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The following posts have been reprinted in their entirety from posts e-mailed by readers of this website, except that headers, names and locations have been removed. These posts express the opinions and experiences of their authors, and this site publisher makes no representations about them in any way whatsoever. Re: MLM I was looking at your site and there is a lot of good information on it. But one type of MLM that I didn't see addressed are the ones that are e-mailed or posted on newsgroups where you buy a particular product, usually a report, and then sell the report you received to other people and put your name on the list and it moves up and so on. I would be interested in reading about these programs since they operate different than Amway, etc. Re: Kevin Trudeau Nice site. In the summer of 1996 i saw informercials on ^TV about Kevin Trudeau and his MLM. I had seen him on TV so many times with his Mega Memory items. So in no way did i think it was a scam. So i called and ordered his tape that he advertised. It never came directly from me. It came from someone who was a member. I called him and he was a nice guy. I looked at the info and sent in my $1000 check and a few weeks later got the all the goodies. In it was the tape on "how to do it". I got to the part of "Now invite all your friends over and show them this tape". I was like "oh no". It was simply selling on my part which i am not good at in any way or shape. I used some of the products. Some were useful. I then went online one day to check out any websites that might have been started about the MLM. I was thinking of starting my own website. Then the bad news came. I downloaded a Wall Street Journal article on how Trudeau had served time in prison. I called up my cousin who was a stockbroker.I asked him to check on the "Nutrtition for Life Stock". He said it was 2 or 3 guys simply trading shares amongst themselves to inflate the price. Then the worst part was the "leads". They had the gaul to charge $200 for 10 leads. That was at least 1000% higher than it should have been. I lost "only" $1800. I say "only" as i have read some horror stories on how people lost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hear are some fact's about Amway that you didn't put in your article. Anyone with a business background like your's should know. AAP Stock AJL Also the average company in Japan was worth 50% of what it was worth in 1989. If you are going to talk about a company you should know how a company works but that will never happen. When I buy property I research what I have to check on first. Then I make an asumption but not till I know the fact's first. Also you should check the buy out took place today on the tender offer. I think the sec will not touch this one. But like the saying go's opinions are like ass hole's everyone has one and they usually stink! So please if you are going to spew crap at least check your resources first if you are going to be belived! Ruth this will tell me how much of a business person you are? How much G.E. stock did you buy this past year. Also Qwest Comm stock. I will not argue with someone who know's nothing about business. Like I said last time if you want to argue numbers lets do it. If not quit waisting our time. Just wondering how many corner lot's have you bought in your city last year? If you want to argue about diamond's income's you have to show me more than one person's finantual situation! You don't base a company on one person do you? Please don't tell me to look at Jeff's sight either how can you take the word of a man that say's the system screw's people and then take the money and start something else thats like the devil saying he is christ! I would also like to see the new business he started but he didn't say anything about that. Also me and * see eye to eye on our stance. He was going to argue tax law with me till I told him he was wrong and back it up with tax code #., well got to run it's been fun enlightening you on certain thing's hope they help.
