Amway Hurts My Head to Think About

Make it stop. I've only ever experienced this level of analysis paralysis before while researching how Moonies run our government. I had no idea Amway runs the world.


One by one, global multilevel marketing.

Of course it should suprise nobody not already in this cult of "compassionate" capitalist prosthelytizing that it's just a pyramid scheme, but the reach of power into churches and governments alike would give the Vatican big hat envy.

Just read, research, decide for yourself.

Amway: "Masters of Deception"

Bush + Republicans + Amway = FRAUD

GOP for Sale?

Amway & The Republican Party...Partners In Crime?

As a life long conservative voter, I am deeply disappointed about what I discovered and documented next in my research. The one question that has haunted me as I spent literally thousands of hours investigating and documenting this, is “How could this have possibly gone on for so long?” There certainly is an apparent “credibility by magnitude”. However, what sets this apart from Enron, Adelphia, Tyco and Worldcom is the use of high level Republicans politicians, some of whom became distributors and others who actively promoted Amway.

I met Newt Gingrich when he came in and was paid to speak for thousands of Amway distributors in the Harteis organization. In his speech he advised that, “Nothing would do more to help the people that used to live in what was called the Soviet empire to achieve prosperity, to achieve freedom, to achieve opportunity than to have sixty or seventy thousand Amway folks go over there and start recruiting”
After All We Are Americans audiotape Newt Gingrich CE-50


Click here To Hear Newt Gingrich Proclaim Amway As Russia's Economic Savior!


USA Today ran an interesting article on Mr. Gingrich, stating that the former Speaker of the House of Representatives raked in a windfall fee of “$50,000 a speech.” (USA Today Feb 09, 2000 p 21A “Gingrich Out of office, but hardly out of ideas” William M. Welch.) Could those large amounts of money actually be considered an investment for Amway or its motivational organizations? The answer to that question would soon be evident. One report discussed a “$283 million payoff” for Amway’s campaign contributions. It described a new budget package that was amended by an apparent friend of Amway. “The payoff for Amway was not in the original House or Senate version of the tax bill. House Speaker Newt Gingrich intervened at the last minute to help get the special tax break inserted in the bill.” (San Antonio Express-News August 12,1997) “Amway Has Voice in Congress” Molly Ivans.)
You can see the entire article here:


Click here To Download The Article Showing Congress Giving Amway $283 Million!


Further research revealed that the book The Buying of the Congress sheds more light on this sweetheart deal:

“It could not have hurt that from 1994 to 1996 Amway gave $366,000 to Republican Party causes and candidates and that it employs Roger Mentz, who was the Assistant Treasury Secretary for Tax policy in the Reagan Administration, as its tax lobbyist.”

Despite being a Republican I began to dig further into campaign donation records and was appalled at what I discovered. What you will find below is a very brief cross section of donation records and reflects only the tip of the iceberg of what has been done in the political arena.

I discovered a Political Action Committee (PAC) called Restoring the American Dream. Here is an official document of the PAC showing that the President is Dick DeVos and it has a board of advisors are made up of a group of people, many of whom have received donations from either Amway, DeVos or VanAndel family members and/or Kingpin distributors.


Click here To Download The Proof Of The Republican PAC Link To Amway!


Further research into public records reveals the following accumulation of funds in the PAC, 100% of which were given to Republican candidates.

1998 $509,882
1999 $572,016...$10,000 donated to John Ashcroft
2002 $324,583
2004 $25,368...$5,000 donated to George W. Bush
Total $1,431,849

The list of donors to the Restoring the American Dream PAC are a great deal of Amway Diamonds and DeVos family members, among others.

Here is a voice mail from Dexter Yager when only Amway Diamonds and “Alticor” affiliated individuals were invited to the White House for an exclusive meeting with the President.


Click here To Hear Dexter Yager & His Team Gloat About Their White House Visit!


My research into the donation records of the last twenty years seemed complete until I became aware of a nineteen page document researched by a consumer advocacy group that is simply astounding in its detail. Here is a small sampling of the report, made public for the first time here.

The Political Influence of Multi-Level Marketing Organizations
1. Donations to the Most Conservative Elements of the Republican Party and to Right-Wing Organizations
• The single largest soft money donation on record to any political party was $2.5 million from the Amway Corporation to the Republican Party in 1994.
• When the GOP held its national convention in San Diego in 1996, Amway gave $1.3 million to the city’s host committee “to defer convention costs.” The Washington Post reported: “Amway’s gift freed up money that the Republicans used to finance nightly cable broadcasts of their own in-house convention coverage, carried on Pat Robertson’s Family Channel.”
• In April 1997, the co-founder of Amway Corp. gave $1 million to the Republican Party, one of the largest single donations on record from an individual. Federal Election Commission records show that Richard DeVos, said to be worth $3.2 billion, and his wife, Helen, wrote two $500,000 checks on April 2, 1997 from their personal accounts. DeVos is the former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.
• Betsy DeVos, daughter-in-law of the Amway co-founder Richard DeVos, won special status in 2000 as a so-called "Pioneer" after raising $100,000 for the Bush/Cheney campaign.
• According to the consumer watchdog group Common Cause, Amway and affiliated donors made soft money contributions to the Republican National Committee totaling $4,147,000 between January 1, 1991 and June 30, 1997.
• In 2000, Amway was the second largest contributor of “soft money” to the Republican National Party with contributions totaling $1,138,500. Amway was second in donations only to Reynolds Tobacco.
• In 2004, the extreme 527 “Progress for America” received money from Amway. “The latest crop of donors includes Amway founders Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel, who each chipped in $2 million.” (Newsweek, “The Secret Money War,” September 20, 2004.)

