, actively hope to raid their own distributor's bank accounts with an overblown dream selling pyramid con job. People believing the AmScam con many times find that after years of striving to make it big in the "business cult" have themselves been wiped out by the “dream sellers of deceit.” These "merchants of deception's" have the potential to make anyone involved with their scam just as destitute as the jury duty scheme that the “home office” is warning about now. Believer's in the Amway nightmare might find that foreclosure, bankruptcy and despair is every bit as real as the agony of having one's identity stolen by a common jury duty scam. This is all way too ironic: the coyote is warning the sheep dog about all the wolves who want to munch a few of the sheep for dinner!

Amway Global Cult Intervention makes sure that the ENTIRE CONSUMER ALERT gets issued, not just HALF of the alert that Beth Dornan issued from the Quixtar pedestal. She also goes on to warn about other common thieves wanting to siphon gasoline so I must also warn you of Amway/Quixtar's "un-common" thieves offering their own thieving bait and switch con. Gasoline thieves by comparison sound like the better deal to me, what do you think? Amway has a big camel they want you to swallow: bon appetit!