My name is *. I got into Amway/Quixtar about a year ago. I am an Educational Technologist for the Department of Defense Schools. At any rate, I am sold on ecommerce as I know it is a great way to make money because of lower overhead. Well, when I found out the name was going to be Quixtar, I immediately went out and registered **. My plan was to develop a portal for my Quixtar IBO's to get into the shopping mall. Well, I worked the plan from about Feb. - August. I sponsored 18 personal IBO's and had a downline of about 30-40. I don't remember what it was exactly. At any rate, Quixtar has not lived up to the expectations. The names they have are not as big as they bragged they would be and the compensation not as good. I have been loosing IBO's and have really stopped promoting it myself as I no longer really believe the site can compete with a lot of other places out there. Amway sent me notice that I could not use the ** domain. Wanting to be a good IBO I started up a new site called **. It was designed for my IBO's and their downline. I was going to give them free homepages to link to the Quixtar site, etc. You know... got to help the downline. Well, even though I had been requesting a review since sometime in April, they finally got around to seeing little old me and promptly pulled my IBO status until I removed references to Quixtar from the site. I talked with then and in the end just gave up and removed alllllll references to Quixtar from the site. Well, here is my question... They wanted me to give up the ** domain name. I didn't do it. Now have have some experience with making interactive databases where people would be able to put in their comments, feelings, etc., and they could be searched by people looking for information. Can they force me to give up the domain or sue me for trademark infringement if I use it as a site for information on Quixtar. My idea is not to just be negative.... My idea is to let people say what ever they want. This is a free country. :-) If people like it ... they can say so. If they don't... they can say so. I am asking you, becasue having worked for a Diamond and having put up the mlmsurvivior.com site for a while, I am sure you have had correspondence with Amway. ;-) Any suggestions? Thanks much, MLMs work for some and not for others. Climbing the corporate ladder works for some and not for others. College works for some and not for others. Marriage works for some and not for others. Churches work for some and not for others. The common denominator is not the activity; it's the person involved in the activity. Sorry about your experience. But your experience does not help or hinder anyone else in their attempts to succeed because of their individuality. Some people whine, some complain, some quit, some succeed, some never learn. In other words you get out what you put in. That's true in life; period. Good day and Happy Holidays
Hi, I'm from Malaysia. I thank
you so much for putting up this website, if I had known about
this earlier, I would've been more informed. I would like to
seek your advise on the www.skynary.com business where it cost
US$90 to join. Is this viable and legal? What do you think? Thanks
for you advise. I'm * from the netherlands and one week ago someone in my hometown contacted me about becomming an ibo for Amway here in the Netherlands. I've been to some kind of meeting. To make a long story short ... It doesn't feel good these kind of doing business. I want to make a Anti Amway Quixtar (whatever) site in Dutch. You have some good artikels about amway etc.. Do you mind when I translate some parts in Dutch for my site, there will also be a link to your site.
I'm truly sorry that you had the experiences that you had and feel the way that you do. I'm sure that if I had those same experiences I would feel the very same way. But Ruth my experience and tens-of-thousands of others are not anything like yours at all. EVERY business (not just Amway or Quixtar) has opportunity for cheaters, liars and fakes to work their scams. No one should be so nieve to think that every IBO/distributor regardless of pin level is an honest person. But at the same time, a few very bad data points do not negate the opportunity as a whole. If you discovered a dishonest dentist would you put up a "DENTIST SURVIVORS HOMEPAGE"? How about a bad doctor or lawyer or politician? Of course you wouldn't! Why? Because obviously it is childish and a wee bit ignorant for a rational adult to conclude that one experience with a professional can be applied to the entire profession. Right? Right! Let me insert again before I continue, I am not saying at all that you do not deserve to feel they way that you do. Your experiences were obviously very bad and traumatic and would make anyone run as far away from this business as possible, and rightfully so. However, the problem that I have with your website and story is that you extrapolate your experience and assume that it fits everyone. You assume everyone is about to get the shaft. That just is not true!!! The danger is you could discourage someone (based solely on one data point) from participating in a business that could have a positive effect on their life. In other words you could hurt them (unintentionally of course but never the less hurt them). Isn't that what your