Always Marco
Showing posts with label Amway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amway. Show all posts
Jan 5, 2025
Nov 3, 2018
CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/3-4/2018
MLM, LuLaRoe, Amway, Mary Kay, Universal Medicine, Australia, Legal, Scientology, Germany, NXIVM, Transcendental Meditation, Taipan, 40th Anniversary Jones Memorial Events
"... Most MLM salespeople don’t make a ton of money — a 2017 report by the Consumer Awareness Institute found that 99 percent of MLM sellers actually lose money. The website Magnifymoney recently polled 1,049 MLM sellers across various companies and found that most sellers make less than the equivalent of 70 cents an hour. Nearly 20 percent of those polled never made a sale, and nearly 60 percent earned less than $500 in sales over the past five years.This is a far cry from the success stories promoted by most multilevel marketing companies. To see how accurate the survey was, I talked to seven current and former MLM sellers about their experiences. They worked for 10 companies in total, including LuLaRoe, Amway, and Mary Kay. Some made thousands of dollars a month, a few managed to break even, and some ended up losing money. Some gave up on MLMs entirely after one experience; others hopped from one company to the next."
The Sunday Telegraph: Court rules Universal Medicine founder is running a ‘harmful cult’
"FRESH warnings about a former tennis coach who preaches eating only foods with good “vibrational” values and recommends “treatments” such as esoteric breast massages have been issued after a court found he was running a “socially harmful cult”."
NY Times:
"The following events are scheduled to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the deaths in Jonestown.November 7, at 6 p.m.In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Jonestown, California Historical Society will present an evening public program on November 7th beginning at 6 p.m. about the complex ways Peoples Temple was interconnected and influenced by social, cultural, and political movements during its existence. Historians, thinkers, and survivors will come together to discuss how moments and movements of the 20th century, in California and beyond, effected and influenced Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple movement, and Jonestown. Speakers include Professor Russel Rickford, Professor Natalie Hopkinson, and Captain Yulanda Williams. It will be moderated by USF Professor James Lance Taylor.The California Historical Society678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105November 18, at 11:00 a.m.: Memorial Service organized by Dr. Jynona Norwood, Cherishing the Children Foundation at Evergreen Cemetery, 6450 Camden Street, Oakland, CA 94605.
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.
Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.
Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.
Nov 1, 2018
Multilevel marketing companies say they can make you rich. Here's how much 7 sellers actually earned.
Gaby Del Valle
VOX
October 22, 2018
I recently received a Facebook message from a high school acquaintance I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years. She had been thinking of me, she said, and she was wondering if I was looking to make extra money on the side. Apparently I’d be perfect at selling body wraps and weight-loss products — she could sign me up to do so, and then we’d both make money!
This was my first time getting a sales pitch for a multilevel marketing company, but it wasn’t the first time I had heard about this kind of recruitment tactic. I had seen her posts on Facebook, where she bragged about the flexibility and financial freedom her burgeoning business venture had allowed her. I had seen other Facebook friends hawking leggings, lipsticks, and the opportunity to hawk leggings and lipsticks under them. According to the Direct Selling Association, the multilevel marketing (MLM) industry’s lobbying arm, one in six American households is involved in the industry.
Most MLM salespeople don’t make a ton of money — a 2017 report by the Consumer Awareness Institute found that 99 percent of MLM sellers actually lose money. The website Magnifymoney recently polled 1,049 MLM sellers across various companies and found that most sellers make less than the equivalent of 70 cents an hour. Nearly 20 percent of those polled never made a sale, and nearly 60 percent earned less than $500 in sales over the past five years.
This is a far cry from the success stories promoted by most multilevel marketing companies. To see how accurate the survey was, I talked to seven current and former MLM sellers about their experiences. They worked for 10 companies in total, including LuLaRoe, Amway, and Mary Kay. Some made thousands of dollars a month, a few managed to break even, and some ended up losing money. Some gave up on MLMs entirely after one experience; others hopped from one company to the next.
October 22, 2018
I recently received a Facebook message from a high school acquaintance I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years. She had been thinking of me, she said, and she was wondering if I was looking to make extra money on the side. Apparently I’d be perfect at selling body wraps and weight-loss products — she could sign me up to do so, and then we’d both make money!
This was my first time getting a sales pitch for a multilevel marketing company, but it wasn’t the first time I had heard about this kind of recruitment tactic. I had seen her posts on Facebook, where she bragged about the flexibility and financial freedom her burgeoning business venture had allowed her. I had seen other Facebook friends hawking leggings, lipsticks, and the opportunity to hawk leggings and lipsticks under them. According to the Direct Selling Association, the multilevel marketing (MLM) industry’s lobbying arm, one in six American households is involved in the industry.
Most MLM salespeople don’t make a ton of money — a 2017 report by the Consumer Awareness Institute found that 99 percent of MLM sellers actually lose money. The website Magnifymoney recently polled 1,049 MLM sellers across various companies and found that most sellers make less than the equivalent of 70 cents an hour. Nearly 20 percent of those polled never made a sale, and nearly 60 percent earned less than $500 in sales over the past five years.
This is a far cry from the success stories promoted by most multilevel marketing companies. To see how accurate the survey was, I talked to seven current and former MLM sellers about their experiences. They worked for 10 companies in total, including LuLaRoe, Amway, and Mary Kay. Some made thousands of dollars a month, a few managed to break even, and some ended up losing money. Some gave up on MLMs entirely after one experience; others hopped from one company to the next.
Kylee, former LuLaRoe fashion consultant
Signed up by: A friend
What she put into her business: 25 to 30 hours of work each week; $5,000 on clothing, approximately $2,000 on clothing racks, promotional materials, and packaging
What she got out of it: Nothing
It was easy [to sell] when I first started. That summer, I had really high hopes that it was going to be really successful, because a lot of stuff I had was selling right away. Every sale I had, I was selling between 20 and 50 pieces. As the fall started to come around, there started to be a lot of quality issues with the clothes. Customers didn’t seem to be buying anything anymore — it was a lot harder, and you had to work a lot more for those sales.
I never actually took a paycheck, because one of LuLaRoe’s philosophies is that to be able to sell a lot of clothes, you have to have a lot of inventory. They really push new consultants to put everything they make back into the business right away. I didn’t actually make any money doing it because I just reordered with all the profits I made.
Shannon, current LipSense distributor
Signed up by: The woman who does her nails
What she put into her business: 30 to 40 hours per week; $700 on an initial inventory order
What she got out of it: 42 women on her downline; an undisclosed amount of money she reports is on par with what she made at her full-time job
It’s actually my third multilevel marketing endeavor. I had previously worked with Monavie, which is a nutritional beverage, as well as Beach Body, which is a fitness program. I spent a significant amount of time, money, investment into those businesses with no luck. I had a real bad taste in my mouth about multilevel marketing in general, and I had kind of sworn it off forever. But once I looked into SeneGence, which is LipSense’s main company, it was very different than what I was used to, and I decided to give it a go.
We’re legally not allowed to disclose specific numbers about our income — it’s part of our compliance. It’s just been a very positive experience for me.
Shania, former ItWorks! distributor
Signed up by: Her father’s co-worker
What she put into her business: Approximately 11 hours per week; $99 initial inventory purchase
What she got out of it: $30 to $40 per month
[My mom] was like, “Hey look, this is what so-and-so is doing, and she said it’s out-earning her paycheck.” Knowing what this lady does and her educational background, she was probably pulling in $50,000 to $60,000 a year through her regular job. So I was like, “Whoa, holy crap, she’s earning $6,000 a month off ItWorks!”
They tell you things like, “If your business isn’t succeeding, it’s because you aren’t working hard enough,” and, “You have to be a product of the product.”
They encouraged us to demonstrate the wraps on people, or on ourselves. They give you tricks that make the product sound like it works, but when you do research on how your stomach and digestive system work, that science doesn’t work at all.