2. Insider Influence within the Republican Party
• The scale and duration of Amway's inside connections to Republican operatives were epitomized in an investigative piece by David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation and a regular contributor to Salon.com. Corn referenced the findings of an investigation by the Federal Elections Commission which showed that "during a 1991 meeting of Newt Gingrich's political action committee, GOPAC, Gingrich" had explored the possibility that "the Amway corporation could fund a Republican effort to gain control of the House."
• Describing the events at the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia where George W. Bush was nominated, the New York Times wrote, “For the party’s top underwriters, there will be an array of gold-plated events in Philadelphia, including cocktails with Gen. Colin L. Powell and an evening cruise on the Delaware River aboard the ‘Enterprise,’ the yacht owned by Richard M. DeVos, the Amway founder, who is a Bush supporter.”
• Insiders were feted aboard Dick and Betsy DeVos’ yacht at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, as well as Jay Van Andel’s lavish 169-footer. (Kathleen Gray, Detroit Free Press, 9/2/04)

Click here To Go To Part Two Of "Amway & The Republican Party...Partners In Crime?
BUSH FAMILY CONNECTIONS (cont)

I've had numerous "run-ins" with the cult of Amway myself, from literally being run down by a meglomanical southern conference leader in his Lincoln Town Car trying to jack a Conference Center I'd already rented (for my own cult ) to already quite wealthy bosses trying to use their influence to push their crappy Amway products on employees. But damn. Reagan, Oliver North, Gingrich, the Bush family, Robert Schuller...

I'm freaked OUT!

i admit that amway is way out there. i had a friend join their ranks for awile. man you would have sworn he found religion. he was worse than an jehova's witness in his constant prattleing away about it. he was seriously trying to convert us.

It's called"Alticor" now, so your friends don't hang up when you call to interest them in a exciting new business opportunity.

It's a ponzi scheme with products, and the motivational business basis of what they do is has enough truth to it to make it seem plausable, but in the end, you're still a sucker if you buy into it.

I drive by the building pictured every day, and do have to say that Rich & Jay have poured a lot of thier ill-gotten gains into Grand Rapids; then again, almost half the buildings downtown are named after them.

Check out this thread...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

God this thread brings back some bad memories. I was in B&N reading a computer book and a guy tried to peddle me "Quixstar" (go to alticor.com...its a sister company to amway). I told him it sounded like "multilevel marketing" and that I wasn't interested and you'd think I had blasphemed against the virgin Mary Herself. The long and short of it is that I had to get really really nasty with the guy and then involve the store manager before he'd let it go. And he was CREEEEEEEEEEEPY.

Sort of.....I was always on the hustle for a buck & had a girlfriend at the time whose mother had a store, a beauty shop & several other small enterprises. They got me to join via purchasing a starter kit of products ( all cleaning supplies ).
We went to this "seminar" with a bunch of "succesful" couples teaching you how to sign people up under you; because, after all, you only make bank by pimping as many "ho's" as possible in the pyramid. There were tapes for sale out the wazoo....to motivate you.
I sold one can of car cleaner to my mother.

Amway is huge, but wait until walmart gets wind if this......there's gonna be heck to pay !

Amway is not a Ponzi scheme. I prefer a good Ponzi scheme to Amway any day!

There is no doubt that Amway's core products are extremely good and also extremely concentrated. Heck, I still have cleaners from the days when I was trying to make it work, '91-'93. Good stuff. As far as the Sears-type catalogue is concerned, steer clear. Amway's buyers buy the lowest quality crap. I bought a Fossil watch, for example, that lasted an amazing 1 week!

Now, as far as the business goes, here it is from the inside:

Amway's leaders (those at the top tier levels, called Crown Diamonds) use the "Name It-Claim It" perversion of Christianity to control the people, along with numerous rallies and with the use of "motivational tapes" to maintain the brainwashing between the rallies and so-called seminars.

In the group I was in, every Sunday morning of a major rally, there would be a church service. At the end of the church sermon, there would be an alter call for the unsaved who'd like to come forward and except Christ. I referrred to them as "Alter Bludeonings" as it almost seemed compulsory that one went forward.

AS a Christian, I liked the family-oriented and traditional values Amway seemed to embrace, but it didn't take long to determine that it was a huge cult with one goal in mind; to drive people into believing that they were selling products and bringing people into the business because it was "God's Business". I tried to continue building the business as the business concept seemed like a good idea, but the whole cult thing drove me away.

If you know a sells man who will sell you a box of detergent, dishwashing soap or disinfectant without making you sit through "The Plan", take advantage of the products. Other than that, RUN!!

