Yes sir, I/we was/were a distributor/s (IBO, what a joke!) Just to compose this raises my blood pressure quite a few points. How can one tell some of the story and not tell all? It sounds to me like you and your family have been treated terribly by the Amholes and their cronies. I am so sorry for all of you, and I sincerely mean that; I know what it has done to us and it’s a real shame. I know our story pales in comparison to the damages and disasters of others, yet mirrors to a T the stories of soooo many others. I wished I had the means and wherewithal to be able to sue them and get back some of what we threw away chasing that elusive “dream” lifestyle. When I think of what we could have accomplished had we directed our energies and resources toward furthering our educations, paying down debts, investing(in real legitimate programs) vs. what we allowed ourselves to be fed, it just makes me sick even to this day. It is almost beyond belief the lasting effects that this experience has left, and it is hard for people to move on and rebuild their lives.
If I had to finger any positives from it, they would be overcoming my fear of talking to people and being able to carry on an actual conversation, reading the PMA books (though I’m actually a bit hesitant to do that now, I want to control my mind, with God’s grace) and developing a healthy skepticism toward people that just want to use me to get something or get ahead, and (this is a biggy) learning to carefully read and understand legal contracts and issues BEFORE you sign, esp. if someone is saying “Hey, don’t worry about the stuff in it, it’s just legal mumbo-jumbo that the lawyers make them put in, this business is built on handshakes and integrity! You can count on that.”
YEA,RIGHT! However, the negatives, misrepresentations, deceptions, half-truths (whole lies!) and mind tricks they play while bleeding you dry is just off the charts.
My parents were in Amway from the early 60’s, they had built a fairly significant business in Mississippi when we moved back here in 1966 or 67. I believe things were done quite differently then, before the AMO’s corrupted everything. We moved back to southside Virginia so my Mom could look after her parents, and my Dad his folks. They tried hard to build a business here, I think they had some moderate success. They were sponsored by Charlie Marsh.
This area was a tobacco/textile area and not very “book” educated, so things never really took off for them. Mom loved SA-8, which was a great detergent, and we used many other products on the “better for the environment and your wallet” program. They stopped trying to build the business in the 80’s and just ordered products. I got in once, 1980/81 when I was 18 or 19, sold a few things and then stopped. I really had no clue and never “plugged in” to the system, but I knew a few guys my age that did try, don’t think they ever really “made it” either. I quit shortly thereafter and my only real good memory of it was the Nutrilite vitamins, I really did feel much better physically after taking them for a couple weeks, but they were expensive then and are outrageous now.
Fast forward 16 years, marriage, 3 kids, new home we had just built, and the supposedly “good job” as a mechanic with Goodyear Tire Co. My wife had just earned her RN license and has a Liberal Arts degree, I’ve a list of training and certifications and business school that would impress just about anyone; right after we moved in to our new home I suffered a spinal cord injury that damaged the nerves to my arms and hands. Well, needless to say that I was
rudely confronted by the “time for dollars” equation and things changed dramatically for us. I had to have 5 operations in 10 months, was real sick from the changes internally and we discovered I had massive chemical exposure/ build up from lead and petroleum distillates used in the tire and mechanical industries. Needless to say when the doctors told Goodyear that I was sick from work, I became significantly “less valuable” to their corporate vision. I became very vulnerable, lost my “good job”, benefits, insurance, nearly 10 years service time, and my ability to provide for my family. I was, unfortunately, ripe for the picking, so when a co-worker of my wife approached her and said she might be able to help, well I was all ears. I wished now that I also had realized how susceptible I was to the influences of others that were passed off on us as being “Successful and free! Yaayyy! Go Diamond!”, well who knows?
What’s done is done so try to take away positives from it and don’t do the “insanity” thing. I’m not stupid by any means, I’m well educated, have a high IQ, a pretty good mechanical apptitude and skills with computers and electronics; I was just naieve’ and too trusting. That plan of circles looks simply too easy, doesn’t it? Anyway, we went to an open meeting and got
the dog and pony show, I fell hook, line, and sinker! We left with me starry eyed and believing I’d found the answer to our prayers. I had just had the first surgery on my neck, knew I was looking at several more over the next few months and I felt like that if I could just add a few hundred bucks a month {residual? BS!} income it would help our family and take a lot of stress off my wife, after all, I’m the man of the family and as Mr. Britt was so fond of quoting from James, “if you don’t provide for your family you are worse than an infidel,
don’t know what it is but I know I don’t want to be one!” It is astounding how they subtlely guilt folks into behavior changes purported to be for your own good, but in reality to one’s detriment and to their financial gain, but I digress.