Signed up by: Her father’s co-worker
What she put into her business: Approximately 11 hours per week; $99 initial inventory purchase
What she got out of it: $30 to $40 per month
[My mom] was like, “Hey look, this is what so-and-so is doing, and she said it’s out-earning her paycheck.” Knowing what this lady does and her educational background, she was probably pulling in $50,000 to $60,000 a year through her regular job. So I was like, “Whoa, holy crap, she’s earning $6,000 a month off ItWorks!”
They tell you things like, “If your business isn’t succeeding, it’s because you aren’t working hard enough,” and, “You have to be a product of the product.”
They encouraged us to demonstrate the wraps on people, or on ourselves. They give you tricks that make the product sound like it works, but when you do research on how your stomach and digestive system work, that science doesn’t work at all.
Lexi, former LipSense distributor, current Maskcara artist
Signed up by: A friend (LipSense); that same friend (Maskcara)
What she put into her businesses: 20 hours per week with SeneGence, LipSense’s parent company; 10 hours per week with Maskcara
What she got out of them: $3,000 per month from downlines’ commissions with LipSense; $1,700 in September with Maskcara
I [left LipSense because] didn’t like the way things were run. It was very cutthroat. The biggest thing I had an issue with is that they made you purchase your products upfront. You had to check a box saying you have sold your previous inventory [in order to buy more, but] nobody has done that.
I had a great team, and I didn’t spend a crap-ton of time doing it, but I know women that are just making nothing — and they spend hours and hours and hours. But then you find women that are making, like, 100 grand a month and maybe spend the same amount of time [working that] I was. It’s a game of luck — it’s when you get into it.
When I was with SeneGence, there were about 80,000 distributors. When I joined Maskcara, I was one of the first 2,000.
Carmen, former Arbonne consultant, Avon representative, American Income Life
Signed up by: A friend (LipSense); that same friend (Maskcara)
What she put into her businesses: 20 hours per week with SeneGence, LipSense’s parent company; 10 hours per week with Maskcara
What she got out of them: $3,000 per month from downlines’ commissions with LipSense; $1,700 in September with Maskcara
I [left LipSense because] didn’t like the way things were run. It was very cutthroat. The biggest thing I had an issue with is that they made you purchase your products upfront. You had to check a box saying you have sold your previous inventory [in order to buy more, but] nobody has done that.
I had a great team, and I didn’t spend a crap-ton of time doing it, but I know women that are just making nothing — and they spend hours and hours and hours. But then you find women that are making, like, 100 grand a month and maybe spend the same amount of time [working that] I was. It’s a game of luck — it’s when you get into it.
When I was with SeneGence, there were about 80,000 distributors. When I joined Maskcara, I was one of the first 2,000.
Carmen, former Arbonne consultant, Avon representative, American Income Life
Insurance agent, and Young Living distributor
Signed up by: A friend (Arbonne); through the website (Avon); a friend (Young Living)
What she put into her businesses: $750 on inventory with Arbonne; $10 to sign up for Avon, plus expenses; $450 with American Income Life Insurance Company; $150 for the Young Living premium starter kit
What she got out of them: Nothing; she lost money with Arbonne and went into debt with Avon
I’ve actually been involved with a few MLMs. I got involved with Arbonne because I posted on my Facebook page that I needed to work from home because I couldn’t afford child care. So naturally, my friend who was involved with Arbonne messaged me like, “Oh, I have this opportunity.” I met her for coffee with her upline. At the time, I didn’t really understand MLMs or most of what they were — I thought it was legit.
When I went to interview with the American Income Life Insurance Company, I was like, “This kind of reminds me a little bit of the Arbonne meetings,” but it didn’t hit me that that was what it was. It wasn’t until Young Living essential oils that I really understood. In the business-building classes, I asked them, “What’s the best way to get long-term retail customers?” [because] I was doing research with the [Federal Trade Commission] and found out that we need to have retail customers if we want to be legitimate.
My upline said she doesn’t worry about retail customers; she just worries about getting wholesale customers — i.e., distributors — and selling to them. That’s when I really began to understand what an MLM was.
Signed up by: A friend (Arbonne); through the website (Avon); a friend (Young Living)
What she put into her businesses: $750 on inventory with Arbonne; $10 to sign up for Avon, plus expenses; $450 with American Income Life Insurance Company; $150 for the Young Living premium starter kit
What she got out of them: Nothing; she lost money with Arbonne and went into debt with Avon
I’ve actually been involved with a few MLMs. I got involved with Arbonne because I posted on my Facebook page that I needed to work from home because I couldn’t afford child care. So naturally, my friend who was involved with Arbonne messaged me like, “Oh, I have this opportunity.” I met her for coffee with her upline. At the time, I didn’t really understand MLMs or most of what they were — I thought it was legit.
When I went to interview with the American Income Life Insurance Company, I was like, “This kind of reminds me a little bit of the Arbonne meetings,” but it didn’t hit me that that was what it was. It wasn’t until Young Living essential oils that I really understood. In the business-building classes, I asked them, “What’s the best way to get long-term retail customers?” [because] I was doing research with the [Federal Trade Commission] and found out that we need to have retail customers if we want to be legitimate.
My upline said she doesn’t worry about retail customers; she just worries about getting wholesale customers — i.e., distributors — and selling to them. That’s when I really began to understand what an MLM was.
Suzannah, former Mary Kay beauty consultant
Signed up by: Her boss at her full-time job
What she put into her business: 10 to 20 hours per week; a $3,000 initial inventory purchase, plus additional orders since then
What she got out of it: Nothing; she lost money
When you’re getting started, everyone encourages you to invest everything [you make] back into it and buy more product. So instead of keeping that [money], you just keep buying more and more, because there are constantly new things coming out.
One of the options they tell you you could pursue is to get a loan. I’m glad that when I signed up, I had money saved away that I used. Not that I’m happy about having thousands of dollars’ worth of makeup sitting in my house that I can’t seem to get rid of, but there are actually people out there who are getting loans to start selling.
[The woman who signed me up] makes 13 percent of Mary Kay’s portion of every consultant underneath her that places an order. I think our group has 110 people in it. And she did over $120,000 in sales just by herself this past year — she has about 400 different customers. The town she lives in has 75 people, so it’s like, oh she’s from this itty-bitty town and she’s doing great. She’s driving this brand new pink Cadillac. If she can do it, why can’t I? But it does not work that way.
You’re not allowed to sell stuff to other people’s customers. We lived in this small area of North Dakota, and she had 400 customers. She had a monopoly on the area.
Signed up by: Her boss at her full-time job
What she put into her business: 10 to 20 hours per week; a $3,000 initial inventory purchase, plus additional orders since then
What she got out of it: Nothing; she lost money
When you’re getting started, everyone encourages you to invest everything [you make] back into it and buy more product. So instead of keeping that [money], you just keep buying more and more, because there are constantly new things coming out.
One of the options they tell you you could pursue is to get a loan. I’m glad that when I signed up, I had money saved away that I used. Not that I’m happy about having thousands of dollars’ worth of makeup sitting in my house that I can’t seem to get rid of, but there are actually people out there who are getting loans to start selling.
[The woman who signed me up] makes 13 percent of Mary Kay’s portion of every consultant underneath her that places an order. I think our group has 110 people in it. And she did over $120,000 in sales just by herself this past year — she has about 400 different customers. The town she lives in has 75 people, so it’s like, oh she’s from this itty-bitty town and she’s doing great. She’s driving this brand new pink Cadillac. If she can do it, why can’t I? But it does not work that way.
You’re not allowed to sell stuff to other people’s customers. We lived in this small area of North Dakota, and she had 400 customers. She had a monopoly on the area.
Conrad, former Amway distributor
Signed up by: A personal training client at the gym
What he put into his business: 10 to 15 hours per week; $885.79 in initial registration fees
What he got out of it: $2,500 to $3,500 CAD per month; more than 100 people on his downline
I was 20 years old [when I signed up]. I was working as a personal trainer, and I had recently dropped out of school because my dad was a gambling addict and my family had declared bankruptcy at the time. I was in a vulnerable state, just wanting to make more money.