upline did to you? Ask yourself! Have people gotten involved in this business and had wonderful, positive life changing experiences? Have people through listening and reading from the tapes and books become better employees, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, employers, citizens? Have people made money at this? Have people been able to erase their personal debt? Have people been able to establish and maintain a relationship with their God from their association from this business? Have people even quit this business but used the leadership and entrepreneurial principles from this business to succeed in other fields? The answer (unless you won't except reality) is YES. AT THE SAME TIME the answer is NO, isn't it!! But that's true of any business, isn't it. Yes of course, without exception!!! So, what I conclude from your story is that indeed you had a horrible experience. Indeed (if what you say is true - and I believe it is) your upline was dishonest and hurt and scammed others and yourself. That was wrong, period! BUT, your experiences are by far in the minority Ruth. I would like to see you change your website to encourage people BEFORE they get involved with any upline to ask some tough, pointed questions of their leadership. Maybe by giving constructive, objective questions to ask, you could prevent others from getting involved with a crook as you were. Because IF they can avoid one of the very, very few bad LOS then the deck, as you say, is not so stacked against them. I celebrate and defend your right to free speech. But your approach to warning people of the dangers of Amway/Quixtar/MLMs should be very careful to say..."THESE ARE MY EXPERIENCES ONLY. I AM NOT SUGGESTING THAT ALL PARTICIPANTS IN THIS BUSINESS HAVE HAD BAD EXPERIENCES. AS A MATTER OF FACT MANY, MANY PEOPLE HAVE HAD WONDERFUL EXPERIENCES. HOWEVER IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING STARTING THIS KIND OF BUSINESS, HERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT I SUGGEST YOU FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF BEFORE YOU COMMIT TO START. DON'T JUST TAKE IT FROM ME OR FROM YOUR POTENTIAL SPONSOR, FIND OUT THESE THINGS (list them out) FOR YOURSELF BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING..." Ruth, this kind of statement says that you are an intelligent, fair, open-minded person who has had a bad experience. It says that you would hate to see someone else repeat your experiences thus the purpose of the website. It says that you recognize that lots of honest hard working people have succeeded, are succeeding, and will succeed in the future in this business without hurting others. It says that you were unfortunate enough to get involved with a scammer and you are interested in helping others determine if they are getting involved with the same type of person(s) so that they do not have to endure the pain that you endured. In its present state, your website is saying..."my experience is the only experience. If you get involved you will be screwed. If you happen to succeed in this business it's due to luck or you had to screw someone else. I am bitter, you will be too. Everyone involved in this is a liar, scam artists, etc..." Quite frankly Ruth, it doesn't reflect much character on your part and most intelligent entrepreneurs see right through it. The people who take your information to heart with no independent fact finding of their own are most likely the "I want something for nothing" crowd who rarely succeed at anything that takes lots of effort. Keeping your site as is makes you look very small minded and someone who is trying to "get back" at MLMs. Your e-mail address alone says the same. Changing your site (and your email address) with the suggestions I have provided makes your site and you a much more credible source of information that could help people. Ruth, it's you now that has a choice to hurt or help someone. I hope you change your site to begin helping. Please be more open-minded to the idea that your experience should not be portrayed as THE experience. That is not true and you know it's not. If you continue to perpetuate the idea that this business and all the leaders involved are dishonest and no real opportunity for success exists without scamming others...then IT'S YOU RUTH WHO IS BEING DISHONEST. How ironic and tragic is that? Thanks for your time and ear. I hope God blesses you this Christmas season. Your thoughts are sincerely welcome. hi I can understand your feelings toward amway. in fact i had the same ones, except you have personal expierences to go with yours. Your upline may have been to "fanatatical". I am new to the Quixtar business ok several monthas new. My outlook was the same you had to buy Amway products to be a part of the business. But you dont have to buy any amway products if you dont want to. You can buy office max-bass pro shops or over 300 other store and not even go to an amway site.My upline reccommends the tape of the week and the seminares, but he doesnt push it on us and has given me more pressureless help than any employer that I ever worked for. My email is **. I would like anyfeedback -good or bad.the more derogatory feedback i use to strenthen my own knowledge of this business. Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you.