I never met a person who would be regularly buying goods from Amway. Which begs a question, what did I miss? Where al these people live? What are they like?

People buying products from Amway salesmen? Most give up trying to buy products as the salesman eventually becomes frustrated and quits the business.

You might find a distibutor in the phone book; some distributors advertize exactly what they do because they actually enjoy selling stuff! Sick puppies!

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
People buying products from Amway salesmen? Most give up trying to buy products as the salesman eventually becomes frustrated and quits the business.

So you are saying that they actually don't sell much at all?

I never knew if their real sales were large or not.

For the majority of the distributors, their personal usage is as far as it goes. While retail sales is certainly encouraged, most people don't want to do that. They'd rather build the pyramid, so to speak.

Originally posted by twitchy
Check out this thread...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

You posted the press release information when alot of this was first coming out. I didn't see that or mean to jack the topic. I just saw alot of this in different sources and was truly blown away.

And TC that insight is awesome from both a Christian perspective and former "insider." Like I said, I've been befuddled by people I knew into it, like a quite wealthy businessman that suddenly dove in head first, and looking back became overtly religious and political (even ran for local office) around the same time. Success became a crusade to a fault, and he was giving away work to new found "peers" trying to run for office too. He really got on some questionable grounds in ethics not just pushing products to subordinates, but bending unrelated industry rules, blatantly smearing competitors, doing illegal push polls and just generally losing it.

Man, it could have been the Amway brainwashing component. Bumping heads with that regional leader was an eye opener too. I suspect that was the night before a big Sunday rally looking back. I had teamsters on hand "securing" our contractual rights or it would have been ugly. Fanatical doesn't begin to describe. The guy ran over me! :shk:

Oh, I've heard the concentrated cleaners are good too, but you couldn't sell that toilet paper to prisons. At least the stuff from '93. Yikes!

They are a religious cult, comparable to Opus Dei sort of and their products? Sheer mortification!!!

RANT

Your RANT and your corporation-evaluation life could be enhanced by finding and enjoying the TISM song "Amway". The lyrics are worth having too.

Some people are just envious they didn't get in early on MLMs. You don't sound like one of them.

Dream killers! Commies!

Just kidding. Check out scamway's fight against proctor and gamble and thier "satanic" logo. Funny stuff!

Originally posted by RANT
Man, it could have been the Amway brainwashing component. Bumping heads with that regional leader was an eye opener too. I suspect that was the night before a big Sunday rally looking back. I had teamsters on hand "securing" our contractual rights or it would have been ugly. Fanatical doesn't begin to describe. The guy ran over me! :shk:

I work in independent film and have acted in ten films now and the few times that I have ran into union guys it has never been a pleasant experience. North Carolina is a right to work state and unions aren't as common here, but when the teamsters are on the set, you can't even drive yourself to go get a cheeseburger without getting slung off the set and blackballed and maybe beat up later. That's why I don't send headshots to big production companies, screw that pyschobabble. Inddependent film doesn't often pay much and the publicity is often home-made, but as a wise friend once told me, it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big ocean. Unions were a good thing once, they kept kids out of coal mines and bugs out of food, but there is so much competition now in the job markets that I wonder if they haven't now become the very thing they fought against.
Amway's ties to large Right interests is no suprise, while oviously all political frive in this country is, UNFORTUNATElY, no longer a mandate of the people, but a cash flow for coporate interests.

Twichy, this is off the subject, but as a former Teamster and a current IAM&AW member, I assure you, unions are just as necessary today as they were then.

I wouldn't worry too much about Amway. It is too frustrating to work. There'll never be enough people in it to take over the world!

Hmmm, I have been around many people involved in Scamway and for the most part, it's for buying cleaning products, luggage, and other stuff for themselves and friends. Every single person though has the brain-washed idea to expand their own "sales force" with recruitment parties.

Eventually they lose all their friends, or they mellow out about it.

I remember working with a guy that was convinced (due to being cult-ivated into Scamway) that he was going to buy oil through Amway and sell it cheaper over here and corner the world market.

I was like "don't you think, if that were possible...someone would have thought of that before you?"

Still, he was intent on his plan. Guess it never really worked out. The brainwashing gets them thinking they will own the world after a few years of donating up the pyramid (or whatever).

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
If you know a sells man who will sell you a box of detergent, dishwashing soap or disinfectant without making you sit through "The Plan", take advantage of the products. Other than that, RUN!!

A fanatic, whether a religious one, patriotic one or a "corporate-minded" one, is the worst type of opponent to have...It's the level of motivation that a fanatic possess that make them so dangerous.

Psychologists & "Stress Managment" experts refer to this type of person as a "Type A Personality". I'm sure everyone has met somebody who qualifies: It's the type of person who mainlines caffine & nicotine so as to stay awake longer & get more "accomplished" so that, by the time they retire they can have a good income level...But usually wind up dead of a heart attack by age 35.

Ok, I admit I got suckered into Amway for a while...But I had trouble in developing the "Type A" attitude that it takes to become an effective salesman. I'd rather die poor than die early.