The way we were taught was just to hit whatever threshold in terms of client sales that allowed us to make commission off of our downline. In terms of sales, we didn’t do a lot — we had one or two clients that just liked our products, and they would buy a couple hundred dollars of product every month. That really only translated to $100, $200 of profit, which is not a lot. The majority of the income came from making commissions off your downline.
After a while, I started to realize that a lot of the things I was doing were very unethical. Not necessarily illegal, because a lot of these MLM companies have certain loopholes in terms of legal stuff that allows them to be in business. But a lot of the stuff that we were doing just didn’t sit right with me. I bought up a lot of issues that should be changed — for things to be run a little bit better, for us not to screw people over or lie to people or mislead people. That didn’t really sit well with the leaders.
Correction: A previous version of this piece attributed a 2017 report on multilevel marketing companies to the Federal Trade Commission. The report was by the Consumer Awareness Institute and published on the FTC’s website.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/15/17971410/lularoe-lipsense-amway-itworks-mary-kay-mlm-multilevel-marketing
Signed up by: A personal training client at the gym
What he put into his business: 10 to 15 hours per week; $885.79 in initial registration fees
What he got out of it: $2,500 to $3,500 CAD per month; more than 100 people on his downline
I was 20 years old [when I signed up]. I was working as a personal trainer, and I had recently dropped out of school because my dad was a gambling addict and my family had declared bankruptcy at the time. I was in a vulnerable state, just wanting to make more money.
The way we were taught was just to hit whatever threshold in terms of client sales that allowed us to make commission off of our downline. In terms of sales, we didn’t do a lot — we had one or two clients that just liked our products, and they would buy a couple hundred dollars of product every month. That really only translated to $100, $200 of profit, which is not a lot. The majority of the income came from making commissions off your downline.
After a while, I started to realize that a lot of the things I was doing were very unethical. Not necessarily illegal, because a lot of these MLM companies have certain loopholes in terms of legal stuff that allows them to be in business. But a lot of the stuff that we were doing just didn’t sit right with me. I bought up a lot of issues that should be changed — for things to be run a little bit better, for us not to screw people over or lie to people or mislead people. That didn’t really sit well with the leaders.
Correction: A previous version of this piece attributed a 2017 report on multilevel marketing companies to the Federal Trade Commission. The report was by the Consumer Awareness Institute and published on the FTC’s website.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/15/17971410/lularoe-lipsense-amway-itworks-mary-kay-mlm-multilevel-marketing
Sep 5, 2018
Stop The Amway Tool Scam
" ... MLMs are designed to mimic the Amway “business,” so this information regarding Amway is probably applicable to most other MLMs as well. The information is for anybody, including:
- Anybody thinking about becoming an IBO (Independent Business Owner, aka distributor) to prevent you from being ripped off, or
- Former IBOs who have already been ripped off, or
- Anybody else on the World Wide Web who is curious.
All MLM Facts
"Help all people around the world to find out the FACTS about MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) and provide help for those seeking the FACTS.
Mission:Prevent others from:
- Losing irreplaceable, valuable time,
- Damaging/destroying relationships, both personal and professional, and
- Losing money , which results in a lesser lifestyle, debt, bankruptcy, limited retirement resources, etc., by being scammed by the far too many predatory MLMs."
http://allmlmfacts.org/
Read more about MLM's.
Mar 6, 2018
Why China Keeps Falling for Pyramid Schemes
Pyramid schemes are big business in China – much to the government’s chagrin.
By Eugene K. Chow
The Diplomat
March 05, 2018
In China, cheap knives and questionable nutritional supplements are the least of regulators’ worries when it comes to pyramid schemes. Crafty scammers have bilked unsuspecting Chinese out of billions of dollars, draining the meager savings accounts of recent college graduates, migrant workers, and pensioners.
One pyramid scheme alone defrauded 900,000 people of $7.6 billion. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. More than 40 million people have been ensnared by these sham investments, according to the China Anti-Pyramid Selling Association.
Fearing financial instability and social unrest, the central government announced a sweeping nation-wide crackdown on organized crime, naming pyramid schemes as a top priority alongside drugs, gambling, and human-trafficking.
But in a surprising twist, those duped by these scams are some of their greatest defenders. Firmly believing in the legitimacy of these fake companies, the defrauded have even publicly rallied against the government’s efforts to shut them down.
An Environment Primed for Swindlers
According to Zheng Zichen, an economist and sociologist with the state-run Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, pyramid schemes have gainedwidespread appeal across vast segments of China’s population because of “China’s deep-rooted problems – its wealth gap and unbalanced development between urban areas and hinterland provinces.”
While China’s economy has grown at unprecedented rates, large portions of the population have been left out of the country’s meteoric rise. The wealthiest 1 percent of Chinese households own a third of all wealth, while the poorest 25 percent own 1 percent, according to a 2016 study from Peking University.
Eager to get rich, but with few opportunities, migrant laborers, workers laid off from state-owned enterprises, and recent college graduates in second and third tier cities are particularly vulnerable to pyramid schemes.
But unlike in the United States, pyramid schemes in China use far more insidious tactics. Authorities aptly call these scams “business cults,” as they rely on heavy brainwashing to trap participants and entice new ones.
Potential recruits are lured to an isolated place by a friend or family member, and for the next week recruiters will psychologically break them down, emphasizing the benevolent nature of the business, promising wealth, and appealing to personal ambition and their responsibility to provide for their family.
Those that agree to join then spend every moment with their “co-workers,” eating and singing communal songs.
Li Xu was one of the many who believed what recruiters told him. His family had put him in touch with Tianshi, a company claiming to sell cosmetics in Jiangsu province, and after paying his “joining fee” of 2,800 yuan ($340) he quickly climbed the ranks by recruiting others.
After a year Li began to grow suspicious. He was surrounded by his co-workers 24/7 and rarely saw customers or profits. Eventually he figured out that the company’s only revenues came from the “donations” he and other recruits continued to give in the hopes of striking it rich.
“Pyramid sales are like spiritual opium,” Li said. “The organizers brainwash people to believe they will definitely get rich. Like drug addicts, you have to get them out of that environment to help them.”
Li left the company before it was shut down by authorities, but his co-workers stayed, convinced that it was legitimate until the end.
Kindhearted Exchange
The case of Shan Xin Hui shows how successful these scams are at duping participants. Shan Xin Hui, which means Kindhearted Exchange, marketed itself as a charity-minded investment group that focused on alleviating poverty and conserving forests.
With promised investment returns of 10 to 30 percent within weeks as well as bonus payments for those who recruited new members, Shan Xin Hui enrolled more than 5 million people within a year.
When investigators shut the scam down in 2017 and arrested its founder Zhang Tianming, thousands gatheredin Beijing for the largest protest in nearly two decades. In a rare public rebuke, demonstrators called on President Xi Jinping to allow the company to continue to operate and asked for Zhang’s release.
“They call us a pyramid scheme, which is absolutely not true. We came here today first to save ourselves and the platform. Second, we want Mr. Zhang to be released. Mr. Zhang is such a fine man,” said one protester.
Although pyramid scams are illegal in China, business cults often masquerade as direct sales organizations, which are legal. There are about 90 government-approved direct sales organizations like Avon and Amway, which recruit individuals to sell products.
Crooked companies will claim official status, but do not sell any actual goods, instead promising payment to recruits who sign up additional members. These are essentially Ponzi schemes as they use registration fees from new recruits to pay existing members.
Continued Popularity
Despite increased efforts by authorities to take down business cults, they continue to proliferate faster than authorities can contain, moving online and becoming smaller and more targeted.
While they cannot employ many of the brainwashing techniques that rely on physically isolating recruits, online business cults are still able to use tight-knit social media chat groups to successfully brainwash participants.
Though smaller in size, these online schemes have penetrated deeper into society, targeting new groups like the affluent, poor students, and the children of migrant workers.