Thank you for the info! I've been in contact with a sales rep for the company and he was going on about the sterling reputation the company has. Seems things are not quite what they appear to be. I also found a site by a doctor who said the claims presented are misleading and inconclusive! Particularly about the ACCESS fat burning bar, seems the study was done on hibernating animals and NOT humans! - Are there any good MLM's out there??? It does not seem like it.... - I'll forward the page on Melaleuca to you for your own reference. Part II Here's what I found on Melaleuca. It doesn't look good....you may find this useful. - I've been checking the news groups and there is a lot of hard feelings toward Amway and the new Qixtar rip-off program. Go figure... - BTW, this is what I'm invoved with www.cdbn.com I think they're a pretty good company, but only time will tell.... - Regards,
Well, unfortunately, you don't have real numbers, just assumptions. You assume a certain number of IBOs ... but many IBOs are not in Quixtar and are still in Amway (i.e., they are not ordering via the web they are still ordering via the toll-free number). I know from looking at my group that, while every single IBO in it is excited about Quixtar and see it as their opportunity and focus long term, many of them don't currently own a computer and are renewing their business as Amway distributors for the year 2000 with the intention of converting to Quixtar when they get a computer or WebTV. So subtract them from your assumed number of IBOs. By the way, sales numbers for the first 100 days are out -- the site surpassed $100 million in sales within 100 days, and is now logging sales of more than $2 million per day. The company has since Sept. 1 paid out more than $30 million in bonuses to its IBOs. ANd, by the way, my bonus checks were not part of that $30 million because I had not yet renewed my business as a Quixtar IBO-ship. I was still technically an Amway IBO and my check came from Amway Inc., not Quxtar Inc. Lots of IBOs were in the same situation, driving traffic to Quixtar but still recieving checks from Amway during this four-month transition window. Every IBO had until Dec. 31 to declare which business would be their primary business, and until that date could do business with either company. After Dec. 31, Quixtar IBOs will do business on-line, but can still sponsor people in either business. But if they put someone into Amway, that person will not be able to order on Quixtar or at the partner stores and get credit for the volume. By the way, Quixtar has spent zero dollars on traditional advertising, yet is on a pace to SMASH the current record for first-year sales volume at an ecommerce business. That record is currently $150 million, set by the site Buy.com Of course, they are cannibalizing Amway's business, a common criticism of many in the anti-Quixtar crowd, who apparently haven't read Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen. Christensen's book "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail", which concludes that large corporations can avoid failure only if they create subsidiaries that attack the parent. It's that philosophy that caused CompUSA, for example, to launch Cozone.com, an ecommerce competitor to itself, for the express purpose of cannibalizing CompUSA's retail business before someone else does. Quixtar initially is going to pull most of its business from people who already would have bought from Amway ... but will grow beyond that. (In fact, already is growing beyond that -- in my group most of the IBOs got in because Quixtar was coming, and if Quixtar hadn't been created, they would still be shopping at Wal-Mart.) Sales are now running above $2 million per day. At that rate, by the end of its first year, Quixtar will post sales of close to a half-billion dollars. My guess is, the rate will continue to grow and will pass $1 billion in its first year and $5 billion in its second -- after all, most of the country is not online, and most people are not yet shopping online, and Quixtar does not yet have all of its partner stores in place. Check out the story in the Saturday Dec. 18 Chattanooga, Tenn., paper on e-Merchant Group. The company builds and owns e-commerce stores and affiliates them with membership groups, the biggest of which is Quixtar. Several of the company's web stores are Quixtar partner stores. Business at its web sites is DOUBLING every month in recent months. Quixtar is driving traffic to those stores, just as the business plan said it would. Then there is BassProShop's website, which reported sales up 40 percent in October directly because of traffic from Quixtar. Then there is OfficeMax.com, which suddenly jumped into the top-20 on PC Data's charts in November, the third month of it being a Quixtar partner store. Is Quixtar working? Absolutely. Are IBOs who generate traffic making money? Absolutely. You'll need to update your
assumption-based calculations -- Quixtar's performance is rendering
