lbg@gitpyr.UUCP (Lee B Grey, Programmer Extraordinaire) (09/12/85)
[ I hope you choke on it ] I was introduced to AMWAY last night. Before last night, I would have said that the whole thing was a scam. I mean, have you ever met anyone who owns an AMWAY product? With 1 million distributors and ~300 million Americans, there is a salesman for every 300 of us. Who is buying their stuff???? Despite my initial bias and inborn skepticism, I listened. By the end of the night, I was either brainwashed by my own greed, hypnotized by the guy's white-board technique, or fairly impressed by the content of his presentation. Today, a friend of mine and I did rather extensive research and turned up very little dirt on AMWAY. So, I am turning to you...MY FRIENDS. Has anyone out there had any experience with AMWAY? Do you actually know of anyone who was/is involved? Any AMWAY customers? Is getting involved with AMWAY like getting involved with the KGB or the Mafia, i.e. once you're in, you'll never get yourself uninvolved? The whole thing sounds very enticing, but, what can you expect from people who are in it up to their eyeballs? I want informed, unbiased information. Can you help me? I am not looking for good news. Or bad news. Just the truth. Please respond to me through mail. If anyone asks, I will summarize and repost, assuming I get a response. Thanks, a lot. Lee Grey P.S. I keep picturing myself getting involved in this awful organization, but no one knows it is awful but the people who are in. Only they're not telling. Like the first story in Stephen King's Cat's Eye, where your "friends" help you quit smoking and over-eating.
fred@mot.UUCP (Fred Christiansen) (09/16/85)
in an effort to boost income, my wife and I joined Shaklee some time back.
we found their products excellent in quality, and only occasionally overpriced.
because doing it as a business consumed more time than we cared to allot (we
are very family-activity oriented) and maybe because we weren't being very
succesful (despite fair $$ and time investment), we quit the business end.
i am acquainted with folk in Amway, Nature's Sunshine, Pro-Vita,
Tupperware, et al. they are all reputable. they all use roughly the same
multi-level marketing arrangement.
unfortunately, there are many, many organizations that are not. always
check with the Better Business Bureau in your area and in the area where the
organization is headquartered.
--
<< Generic disclaimer >>
Fred Christiansen ("Canajun, eh?") @ Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ
UUCP: {seismo!terak, trwrb!flkvax, utzoo!mnetor, ihnp4!btlunix}!mot!fred
ARPA: oakhill!mot!fred@ut-sally.ARPA AT&T: 602-438-3472ayers@convexs.UUCP (09/18/85)
>I was introduced to AMWAY last night. Before last night, I would have said >that the whole thing was a scam. I mean, have you ever met anyone who owns >an AMWAY product? With 1 million distributors and ~300 million Americans, >there is a salesman for every 300 of us. Who is buying their stuff???? I used to love their stuff. Great products. The only thing is, I could never find anyone who wanted to sell me any. Now, they wanted to "let me in on the ground floor for very little money I can be a distributor too and have all those salesfolks selling for me and getting me rich and if I want to sell distributorships then I can make even more" and help me out THAT way, but no one wanted to sell me any products. Not enough money in it to replace what they'd invested... >Has anyone out there had any experience with AMWAY? Do you actually know of >anyone who was/is involved? Any AMWAY customers? Is getting involved with >AMWAY like getting involved with the KGB or the Mafia, i.e. once you're in, >you'll never get yourself uninvolved? See above. ("Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...") ::::::::::::::::::: :: :: :::::::::::: :: :: ::::::::::::::::::: :: :: :: ::::::::::: :: :: / :: :: :: :: ::::::::::: :: :: / :: :: ::
daemon@decwrl.UUCP (The devil himself) (09/23/85)
Having run my own distributorship for a few years, I can positively tell you that indeed AMWAY is a genuine money-maker. What leads people to be confused is that the corporation has thousands of independent distributors each running their own independent business, making up their own policies concerning deliveries, payments, sales, warehousing; literally every business philosophy can be determined independently. Albeit, AMWAY has a Code of Ethics which each distributor is expected to follow, but it has allowed each of its million distributorships (that's world-wide by the way, not U.S. only) to determine pretty much everything else. A company that has been in business for over 25 years, has surpassed the $ Billion/year income, has produced scores of millionaires, provides a superb product of unimpeachable guarantee is definitely not a sham. I could provide you a list of top-notch qualities, among them a teaching system that is unsur- passed, but space and time won't allow. If you'd like more information on AMWAY--it's philosophy, people, potential, etc. I suggest you read "The Possible Dream" or "Uncommon Freedom" both written by Paul Conn, who is NOT an AMWAY distributor but rather a college professor and motivational speaker to groups across the country. Should you desire a more personal approach, I should be happy to provide more practical information for your benefit. Feel free to contact me. Judy Tuttle--Digital at Tewksbury Phone Bus: 617-858-2718, Home: 617-874-2895 (DEC E-NET) EXODUS::TUTTLE
csg@pyramid.UUCP (Carl S. Gutekunst) (09/24/85)
The real concern for consumers regarding Amway products is their quality and
performance relative to their cost. Independent testing (by Consumers Union
and others) has generally shown Amway products to be of average quality, with
well above average prices. This has also proven true for many other "home
sales" products, such as Tupperware.
True, many happy customers swear by these products. But this is irrelevent to
the basic fact: If product quality is your main concern, you can do just as
well buying from your Safeway, Kroger, or K-Mart as from your Amway rep. And
you probably will save a lot of money.
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-m------- Carl S. Gutekunst, Software R&D, Pyramid Technology Corp.
---mmm----- P.O. Box 7925 {allegra,decwrl,dual,nsc,sun}\
-----mmmmm--- Mt. View, CA {ihnp4,uiucuxa,uwvax}!pyrchi >!pyramid!csg
-------mmmmmmm- 415/965-7200 topaz!pyrnj/smh@rduxb.UUCP (henning) (09/25/85)
> If product quality is your main concern, you can do just as > well buying from your Safeway, Kroger, or K-Mart as from your Amway rep. And > you probably will save a lot of money. But you won't be helping someone buy a cadilac, furs, and a swimming pool.