“There is a business cult for everyone” now, said Li.
These cults are able to continue attracting new recruits and investors as they promise much higher returns than most Chinese investments.
For years the central bank kept interest rates below inflation to ensure industry could borrow cheaply, but it left few options for investors. Seeking better returns, investors are readily enticed by the claims of pyramid schemes.
Zhao Xijun, deputy dean of the school of finance at Renmin University of China, believes that people will continue to fall victim to these scams due to a lack of financial literacy.
“People are eager to achieve high returns, but they do not have adequate knowledge of the financial risks or how to screen for them,” Zhao said.
“Chinese people have invested heavily in financial products, such as wealth management funds, but only for a very short period of time. They have very little experience.”
Eugene K. Chow writes on foreign policy and military affairs. His work has been published in Foreign Policy, The Week, and The Diplomat.
https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/why-china-keeps-falling-for-pyramid-schemes/
Dec 10, 2016
Self Inflation and Contagious Narcissism
Joseph Szimhart
jszimhart@gmail.com
jszimhart@gmail.com
http://jszimhart.com/blog/sweat_lodge_deaths
December, 2016
After watching CNN’s two-hour, December 4, 2016 documentary on the rise and fall motivational speaker James Arthur Ray, I came away from it with a sense of appreciation for good film making as well as a sullen gut reaction to the horror of three people dying in one of Ray’s over-crowded, very expensive, “spiritual warrior,” sweat lodge challenges. The sweat lodge scam was one of his best personal income ventures.
I will explain below why modern sweats, like fire-walks, in my view are scams.
The filmmakers managed to convey fairly and in depth an aspect of American culture that emerged in spades by the late 19th century. Rugged individualism and the positive programming of the American Dream—Be All You Can Be—has been co-opted by a billion-dollar self-help industry of large group awareness workshops. I include many mega-churches lately run by Robert Schuler and currently Joel Osteen in this heady mix with est/Landmark, Lifespring, Psi-World, Amway, and the long list of mass training gurus including Tony Robbins, Werner Erhard, Covey, Eckhart Tolle, James Arthur Ray, and Byron Katie. There are dozens more. If you read and believed Norman Vincent Peale, Og Mandino, and Dale Carnegie, you are in this ballpark. You dwell in this social institution called Self-Inflation University.
Maybe you, the modern seeker, read some Nietzsche and Ayn Rand to reinforce this selfism. Maybe you took yoga classes or seek that special diet. Maybe you absorb the cosmic infusions from ambient music. Maybe you speak to the universe and believe that the universe will respond to your positive thought—you know, the law of attraction since someone let that “secret” out of the bag. Self-improvement, self-development, self-realization, enlightened self-interest, the selfish gene, the higher self, self-awareness, and mindfulness.
Maybe you tried affirmations from a New Thought book or religion—over one hundred years ago, the most famous one was Every Day and in Every Way, I Am Getting Better and Better. Millions of Americans were doing it. You came to believe that religion can be a more precise science than neurobiology. Forgive me—I meant “spirituality” as you are by no means merely religious like those calcified old ladies in the pews of common churches.
Be all you can be? What on earth can that mean? And how much BETTER can you get anyway? We get the incentive. Any healthy human being gets that much: We all want to improve. But at what and how? This is where the self-help gurus come in. Nearly everyone that pays out hundreds or thousands of dollars up front for one of the life and prosperity workshops or intensives is already lost. They do not know and they want to know what will work for them and what is blocking their potential. That is why they are there. To make a breakthrough! Somewhere in life their egos have been damaged, wounded, or traumatized, or in the least somehow limited. Common regulated therapy is too slow or is not working. Maybe they have not gone deep enough and you need a deeper experience.
Narcissistic traits that we all have and need are not bad—we need them to get by, to put our best selves forward to get a job or a spouse. Traits are not disorders. We must believe in ourselves to some degree or we might not get up in the morning. Our best self can be compromised by anxiety. Anxiety is the most commonly diagnosed psych disorder. We all feel it to some degree nearly every day, but most people cope with it well enough. Those who do not cope feel wounded. Forces around them and within them reflect a poor self-image or at least one not good enough.
Wounded narcissists are not bad people, but they are particularly vulnerable to mass therapies that promise to tap that special self within that is pure and wonderful once the layers of social conditioning and trauma are “broken through.” If only those god-damned, self-imposed limitations and environmentally fierce blocks could be somehow removed, they say to themselves. Well, the run-of-the-mill self-help guru or life coach is there for you to help engineer a break through. Just sign the waiver and prepare for several days or more of a psychological roller coaster.
Break throughs are those a-ha moments when the client feels a profound release or insight that has a potentially life-changing effect. These engineered breakthroughs may be authentic—some people do change bad habits after a mass therapy workshop—but at what price? For most, the positive take away is short term or vague at best, especially when we read testimonials from the “94%” (claimed by Landmark) satisfied customers. They sound like testimonials from rare Amway success stories. The cost is more than money.
Most of the mass trainings promise to change you or “shift” your perspective. Let me get to the point. Anyone who is placed in an extraordinary situation or experiences an ecstasy will absorb the influences and language in that environment. The influences include the admonition to spread the good news of your transformation at the Bobby Ray or Whoever Tony workshop, and maybe to ask for forgiveness of anyone you may have harmed to somehow end past karma. Of course, when you so energetically ask for forgiveness or exude over your “experience,” you are also recruiting. And that is the point. The owners of these businesses want to funnel as many people as they can into their self-experience machines that will spit out recruiters at the other end. The model is understandable if one is selling cars, herbal products, or cosmetics, but it gets very strange when the product is your Self.
The question to ask is what self emerges from a J A Ray sweat lodge ceremony? Can that sacred self, the “spiritual warrior” be forced into manifestation during an engineered experience in group trainings or spiritual retreats? The answer is no. That is the scam. The good feeling of having made a breakthrough in front of a crowd after a public confession will always subside. All highs from ecstasy subside when the endorphins stop dancing in your brain. However, the leader tells you not to let this insight go, to reinforce it in how you communicate with others and choose your path going forward. So, you adopt the language of the group or life coach, and you start sounding like one of “them” to your friends and family. The change is that you sound like one of them and not that you have suddenly become a better person. The point is that you could have become a better person with a little effort all on your own and still sounded like yourself.
One definition of a brainwashed or radically influenced person resides in language: If he talks like us, he is one of us. This is true for any culture, be it Austria or a gang in Chicago. However, you have a better shot at being your authentic self as an Austrian than you will as a gang member. It is a matter of constriction. Smaller groups with enthusiastic members will tend to self-seal or create an us-them culture.
J R Ray’s sweat lodge experiencers were in shock when people died. They all had to question why they put up with so much pain and why they lost their common sense. Those who broke away finally did make a real breakthrough. They no longer trusted the narcissist who absorbed them into his theater, his culture, his personality cult world. They shed the language and re-learned how to talk authentically. They no longer believed that men should aspire to be gods who are the true spiritual warriors.
Just ask Zeus.
J A Ray violated authentic sweat lodge intent.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/us/canada-sweat-lodge/
James A Ray's comeback angers victims
http://jszimhart.com/blog/sweat_lodge_deaths
December, 2016
After watching CNN’s two-hour, December 4, 2016 documentary on the rise and fall motivational speaker James Arthur Ray, I came away from it with a sense of appreciation for good film making as well as a sullen gut reaction to the horror of three people dying in one of Ray’s over-crowded, very expensive, “spiritual warrior,” sweat lodge challenges. The sweat lodge scam was one of his best personal income ventures.
I will explain below why modern sweats, like fire-walks, in my view are scams.