We met again the next evening with [our sponsor's] sponser, TTT, and he re-drew the plan, we talked (all that dream stuff used as goals), and we were in. What was that song-Only Fools Rush In? We got to work right away, I hit the ground running. Did all the “counseling upline”, tapes, books, convert over the household(as we could) functions, meetings every week, etc. I bought right into the cold contacting, though I hated it I knew it would be necessary, and let me tell you brother, there were days that if it breathed and was warm, they saw the plan. We eventually started to sponser folks, got 4 wide and two legs had depth and width going, but I was ignoring the facts and driving the miles, and driving up a load of credit card debt. I remember our first “function” in Greensboro, N.C., I had our tickets, one of our kids got real sick and I had to turn around and bring my wife back home. I was so mad! Looking back I can’t believe how guilty I felt for not making the function and how I must have sounded to her when she obviously needed to be home with our son. Our LOS was XXXX then Paul-Debbie Miller. Yea, been to their “spread”, met Larry Winters, Danny Snipes, Joe Markewicz(?), PM, and others.
Anyways, I asked my sponsor about a refund on the tickets, oh how clueless I was, I should have run like the wind then. He says I have to call Paul Miller’s office and file a request, so stupid me does just that. I can imagine the laughter! I even sent them back, per their directions, never to be seen again. I let it go and we kept pushing forward. Went to many others though, all the while getting deeper and deeper, both in the business and in debt.
I’ll tell you how bad it screwed me up, I had major surgery on my right elbow joint, re-route nerves and blood vessels, cut bone away, about 14 to 17 staples, painful stuff. Well, it was on the same day as our open, we had, as near I remember, an Emerald crossline coming to speak (Hey, don’t want to miss that! Might just pick up that nuggett that explodes your business!) so, idiot me tells them to let me out of the hospital cause I’ve got business to attend to! People coming and I have to be there. And I was, funny thing though, nobody I’d invited showed up even though they said they would, so naturally the credibility problem was with them, not me or “the business” and my dedication was held up as the example to follow. Let’s see-big cut, anesthesia, pain killers, bleeding, barely able to hold my head up and look through the fog of tunnel vision, BUT, we’re gettin’ FREE!
We once sponsered a guy who also had an online vitamin distributorship through his uncle(at least he actually made money from it), he apparently didn’t quite understand the plan and thought you got the BV amount back each month in CASH from AMWAY(How I wish). Anyway, he switches everything over, MCI, AMVOX, tapes, and his credit card, which he transferred the balance on. Well, he went over his credit limit and Amway had the audacity to come after us for the difference, and they wanted it immediately in cash. I said no way, if they gave him the card and he bumped it, that was contractually between them and him. OOOHHHHH- don’t talk back to the company- bad NO-NO! They took it from the bonus amount all the way downline. I got “counseled” that if I was going to sponsor people into this business then I had best make sure before hand that they were the type that “could afford to be in it” and all the uplines were unhappy over this and would be watching me. JJJ even brought it up in the open in front of everyone, no specifics but the “afford to” statement with insinuations and looking at me. I don’t know if I was more angry or embarassed, but I just “knew” I had to earn their respect back. Oh crap- was I too far gone? A week or so later the same guy calls me up, claims Amway’s window cleaner has left water spots on the windshield of his new Accord, says Amway won’t talk to him or do anything about it and suggested he have me pay for a new windshield! The nerve! I couldn’t and wouldn’t, and I think he quit. Something was later said about his
other business, how it was a NO-NO, so I can’t help but wonder if he was terminated by them.
