As an IBO, one of the things that struck me as weird was our upline's insistence on instilling in us the belief that the Amway business was all about "assisting others." In some manner, our upline believed that presenting someone the plan or conversing with them about the Amway business was a way to assist them. That's because our upline believed that if everyone didn't join Amway, they would all be bound to financial ruin in the end. Of course, now that I look back, I realise that nothing could be further from the reality. In fact, I would have to state that the process of starting a business and purchasing tools was the DIRECT CAUSE of financial ruin for some of my fellow IBO members. Several house foreclosures and a handful of bankruptcies involving members of my cross-line group came to my attention during that time.
It's as if IBOs were hiding a horrible secret from the rest of the world, and by sharing this secret with prospects, they could save the world. The topic of numerous voicemails (which were sent through Amvox at the time) was how IBOs in the organisation were saving the world by providing assistance to those in need. I used to be perplexed as to how we were able to "assist" individuals when we were essentially only "helping" IBOs who were looking to expand their businesses. In the event that someone refused to participate, they were forgotten and referred to as "broke losers." Our upline claims that we tossed them a life preserver, but that they turned it down, thus we are moving on from them. It was frequently compared to a church activity in which IBOs are tasked with the task of saving souls. As an aside, I thought this was particularly strange because we were frequently instructed that we could give money to the church in the future ($10,000 cheques) and that we could work in ministry when we were "free" because we went diamond. Although this seems ridiculous now, we were informed at the time that it was a form of delayed gratification. Following my departure from Amway, I spoke with the senior pastor of my church, who expressed his belief that Amway was destructive to many people because it made too many hollow promises. In other words, they encourage people to have huge aspirations and to accumulate fortune, but relatively few of them actually achieve any level of success, for whatever reason. According to the pastor, the explanation for the poor success rate was irrelevant. The fact that Amway was a rare opportunity to experience success was sufficient evidence to determine that it was a bad investment. He claimed that multi-level marketing in general was a scam that peddled false promises and desires.
In fact, some diamonds can be interpreted as preachers of riches. Despite the fact that their riches may have come from other sources, like as tools income, they falsely advertise Amway as the primary source of their prosperity. Then they lure and switch IBOs, convincing them that the tools system is the only way to succeed while reaping substantial financial benefits from the tools themselves. They then attempt to excuse their conflict of interest by arguing that by joining Amway, independent business owners (IBOs) are assisting others and/or carrying out God's will. I feel that many independent business owners (IBOs) are delivering false optimism and promises to prospects, as instructed by their upline leaders. They are losing money while claiming to be helping a good cause. I hope they realise what they need to do before it is too late.
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