The filmmakers managed to convey fairly and in depth an aspect of American culture that emerged in spades by the late 19th century. Rugged individualism and the positive programming of the American Dream—Be All You Can Be—has been co-opted by a billion-dollar self-help industry of large group awareness workshops. I include many mega-churches lately run by Robert Schuler and currently Joel Osteen in this heady mix with est/Landmark, Lifespring, Psi-World, Amway, and the long list of mass training gurus including Tony Robbins, Werner Erhard, Covey, Eckhart Tolle, James Arthur Ray, and Byron Katie. There are dozens more. If you read and believed Norman Vincent Peale, Og Mandino, and Dale Carnegie, you are in this ballpark. You dwell in this social institution called Self-Inflation University.
Maybe you, the modern seeker, read some Nietzsche and Ayn Rand to reinforce this selfism. Maybe you took yoga classes or seek that special diet. Maybe you absorb the cosmic infusions from ambient music. Maybe you speak to the universe and believe that the universe will respond to your positive thought—you know, the law of attraction since someone let that “secret” out of the bag. Self-improvement, self-development, self-realization, enlightened self-interest, the selfish gene, the higher self, self-awareness, and mindfulness.
Maybe you tried affirmations from a New Thought book or religion—over one hundred years ago, the most famous one was Every Day and in Every Way, I Am Getting Better and Better. Millions of Americans were doing it. You came to believe that religion can be a more precise science than neurobiology. Forgive me—I meant “spirituality” as you are by no means merely religious like those calcified old ladies in the pews of common churches.
Be all you can be? What on earth can that mean? And how much BETTER can you get anyway? We get the incentive. Any healthy human being gets that much: We all want to improve. But at what and how? This is where the self-help gurus come in. Nearly everyone that pays out hundreds or thousands of dollars up front for one of the life and prosperity workshops or intensives is already lost. They do not know and they want to know what will work for them and what is blocking their potential. That is why they are there. To make a breakthrough! Somewhere in life their egos have been damaged, wounded, or traumatized, or in the least somehow limited. Common regulated therapy is too slow or is not working. Maybe they have not gone deep enough and you need a deeper experience.
Narcissistic traits that we all have and need are not bad—we need them to get by, to put our best selves forward to get a job or a spouse. Traits are not disorders. We must believe in ourselves to some degree or we might not get up in the morning. Our best self can be compromised by anxiety. Anxiety is the most commonly diagnosed psych disorder. We all feel it to some degree nearly every day, but most people cope with it well enough. Those who do not cope feel wounded. Forces around them and within them reflect a poor self-image or at least one not good enough.
Wounded narcissists are not bad people, but they are particularly vulnerable to mass therapies that promise to tap that special self within that is pure and wonderful once the layers of social conditioning and trauma are “broken through.” If only those god-damned, self-imposed limitations and environmentally fierce blocks could be somehow removed, they say to themselves. Well, the run-of-the-mill self-help guru or life coach is there for you to help engineer a break through. Just sign the waiver and prepare for several days or more of a psychological roller coaster.
Break throughs are those a-ha moments when the client feels a profound release or insight that has a potentially life-changing effect. These engineered breakthroughs may be authentic—some people do change bad habits after a mass therapy workshop—but at what price? For most, the positive take away is short term or vague at best, especially when we read testimonials from the “94%” (claimed by Landmark) satisfied customers. They sound like testimonials from rare Amway success stories. The cost is more than money.
Most of the mass trainings promise to change you or “shift” your perspective. Let me get to the point. Anyone who is placed in an extraordinary situation or experiences an ecstasy will absorb the influences and language in that environment. The influences include the admonition to spread the good news of your transformation at the Bobby Ray or Whoever Tony workshop, and maybe to ask for forgiveness of anyone you may have harmed to somehow end past karma. Of course, when you so energetically ask for forgiveness or exude over your “experience,” you are also recruiting. And that is the point. The owners of these businesses want to funnel as many people as they can into their self-experience machines that will spit out recruiters at the other end. The model is understandable if one is selling cars, herbal products, or cosmetics, but it gets very strange when the product is your Self.
The question to ask is what self emerges from a J A Ray sweat lodge ceremony? Can that sacred self, the “spiritual warrior” be forced into manifestation during an engineered experience in group trainings or spiritual retreats? The answer is no. That is the scam. The good feeling of having made a breakthrough in front of a crowd after a public confession will always subside. All highs from ecstasy subside when the endorphins stop dancing in your brain. However, the leader tells you not to let this insight go, to reinforce it in how you communicate with others and choose your path going forward. So, you adopt the language of the group or life coach, and you start sounding like one of “them” to your friends and family. The change is that you sound like one of them and not that you have suddenly become a better person. The point is that you could have become a better person with a little effort all on your own and still sounded like yourself.
One definition of a brainwashed or radically influenced person resides in language: If he talks like us, he is one of us. This is true for any culture, be it Austria or a gang in Chicago. However, you have a better shot at being your authentic self as an Austrian than you will as a gang member. It is a matter of constriction. Smaller groups with enthusiastic members will tend to self-seal or create an us-them culture.
J R Ray’s sweat lodge experiencers were in shock when people died. They all had to question why they put up with so much pain and why they lost their common sense. Those who broke away finally did make a real breakthrough. They no longer trusted the narcissist who absorbed them into his theater, his culture, his personality cult world. They shed the language and re-learned how to talk authentically. They no longer believed that men should aspire to be gods who are the true spiritual warriors.
Just ask Zeus.
J A Ray violated authentic sweat lodge intent.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/us/canada-sweat-lodge/
James A Ray's comeback angers victims
http://jszimhart.com/blog/sweat_lodge_deaths
May 18, 2015
Amway: 5 Realities Of The Multi-Billion-Dollar Scam
Carolyn Burke
Angelos Kyritsis
Cracked
May 18, 2015
You've seen those "Make money from home!" banner ads or comments from spammers promising the same. Those are scams, as you can guess, but sometimes, well, they're sort of cults. Kind of like if you stripped the Xenu stuff out of Scientology and just left the part where you pay to be a member.
Amway is probably the most widely used of the "sell our products out of the comfort of your own home and be your own boss!" services, the ones that appeal to the unemployed with promises they'll get rich quick (and also encourages them to relentlessly recruit new members). And on the surface it looks fairly plausible, especially when you look at how much money Amway rakes in every year: in 2014 Amway sold $10.8 billion worth of products, so why shouldn't you try to break off a piece of that action?
Because it's pretty much a scam, and a creepy one at that. Angelos Kyritsis got wrapped up in the Amway pyramid scheme, and he's here to shed some light on the ugly -- and downright weird -- truth:
5 You Can Actually Lose Huge Amounts Of Money
We don't want to use the word "cult" lightly -- it's not like you'll get six meetings into Amway and find out it's all being done in service to the invisible space lizard Quixtar. But you've probably heard how groups like Scientology make their millions -- new members are roped in and told that the road to enlightenment runs through some very expensive course materials. Well, new Amway members ("distributors") are constantly promised there's a rocketship to success waiting just on the other side of the next $250 seminar. And then they're assured that those seminars are nothing without a $40 package of tapes and books to accompany them.
"Don't have a VCR because it's 2015? Don't worry; you can get an Amway(R) brand one for three easy payments!"
In both cases, the hook is the same, and it's targeted at the desperate: a little money now, a better life later. Only it's not "a little" money. As Kyritsis told us:
"The two years I was supposedly building my Amway business, I lost nearly $10,000 on tapes, seminars, books, gas, and traveling expenses for out-of-town seminars. My earnings? Less than $500 total. Since I was unemployed -- and pretty much unemployable for any nonburger-flipping job -- those $10,000 came exclusively from my grandmother, who was also my biggest (and only) Amway customer, buying expensive, 'concentrated' Amway products she didn't need, every month to support me."
"Put me down for another blender, then I'll have one for every day of the week."
Kyritsis got off easy. You can find stories online of people spending $192,000 to "make" $30,000 (shit, we think there are actual cults with a higher rate of return). It's impossible to know the exact "success" rate for Amway independent business owners (IBOs), but one case from 2008 showed that out of 33,000 IBOs, only 90 made enough money to cover the costs of their business. That's a failure rate of damn near 100%. But of course, to Amway, those aren't failures. Amway doesn't make its money selling the random household goods the distributors are handing out -- they make money selling a dream. Then once you've committed yourself and forked over serious cash -- and convinced friends and family to do the same -- how can you leave? At this point, you've got too much invested not to see it through.