Another couple that was sponsored by downline changed their minds after a couple weeks, wanted to return the kit for a refund. I hadn’t ever dealt with this so I called my sponsors, who were Directs and had 4 or 5 Directs sponsored by them, so they were close to PSDD’s, and I asked what to do for them(all this integrity, right?) He told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to take it back or speak to them about it, that if they wanted to return the kit they could find the instructions in their RoC packet, call the company themselves and work it out with them. One more flag up that “something” wasn’t quite right. Several people quit and we were so deep in debt by then, late 98 or very early 99, so I just kinda backed off and we just got our products, but not nearly as much, and then came Quixtar! Well, I certainly saw the potential for expanding my business outside our geographical area(I had sponsored a Phillipino couple and they had lots of family on the islands, however my/their list went to a crossline direct lawyer who had gone there and established an LOS, wanna guess how much money-help my business got from that boost? More about him later, though.) I got excited again and thought “Finally, this thing is gonna work!”,
I’d not thought before about going online to search Amway or the other sites that were critical, like Ashley Wilkes, Sydney Schwartz, the guy from Ky. that had cancer, or Ruth’s site. Anywayz, I re-started hitting the streets, drawing the circles with the internet side, and started getting everyone “fired up!”, I had been talking for sometime with a friend who was heavy into computers, built servers, networks, audio stuff, ISP’s and web hosting, I saw him as a natural and as an asset to the business. While out at his place he asked me (Thank God!) if I had seen any of the negative sites, I hadn’t and said so, and with that he showed me and gave me a list of sites to read. He was nice about it, I was totally shocked. I had no idea and the more I read the madder I got, when I went to Jeff Probandt’s site and looked at the 1099’s, I was furious!!!!! All this time we had been sold on all this truth, integrity, Christian honor, trust. How dare them take advantage of people like that. I was so disappointed and suddenly I was also terribly embarassed that I had dragged other’s into this ruse. I felt lower than scum.
Well, I decided to see what my upline had to say about these sites, at least I was willing to give them the benefit of doubt and a chance to either debunk or own up to what I had read. He had wanted me to fix their lawnmower, for free of course, and so when he came to get it I said to him that I needed to talk to him. Oh, he was real nice, until…. Well, he had his 3 sons in the car and I really didn’t want to go in to it in front of them, so I asked if he could step onto our deck where we could speak privately. Maybe he sensed something, maybe not, but he said anything I had to say to him I could say in front of them, so I asked him about the tools money and if it was true. Got the old “question from a question”, “Why, what have you heard?”, I said, nicely, “I know about the web sites, is it true?” All I got was a hurried, evasive, “I’ve gotta go, I have an appointment, I’ll have to get back to you and we will talk about it.” When he pulled out of the driveway, with his free lawnmower repair (Not the only one but that was my stupidity) it was the last I heard from him. No surprise there!
Well, by this time FFF had quit and TTT and I had become pretty good friends, I thought, so I at least figured in a day or so I would get a call from him wondering what had happened.
Not to be, and to this day we haven’t discussed it, but they moved to Richmond a few years ago and I suspect he quit too. They had built a pretty sizeable organization but I also know from house parties and a couple of chance encounters that there was as much frustration and confusion in his downlines. I can only wonder what might have been said to him, or others, about us. After that I spent a lot of time on MLMSurvivor.com, therapy I suppose, but I fell into a deep, dark depression and was constantly haunted by the thoughts and triggers of what we had been part of. I tried staying busy, volunteered a lot, signed up for some courses at our community college, I figured if I got my Network Administrator’s degree and cert’s that I could salvage my future and help my family. I couldn’t get any financial aide or scholarships, on paper we were “rich”, according to the folks in that office, but we were so deep in debt, outside our mortgage we had a second mortgage, (30,000. to pay off credit cards) and we had run those back up into the high 30 or low 40’s, so I tried to pay out of pocket for a few classes, my wife worked, and still does, all the overtime she could scrounge, and we still went bankrupt.
We’ve managed to hang onto our house, but we’ve ended up back in debt again, not living high on the hog, but just trying to keep the kids fed and gas in the cars. When I think of all the time she spent working extra trying to help us, only to have me stupidly put it into extra tools and buying up PV, it just
makes me sick. I guess it emotionally crippled me for quite some time and I figured it might be better if I died so they would get the insurance money and I would get some peace, isn’t that sad? Now even my insurance is gone, couldn’t pay for it.