them useless. Wow, what a site this is. We just got on the Internet when Quixtar came out as we were told by our upline how it was going to make us all rich. What a joke! They are so far behind at quixtar they think they are first! We never ever thought that we would write to a site like this but we are just so fed up and so mad that we feel we have to do something to try and stop more and more people from being sucked in. Thank you for your site and please post on here links to any other sites that we can post to as Amway is doing less business every year now and we can make them disappear as long as we all keep letting people know how bad of a con job it is. We are in the Don Lorenz group and proud to be but we are like many other leaders in his group, we are in Don’s group, not hers and we are not doing anything until he is back. If Don stays in, we believe that he can play a very essential role in fixing this Amway business so that people can be proud to be in it. If Don doesn’t come back as there is rumors that he is involved with another multi level, we will follow him because without him, there is nothing – not in his organization, not in the false north or true north that they like to call it and sure nothing in the Ogden organization. If you go to don’s web site you will learn the truth from a diamond and not just any diamond but a true loving human being that thousands of us know, love and respect and a very rare individual that does not put money in front of his values. On don’s web site you will see a letter from the Ogdens that Don answered and posted a copy of his answer. Let me tell you from experience, Don is right! We wear a big pin in the Ogden group and their letter is nothing but a bunch of lies! 99% of us in the Ogden group would love Don to come in, take over this sorry organization, and get rid of Hitler and his wife. Of course Alan or Donna never had an original thought in their lives anyway, they wouldn’t even know how or where to go to the crapper if it wasn’t for Crawford the dictator of all dictators. Don is right when he says the functions are getting smaller and smaller and smaller as the only people that even like the Crawfords are the people that are helping them rob all the rest of the people in the group of not only their money but their pride, self-esteem, confidence and values. People in Don’s group were shocked when him and Allie broke up but we weren’t and neither were a lot of others. Allie is no leader, never has been, and never will be and without Don, she will go back to being what she was before she met him, a nothing! You should see her at functions now that Don is not going to them, she walks around like she is a queen of some kind thinking that she had something to do with building Don’s business when we all know that is totally false. All you need to do is listen to her for two minutes and she sounds like a tape recorder, as she doesn’t know anything herself. She always took Don for granted and now he is divorcing her and we are happy for him. We were always told in Amway that one person can make a difference, well you guys that own this site are sure proving them right, you are making a huge difference around the world, you are giving people the information they need before they get conned into Amway. Keep up the good work
Hello, Thanks for your thoughtful message. I'm glad that you agree about the importance of going after the other Equinox leaders, and not just Gouldd. Perhaps we could have a homepage for Equinox Survivors within MLM Survivor which will address the legal responsibility of the other Equinox leaders and direct people to go to the relevant authorities (i.e., district attorneys and fraud units in the police department). I appreciate your interest and assistance in this matter. All the best,
I pity you. What it must be like to live a world centered around yourself. Remember, the person with the experience is never at the mercy of the person with a theory. If you had ANY IDEA what my experiences are you would be very, very red-faced right now. I hope someday you will mature beyond this. Good day.
Thanks for taking the time and resources to put together such an infrmative site. Network Marketing as the great industry it is, needs more of us exposing the sleezy scammers that can give ALL of us a bad name. Happy holidays!
1. I have not seen your page at recourse.htm and aglist.htm. How can I view this page ? 2. I think that the page for Equinox Survivors needs to include the following: A. INFORMATION on the Activities of the FTC and HOW TO CONTACT their attorney, Mr. Gary Ivens The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as well as the Attorney Generals of several states have pursued this company and a trial is scheduled for the Spring of 2000. For more information on the actions of the FTC, you can contact Mr. Gary Ivens, Esq., the attorney at the FTC responsible for this case. The FTC has collected hundreds of cases of people who have come forward and reported what Equinox did to them. The website of the FTC at www.FTC.gov has a section on Equinox International. Mr. Gary Ivens telephone number is 202 326 2330. Mr. Ivens can direct you to the name of an attorney in Texas who is working on a class action suit against Equinox and Mr. Gouldd. B. Going After the Top Producers and Leadership at Equinox The authorities are dealing with Bill Gouldd. However, no one is addressing the legal responbility of the top producers (e.g., Laurie Rubidge, Oscar Alcoser, Philip Townsend, Michael Heyl). The victims of Equinox need to go to the District Attorneys and Fraud Units in their City or Community and report their leadership and top producers for their fraudelent actions. These producers from Equinox need to serve time in prison for their criminal actions. What do you think ? Thanks and best wishes, Re: Quixtar Sir; I read your site with much interest as a friend of mine just approached me yesterday about Quixtar and gave me pretty much the same pitch about Microsoft, Orlando Magic and others were partners in it, which I questioned, he was asking for $118.95 to sign up and of course I told him that I had to research the company first, I am glad I did now. Pretty much everything you said that they were going to take out of their sales pitch is still in it. Sincerely, |
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