Probably should have waited on the tattoo.
We should also note that Kyritsis lives in Greece, a country just coming through the other side of an intense financial crisis (see: "targeting desperate people", above). Amway is based in Michigan, but they do about 90% of their business outside of the United States. It's not hard to see why: Amway is increasingly well known as a scam in the U.S., and American citizens have an easier time suing the company for unethical business practices. In 2010, Amway settled with disgruntled American customers for $155 million.
This is why the moment you walk in the door ...
4 You're Specifically Told Not To Use The Name "Amway"
People who sell for Amway literally have no idea what they are getting into because the training system bends over backwards through hoops of fire to try to keep any useful information out of the hands of their representatives. It's actually incredibly hard for most users to know where actual "Amway" begins and ends, because a cottage-industry of other scams have leapt up around Amway's business model like hallucinogenic mushrooms on cow shit. Kyritsis received all of his training through a group called Network Twentyone, who make a tidy profit charging people to teach them how to sell Amway:
"There are different training systems to build an Amway business (Dexter Yager Internet Services is another one) and they are separate corporate entities than Amway."
Although they are separate companies, Network Twentyone was founded by Amway distributors and, obviously, helps to drive Amway sales via its own borderline cultish system, which have included things like torchlight parades and advising distributors to threaten to hit customers on the head with Amway tapes, forcing them to take the tape to defend themselves. Obviously, Amway is quite aware of companies like Network Twentyone and is completely fine with them, as long as they drive business and never mention Amway's name. This is where things turn distinctly more Fight Club: Sellers are instructed to never say the word "Amway" while pushing their products.
Network 21
You can bet those aren't generic-brand torches.
"We were warned never to use the name Amway on the phone; even while showing the business plan, the name would be one of the very last things mentioned. The explanation from our 'sponsors' was that people in the past have misused the name 'Amway,' and people should get a chance to know the 'new Amway' without being prejudiced from things they might have heard."
Yes, apparently the only thing stopping most people from buying their knives and makeup from the same company is prejudice.
At that point, they were sent out into the world to try to rope in every single person they encountered, all without ever saying who they really represented:
"This was a textbook invitation: Speak quickly, as if you are in a hurry, make a very broad connection with something relevant the person might have mentioned in the past, involving money, a business, the Internet, etc., invite them to a one-on-one or house meeting, never give any more information over the phone, never mention the name Amway."
Mark Edward Atkinson/Blend Images/Getty Images
"Hey, Joe, remember how you did that history report on George Washington in fourth grade? Say, that reminds me ..."
That's a lot of trouble to go through to convince someone to be a part of your totally legit, not-deserving-of-that-prejudice-in-any-way company. "But that doesn't really sound like a cult!" you might say. "That just sounds like any ol' shady business selling door-to-door bullshit!" Well ... take a moment to watch one of their videos:
Yeah, it turns out ...
3 They Recruit Through Brainwashing And Lies
"The first part of the brainwashing," says Kyritsis, "was that 'there would be no success without the system.'" What's the system? The system is a series of seminars, recordings, and books that claim to be a guaranteed path to master salesmanship. Following Amway's guidelines successfully is seen as the only path to success, so if you aren't making money, it's because you're not "working the program" properly. Any success is due purely to their teachings, any failure is due to you not following them hard enough. Sound familiar?
And as we mentioned above, those materials promising you the skills to turn your financial life around are the product. "What most people don't know is that the successful members at the top of the pyramid were making way more money from promoting the tapes, the books, and the seminars, than selling Amway products."
"And if you're on the top of that pyramid, then you'll need to get our leadership tapes and books."
Proof of the company's overwhelming manipulation isn't hard to come by. All over YouTube you can find videos like this one where the intro song repeatedly claims these people have found a way to beat the recession and travel the world, with lyrics like, "Anyone with eyes can see we are successful" (we assume it flows better in its native language). If you sit through the song long enough you'll see Amway distributor Patrick Joe's epic introduction before he starts excitedly screaming and getting the audience to chant like he just found Jesus, or learned Rush finally made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
Most Amway videos are equally epic and once again completely devoid of any specific information whatsoever. That last video is nothing but pictures of smiling people set to a pop song about "wanting more out of life" ...
Amway
and occasionally interspersed with pictures from Amway conferences:
Amway
"SOON WE WILL BE LIFTED UP TO THE MOTHERSHIP AND LEAVE THIS PLANE OF EXISTENCE BEHIND."
So maybe it won't be much of a surprise to learn that ...
2 Their Lies Start Ruining Your Life
Look, there's actually one really simple, easy way to tell the difference between a legitimate job and a scam. Just ask them, "How much will I get paid to work for you?"
If they quote you an exact salary or an hourly wage, it's probably a legitimate job. You can safely assume that you're the mark if they start using words like "opportunity" and "downline" or present you with completely unintelligible pie charts like this:
Amway
"That baby is pulling down $75K a year, post-taxes."
When a company like Amway does give you numbers, it's never what you can expect as a salary. And if they do mention specific numbers, it's usually something like this:
Amway
You can almost hear the copy editor laughing through the text.
But remember, any cult-like group works by surrounding you with people insisting that these obvious red flags are really just proof they can think outside the box. Can you? You don't see those boring squares out there paying cash up front for the chance to sell detergent and lipstick door to door! That's how you know it's a good idea!
So, after hearing the Amway rhetoric on an endless loop, recruits start to make disastrous decisions, and each one is applauded by their peers. In Kyritsis' case, his "friends" at Amway even encouraged him to give up on his education. "They would actually compare having an Amway business with getting royalties, like from a book or a song. That you build a network once, and it pays you forever, even if you stop working. So, why go to college when I can make a successful Amway business without any degrees? For me, as a 21-year-old idiot who never had a full-time job and lived with his parents, that was reason enough to drop out of college, and I never got my degree."
If I wanted the headache of debt and no degree, I could have just signed up for the University of Phoenix.
Of course, Amway doesn't actually pay "employees," so Kyritsis needed a real job in order to "afford" his Amway job. And he nearly lost that real job trying to convince his boss to buy into the fake one.
"The only job I had during that period was a part-time job at a government-sponsored program, where I would give a couple of hours of computer lessons to small-business owners. I nearly didn't get that job, because when I first met with the director that organized it, I thought I would give her a special tape for prospects. Because which time is better to try and recruit someone, if not when you are going to them for a job?"
"I assure you sir, I am the right fit for this job. Now, may I interest you in a $30 bottle of fabric softener?"
"After that, I would also show the business plan to the businessmen I was supposed to teach about computers. Because, of course I would."
See, that's the thing -- part of the wonderful Amway experience is relentlessly badgering everyone in your life to join Amway in one capacity or the other. And as you can guess ...
1 You Wind Up Making Everyone In Your Life Hate You
In Amway's eyes, your friends and family are all potential cash cows you should be milking -- you're trained to go after the people closest to you first (to rack up those sweet pity sales). "I was thinking that every friend that didn't join my network didn't want success for himself or me, that he was somehow against me." This crazy train of thought led Kyritsis to harass his loved ones in an attempt to better their lives. Desperate to convince someone of the amazing untapped Amway potential, Kyritsis pushed the Amway rhetoric on anyone who would listen, especially his girlfriend. He would tell her that her studies were pointless when she could be making so much more money, dragging her to seminars and showing her the Amway tapes like a really boring version of The Ring.
It's scary how much money they are about to make.
Worse than the girlfriend sabotage, Kyritsis burned a couple bridges with the one person on Earth most likely to put up with all this malarkey: his mother. Kyritsis got angry that she wouldn't buy any of the overpriced products and support his "success." When he started realizing everyone around him was done listening to his sales pitch, Kyritsis decided he needed to expand his market, which he did by inflicting himself on his parents' social circle, out of desperation.
