Quixtar/Amway/cult businesses

[kddani]

Has anyone had friends involved with Quixtar or Amway? What do you do when it seems like it's taking over their life and just sucking them in? I'm really really concerned for a friend of mine, I don't want to go into specifics, but I'm really scared that she's being taken advantage of.

I've never had any experience with any of these businesses and people involved in them until she became involved. Almost every single thing that i've read abou them has been extremelly negative.

[AchtungBaby80]

What do they do, exactly?

[kddani]

i'm not exactly sure... set up sort of like a pyramid scheme except you're selling stuff... you recruit people to be below you and sell stuff, and you get a small profit from what they sell. They sell all kinds of crap... a lot of stuff you can get in stores, and once you add on shipping, it's about the same amount of money. It took me forever to figure out what exactly it was about, and i can't even begin to explain it. Maybe someone else will be able to explain it better.

[FHwku]

If you sign up, you'll have a "sponsor." Part of your profits go to them, as part of their profit goes up the pyramid. If you sponsored five people, and each of them sponsored only one other, that'd still be money coming in from at least 10 people. The people at the top are worth a few million, and there aren't many of them.

The idea is to sell a lifestyle. "Buy our crap instead, and only our crap, and get other people to buy our crap and you could be in your G-wagon in 2 years!" It offers financial security, happiness, affluence, and less work the higher up you go, via cult-like obedience and an unparalleled zeal for networking. This is all my opinion, of course. Some people really enjoy the work and products. that's there cup o' tea.

I prefer making money the old fashioned way. Selling crystal meth out of my trunk to pre-schoolers for their milk money.

[chicagoagd]

In addition, you have to buy the merchandise and then sell it. A friend's parents got involved and lost a lot of money trying to make money. I had to write off a friend because she got so involved in it, every single letter was trying to get me into it by promising I'd have "diamonds and cars". She was excited this one time because she was having a networking dinner with a woman who was upline two levels. We no longer talk (there were other issues too), and I didn't buy anything.

Another pyramid company is Excel (similar to Amway) and Primerica (recruiting broker pyramid).

[Optimist Prime]

yeah well Lsisten up!!! You tell your friend to stop being the bitch in the relationship!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[moe.ron]

I went to one of their "business meeting." last night. I felt like I was in a cult meeting. It wasn't a business meeting, more like a motivational meeting. I think that is how the bigwigs make their money, inviting these motivational speaker and have the lower people come to these meetings. I was waiting for either a space alien to come down or soembody giving out kool aid. It was surreal.

[Senusret I]

My uncle is in "Prime America".....he keeps trying to take me to meetings. I keep avoiding him.

[carnation]

My obstetrician tried to get us involved! I mean, doesn't the old boy make enough as it is? I almost had to switch doctors because he kept after us, wanting us to come to meetings.

We have had to avoid other friends for the same reason. Once they got involved, that's all they could talk about. Forget the high school football game, the weather, any other topic of conversation, they were obsessed. A couple of years later, anybody we knew who was in it would be out of it--minus a lot of money and a lot of friends.

[aephi alum]

I know three people who were/are involved with Amway...

The first was my husband's (my then-boyfriend) apartment-mate for his first year in grad school (grad dorm = you don't get to pick who you live with). He wasn't heavily involved, just doing it for a little extra cash. But, he bought all his food from Amway. That was all he ate, their preprocessed cr@p, no fresh meats, fruit, veggies... and he had rank B.O. You could smell him coming a mile away. My husband crashed at my place a lot that year

The other two people are a couple who are doing it full time. They tried to recruit us, and sent us the recruiting tape, which was all about how good it was to run your own business because you can set your own hours, put as much (or as little) effort into it as you want and reap the benefits accordingly, etc. The tape makes no direct mention of Amway. I just laughed through the whole thing because I'd recently started up my own business... the tape had some good points, but selling someone else's cr@p is not how I plan to make my millions! When we told them we weren't interested, they didn't push the matter and risk our friendship, just thanked us for being open-minded enough to consider it.

Apparently Amway is offering a new option where you pay an annual fee and can get the salespeople's discount without actually having to sell to others or recruit others. Oy.

[honeychile]

Does Watkins work like that, too? I like their products, but I have no plans on becoming a salesperson!!

[PM_Mama00]

My friend was thinking of doin Excel and was trying to get me to do it. I'll admit, after looking at the website, it looked awesome. Till they had a thing on like Dateline or some show like that on these kinds of schemes.

Guess what? They're illegal.

[decadence]

Curious you should post this kddani, I was thinking of starting a topic on this area for a while but held back... I've a few thoughts, will gather my thoughts and come back and post a more lengthy look at it.

[CatStarESP4]

When I was a little girl, a friend's mother always had those Amway products around the house. I think she sold them to people, including my mom. However, I don't remember if she got my mom to sign on and sell them.

[RedRoseSAI]

Oh man, we have some friends who have gotten into Primerica, and I'm really afraid for them, too. The guy gave up his old career (which was his passion) to pursue this "opportunity". The more I read about it, the less I like it. It can be really hard to maintain a friendship with people who have been sucked into these things.