We have fought and struggled for so long, and it seems that every time we just about get on an even footing, something major will fail or something catastrophic will happen and it knocks us back again. As for the others that I know about, all my downline quit, most are still mad and won’t speak to me. I think all the uplines to KKK have quit and DDD’d business fell apart. Many of those folks I see and we usually don’t speak of it, but I get the impression they are as embarassed as I was. One of DDD’s Directs, the lawyer I spoke of
earlier, he lived in Roanoke and was a very successful trial attorney. They had a beautiful home, great kids, his wife was really nice (I mean that in a good way)he owned an awesome Hennessey Viper that would haul tail; and I know he worked hard. He was also a Captain, and I think he got promoted to Major, in the Marines, then the Reserves. He was active during Desert Storm. He seemed to have life by the horns and had a ton of people sponsored. Well, for
whatever reasons he got hooked on cocaine and was arrested making a buy. It was briefly mentioned in the news media, then it kinda just “went away” as far as publicity, not normally the case in situations like that around here. I never did find out what the disposition was on his case, it got all hush, hush; but I know his law partner separated from him and still advertises, I suppose he got dis-barred, was probably given a dishonorable discharge from the Corps., and most likely lost everything. I felt so sorry for his wife and kids. I don’t know
if he got active jail time or anything. You could speculate a lot of things, he was very prominent and had lots of high level connections, so who knows? I have wondered from time to time though, if the business failing, or a contact he made from the business, brought him to that point? He really was, to me at least, the last person you would think would have gotten involved in such a thing.
Another couple moved to Richmond, we haven’t spoken about the
business since, DDD now owns a gym/workout-nutrition center here. I don’t know about the others. One of DDD’s downline’s, a guy I grew up with named TTT, I saw him in a Wal-Mart one day about 2003 or 04, he walked up and said hey and all, then wondered if I would be interested in getting back into the business, telling me about some woman who had gome Direct just from sales off her web site. I politely declined but resisted the urge to ask what he had heard or telling what I knew about the web info.
One thing I do remember that is interesting, but also scary, in 2000 we decided to re-landscape our place, we had to fix a serious erosion problem before it hurt our house, so we negotiate a re-fi and cashed out our equity, $23,000., and brought in 55 tandem dump loads of dirt, pipe, a contractor, and finished by paving the driveway around the house, 156 feet from the street and 80 feet to the back doors. It took 22,000. and TTT thought it was “awesome” and would help our business grow(? credibility I guess) but when DDD heard about it, well he wasn’t as happy for us. Later, he discreetly took me off to the side and asked if I had counseled upline about such a “major project”, I said no, it didn’t have anything to do with the business and I had to fix a house problem, so why would I? He “suggested” that in the future we should “always counsel upline before we make any major moves like that”, and that “it probably would have been much better for our business if we had invested that money in tools to grow and expand outward”, yea-wonder why now? I’m just glad we didn’t do that. I told him I would keep that in mind, since I was always told the reason my business wasn’t growing faster was my fault, you know, not enough plans, not enough committment, not encouraging my downline to follow the system, I’m sure you know them all.
Sadly, to this day there must be some unconquered demons deep inside, as I recently saw something on an A/P listing about Quixtar, can’t remember now what it was, but that re-started the journey of reading, almost daily and obviously almost as obsessively as I worked the business, and the more I have read the more it put to rest in my mind that quitting was the right thing to do, but I am astounded, not surprisingly, at all the new lawsuits and stories of all the things done by IBO’s,the AMO’s and their henchmen, the company and all the folks who seem more intent on destroying individuals and silencing them than they are with fixing the real problems that exist. The King has No Clothes!
I’ve found Scott’s site fascinating, yours is just tragic, but I’ve read many of the suit papers, like the Anderson’s and am really surprised at the apparent complicity the company has in protecting the AMO’s. Recent rulings indeed make it seem as if it is crumbling for them now. I say good riddance! Thanks for your site, I hope things work out for you and your family Eric, I will pray for you. If you want more info let me know, I’ll see what I can find out.
Best Regards-