"The worst thing that happened was the 'list.' My parents are both members of a nonreligious spiritual organization, and they volunteered to keep the other members up to speed regarding upcoming events and meetings. So, they had an extensive list, with hundreds of names and phone numbers. I had asked my mother for that list, and she understandably said no. A while later, having exhausted my personal list, I went behind her back, made a copy of her list, and started cold calling them. When my mother found out, she was furious. This led to a huge fight, and soon after I left home and went to live with my grandmother. More than a year passed before I spoke again with my parents or sisters."
The commission on Dolores' toothbrush wasn't worth it.
So there's the alienation of friends and family who aren't in the group, which is pretty much the final ingredient in the standard cult cocktail.
So, yeah, not exactly what you're expecting when you click a banner ad, hoping to maybe make some money on the side selling vitamins and skin cream.
Kyritsis failed miserably in "Network Marketing," but he still enjoys computer networks. You will find his detailed how-to guides about technology on PCsteps.com. Carolyn is the latest and greatest Personal Experience team member; send your crazy stories to Tips@Cracked.com or believe every word she ever says on Twitter.
http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1620-amway-5-realities-multi-billion-dollar-scam.html
Angelos Kyritsis
Cracked
May 18, 2015
You've seen those "Make money from home!" banner ads or comments from spammers promising the same. Those are scams, as you can guess, but sometimes, well, they're sort of cults. Kind of like if you stripped the Xenu stuff out of Scientology and just left the part where you pay to be a member.
Amway is probably the most widely used of the "sell our products out of the comfort of your own home and be your own boss!" services, the ones that appeal to the unemployed with promises they'll get rich quick (and also encourages them to relentlessly recruit new members). And on the surface it looks fairly plausible, especially when you look at how much money Amway rakes in every year: in 2014 Amway sold $10.8 billion worth of products, so why shouldn't you try to break off a piece of that action?
Because it's pretty much a scam, and a creepy one at that. Angelos Kyritsis got wrapped up in the Amway pyramid scheme, and he's here to shed some light on the ugly -- and downright weird -- truth:
5 You Can Actually Lose Huge Amounts Of Money
We don't want to use the word "cult" lightly -- it's not like you'll get six meetings into Amway and find out it's all being done in service to the invisible space lizard Quixtar. But you've probably heard how groups like Scientology make their millions -- new members are roped in and told that the road to enlightenment runs through some very expensive course materials. Well, new Amway members ("distributors") are constantly promised there's a rocketship to success waiting just on the other side of the next $250 seminar. And then they're assured that those seminars are nothing without a $40 package of tapes and books to accompany them.
"Don't have a VCR because it's 2015? Don't worry; you can get an Amway(R) brand one for three easy payments!"
In both cases, the hook is the same, and it's targeted at the desperate: a little money now, a better life later. Only it's not "a little" money. As Kyritsis told us:
"The two years I was supposedly building my Amway business, I lost nearly $10,000 on tapes, seminars, books, gas, and traveling expenses for out-of-town seminars. My earnings? Less than $500 total. Since I was unemployed -- and pretty much unemployable for any nonburger-flipping job -- those $10,000 came exclusively from my grandmother, who was also my biggest (and only) Amway customer, buying expensive, 'concentrated' Amway products she didn't need, every month to support me."
"Put me down for another blender, then I'll have one for every day of the week."
Kyritsis got off easy. You can find stories online of people spending $192,000 to "make" $30,000 (shit, we think there are actual cults with a higher rate of return). It's impossible to know the exact "success" rate for Amway independent business owners (IBOs), but one case from 2008 showed that out of 33,000 IBOs, only 90 made enough money to cover the costs of their business. That's a failure rate of damn near 100%. But of course, to Amway, those aren't failures. Amway doesn't make its money selling the random household goods the distributors are handing out -- they make money selling a dream. Then once you've committed yourself and forked over serious cash -- and convinced friends and family to do the same -- how can you leave? At this point, you've got too much invested not to see it through.
Probably should have waited on the tattoo.
We should also note that Kyritsis lives in Greece, a country just coming through the other side of an intense financial crisis (see: "targeting desperate people", above). Amway is based in Michigan, but they do about 90% of their business outside of the United States. It's not hard to see why: Amway is increasingly well known as a scam in the U.S., and American citizens have an easier time suing the company for unethical business practices. In 2010, Amway settled with disgruntled American customers for $155 million.
This is why the moment you walk in the door ...
4 You're Specifically Told Not To Use The Name "Amway"
People who sell for Amway literally have no idea what they are getting into because the training system bends over backwards through hoops of fire to try to keep any useful information out of the hands of their representatives. It's actually incredibly hard for most users to know where actual "Amway" begins and ends, because a cottage-industry of other scams have leapt up around Amway's business model like hallucinogenic mushrooms on cow shit. Kyritsis received all of his training through a group called Network Twentyone, who make a tidy profit charging people to teach them how to sell Amway:
"There are different training systems to build an Amway business (Dexter Yager Internet Services is another one) and they are separate corporate entities than Amway."
Although they are separate companies, Network Twentyone was founded by Amway distributors and, obviously, helps to drive Amway sales via its own borderline cultish system, which have included things like torchlight parades and advising distributors to threaten to hit customers on the head with Amway tapes, forcing them to take the tape to defend themselves. Obviously, Amway is quite aware of companies like Network Twentyone and is completely fine with them, as long as they drive business and never mention Amway's name. This is where things turn distinctly more Fight Club: Sellers are instructed to never say the word "Amway" while pushing their products.
Network 21
You can bet those aren't generic-brand torches.
"We were warned never to use the name Amway on the phone; even while showing the business plan, the name would be one of the very last things mentioned. The explanation from our 'sponsors' was that people in the past have misused the name 'Amway,' and people should get a chance to know the 'new Amway' without being prejudiced from things they might have heard."
Amway
Yes, apparently the only thing stopping most people from buying their knives and makeup from the same company is prejudice.
At that point, they were sent out into the world to try to rope in every single person they encountered, all without ever saying who they really represented:
"This was a textbook invitation: Speak quickly, as if you are in a hurry, make a very broad connection with something relevant the person might have mentioned in the past, involving money, a business, the Internet, etc., invite them to a one-on-one or house meeting, never give any more information over the phone, never mention the name Amway."
Mark Edward Atkinson/Blend Images/Getty Images
"Hey, Joe, remember how you did that history report on George Washington in fourth grade? Say, that reminds me ..."
That's a lot of trouble to go through to convince someone to be a part of your totally legit, not-deserving-of-that-prejudice-in-any-way company. "But that doesn't really sound like a cult!" you might say. "That just sounds like any ol' shady business selling door-to-door bullshit!" Well ... take a moment to watch one of their videos:
Yeah, it turns out ...
3 They Recruit Through Brainwashing And Lies
"The first part of the brainwashing," says Kyritsis, "was that 'there would be no success without the system.'" What's the system? The system is a series of seminars, recordings, and books that claim to be a guaranteed path to master salesmanship. Following Amway's guidelines successfully is seen as the only path to success, so if you aren't making money, it's because you're not "working the program" properly. Any success is due purely to their teachings, any failure is due to you not following them hard enough. Sound familiar?
And as we mentioned above, those materials promising you the skills to turn your financial life around are the product. "What most people don't know is that the successful members at the top of the pyramid were making way more money from promoting the tapes, the books, and the seminars, than selling Amway products."
"And if you're on the top of that pyramid, then you'll need to get our leadership tapes and books."
Proof of the company's overwhelming manipulation isn't hard to come by. All over YouTube you can find videos like this one where the intro song repeatedly claims these people have found a way to beat the recession and travel the world, with lyrics like, "Anyone with eyes can see we are successful" (we assume it flows better in its native language). If you sit through the song long enough you'll see Amway distributor Patrick Joe's epic introduction before he starts excitedly screaming and getting the audience to chant like he just found Jesus, or learned Rush finally made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
Most Amway videos are equally epic and once again completely devoid of any specific information whatsoever. That last video is nothing but pictures of smiling people set to a pop song about "wanting more out of life" ...
Amway
and occasionally interspersed with pictures from Amway conferences:
Amway
"SOON WE WILL BE LIFTED UP TO THE MOTHERSHIP AND LEAVE THIS PLANE OF EXISTENCE BEHIND."
So maybe it won't be much of a surprise to learn that ...
2 Their Lies Start Ruining Your Life
Look, there's actually one really simple, easy way to tell the difference between a legitimate job and a scam. Just ask them, "How much will I get paid to work for you?"
If they quote you an exact salary or an hourly wage, it's probably a legitimate job. You can safely assume that you're the mark if they start using words like "opportunity" and "downline" or present you with completely unintelligible pie charts like this:
Amway
"That baby is pulling down $75K a year, post-taxes."
When a company like Amway does give you numbers, it's never what you can expect as a salary. And if they do mention specific numbers, it's usually something like this:
Amway
You can almost hear the copy editor laughing through the text.
But remember, any cult-like group works by surrounding you with people insisting that these obvious red flags are really just proof they can think outside the box. Can you? You don't see those boring squares out there paying cash up front for the chance to sell detergent and lipstick door to door! That's how you know it's a good idea!
So, after hearing the Amway rhetoric on an endless loop, recruits start to make disastrous decisions, and each one is applauded by their peers. In Kyritsis' case, his "friends" at Amway even encouraged him to give up on his education. "They would actually compare having an Amway business with getting royalties, like from a book or a song. That you build a network once, and it pays you forever, even if you stop working. So, why go to college when I can make a successful Amway business without any degrees? For me, as a 21-year-old idiot who never had a full-time job and lived with his parents, that was reason enough to drop out of college, and I never got my degree."
If I wanted the headache of debt and no degree, I could have just signed up for the University of Phoenix.
Of course, Amway doesn't actually pay "employees," so Kyritsis needed a real job in order to "afford" his Amway job. And he nearly lost that real job trying to convince his boss to buy into the fake one.
"The only job I had during that period was a part-time job at a government-sponsored program, where I would give a couple of hours of computer lessons to small-business owners. I nearly didn't get that job, because when I first met with the director that organized it, I thought I would give her a special tape for prospects. Because which time is better to try and recruit someone, if not when you are going to them for a job?"
"I assure you sir, I am the right fit for this job. Now, may I interest you in a $30 bottle of fabric softener?"
"After that, I would also show the business plan to the businessmen I was supposed to teach about computers. Because, of course I would."
See, that's the thing -- part of the wonderful Amway experience is relentlessly badgering everyone in your life to join Amway in one capacity or the other. And as you can guess ...
1 You Wind Up Making Everyone In Your Life Hate You
In Amway's eyes, your friends and family are all potential cash cows you should be milking -- you're trained to go after the people closest to you first (to rack up those sweet pity sales). "I was thinking that every friend that didn't join my network didn't want success for himself or me, that he was somehow against me." This crazy train of thought led Kyritsis to harass his loved ones in an attempt to better their lives. Desperate to convince someone of the amazing untapped Amway potential, Kyritsis pushed the Amway rhetoric on anyone who would listen, especially his girlfriend. He would tell her that her studies were pointless when she could be making so much more money, dragging her to seminars and showing her the Amway tapes like a really boring version of The Ring.
It's scary how much money they are about to make.
Worse than the girlfriend sabotage, Kyritsis burned a couple bridges with the one person on Earth most likely to put up with all this malarkey: his mother. Kyritsis got angry that she wouldn't buy any of the overpriced products and support his "success." When he started realizing everyone around him was done listening to his sales pitch, Kyritsis decided he needed to expand his market, which he did by inflicting himself on his parents' social circle, out of desperation.
"The worst thing that happened was the 'list.' My parents are both members of a nonreligious spiritual organization, and they volunteered to keep the other members up to speed regarding upcoming events and meetings. So, they had an extensive list, with hundreds of names and phone numbers. I had asked my mother for that list, and she understandably said no. A while later, having exhausted my personal list, I went behind her back, made a copy of her list, and started cold calling them. When my mother found out, she was furious. This led to a huge fight, and soon after I left home and went to live with my grandmother. More than a year passed before I spoke again with my parents or sisters."
The commission on Dolores' toothbrush wasn't worth it.
So there's the alienation of friends and family who aren't in the group, which is pretty much the final ingredient in the standard cult cocktail.
So, yeah, not exactly what you're expecting when you click a banner ad, hoping to maybe make some money on the side selling vitamins and skin cream.
Kyritsis failed miserably in "Network Marketing," but he still enjoys computer networks. You will find his detailed how-to guides about technology on PCsteps.com. Carolyn is the latest and greatest Personal Experience team member; send your crazy stories to Tips@Cracked.com or believe every word she ever says on Twitter.
http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1620-amway-5-realities-multi-billion-dollar-scam.html
Mar 29, 2014
Amway China staff on the way
Taipei Times
Shelley Shan
Amway Taiwan president Martin Liou said that only those who had generated annual sales of 1.2 million yuan (US$175,000) would be visiting. Seven groups will arrive on cruise ships from next month through May. Each group will consist of about 1,600 employees.
Liou said the ships would disembark at Keelung Harbor. The employees will attend a two-day seminar before visiting tourist attractions in Taipei, Taichung and Hualien. Meanwhile, facilities at the old Taichung Airport in Shuinan , which is no longer in use, will be renovated and turned into a venue for evening banquets and events.
Amway China has set a budget of NT$500 million (US$14 million) for the visits to cover employee expenses on food, lodging, transportation and gift purchases. Employees are expected to spend about NT$120 million during the visits.
Tourism Bureau Director General Janice Lai said the tour group would be the largest this year. Given its size, the bureau would handle their application as a special case.
Amway Taiwan president Martin Liou said that only those who had generated annual sales of 1.2 million yuan (US$175,000) would be visiting. Seven groups will arrive on cruise ships from next month through May. Each group will consist of about 1,600 employees.
Liou said the ships would disembark at Keelung Harbor. The employees will attend a two-day seminar before visiting tourist attractions in Taipei, Taichung and Hualien. Meanwhile, facilities at the old Taichung Airport in Shuinan , which is no longer in use, will be renovated and turned into a venue for evening banquets and events.
Amway China has set a budget of NT$500 million (US$14 million) for the visits to cover employee expenses on food, lodging, transportation and gift purchases. Employees are expected to spend about NT$120 million during the visits.
Tourism Bureau Director General Janice Lai said the tour group would be the largest this year. Given its size, the bureau would handle their application as a special case.
Dec 6, 2013
The Death Dealer
Verge
Matt Stroud
December 4, 2013
‘Secret' guru James Arthur Ray led three people to their deaths... and now he's at it again
Matt Stroud
December 4, 2013
‘Secret' guru James Arthur Ray led three people to their deaths... and now he's at it again
When James Arthur Ray lifted the heavy tarp door and beckoned his devotees into a wood-frame dome, they obeyed. Tall and confident, Ray watched them enter one by one, more than 50 of them. Stooping under the low ceiling, they crowded into the dark, windowless space and sat in two tight rings around a pit filled with heated stones.
Many had spent more than $10,000 to be there, in what Ray called his “sweat lodge.” It culminated five days with the self-proclaimed “catalyst for personal transformation” at Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat, a ranch near Sedona, Arizona. During his “Spiritual Warrior” program, he’d asked participants to shave their heads, spend 36 hours in the desert meditating without food or water, and play the “Samurai Game,” in which a white-robed Ray, playing “God,” declared people dead, forcing them to remain motionless on the ground.
Before they entered the dome, he warned them his final test was a symbolic death. "You are not going to die. You might think you are, but you are not going to die," he said, according to several attendees. Around 2:30PM on October 8th, 2009, he lowered the tarp, closing off the only source of light and oxygen. The ceremony began.
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