Whenever a TBM brags about how many church members there are... what is it now, 13 to 14 million?

Just say, "yeah, that's like Amway counting every last person that has ever joined, as associates, and bragging about the huge number. The dirty little secret is, that the vast majority have quit and are never coming back".

I had heard a rumour once that AMWAY was founded by mormons? Anything to it?

If it wasn't founded by Mormons a lot the big wigs at the top were/are most likely Mo's. They gravitate to pyramid schemes like white on rice.

Amway was founded by Dutch Reform Christians from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Two families were involved - one was the DeVos family. The heir to the Amway fortune, Dick DeVos, ran for governor of Michigan in the mid-2000s.

The company has evangelical Christan roots, but they are not Mormon-owned or Mormon-founded.

A "pyramid scheme" is a pyramid scheme is a pyramid scheme.
(similar to a Ponzi scheme, but different)

As for the "charitable" Mormons, no, they are NOT Christians.
In fact, they couldn't be further removed from the One True Church.
The FACT is that Mormons ONLY assist each other.
Now, how "Christian" is that?
Catholic Social Services helps EVERYONE. So does the Salvation Army and most Baptist sects.

Pols like Mittens Romney and all FIVE of his sons avoided military service. What an embarrassment!
Now isn't that special. /sarc
Cowardess runs in the family.

Oh, you want to attend your brother's wedding at the "Mormon Temple", but you were smart enough to NOT "convert" - you won't be attending ANY "festivities" at ANY "temple".

Ex-Pat from Mormon territory.
~(Ä)~

No, they most emphatically do not.

You're correct, however, that Catholic Services isn't likely to help an individual looking for gender reassignment therapy or help coping with the stress of dealing with a minority sexual orientation in a highly religious and/or judgemental family.

haha...my family just got into the Protandim, the new Mormon AMWAY. I know it wasnt started by mormons but they cant help themselves... capitalize on their social network. It's a pyramid scheme, but an alright product(different herbs to reduce your oxidative stress levels in your cells). My sister signed up in a town in Northern Arizona. Her child's teacher told her at parent teacher conference that he may not teach next year because he is making so much money now in Protandim. My sister is now signed up for it, she is trying to get my whole family in it. I am taking it right now and don't have much of an opinion on it. They are pretty excited for it though. They did their pitch for my sister and me and my sister kept making comments like is this like a Mormon thing like Amway? needless to say my b-in-law was very offended that she was so disrespectful. Drama drama drama. I saw her husband like a week ago and he wouldn't even look at me

Also, because their product is a fraud. If it wasn't you've have doctors selling it. (Real doctors.)

Amway brainwashes it's recruits into believing that 'opposition' is only from people who want to 'hold them back'from success or steal their dreams etc.

Of course we all know that opposition to scams like Amway are from people who don't want to see their friends or family sucked into a hideous time wasting organisation like Amway.

These Pyramid schemes effectively brainwash people to waste their time for as long as possible because the smallest sales contribution from thousands of suckers makes up a good 'commission' packet for those at the top of the scam.

Those who finally decide they have wasted enough time and leave are even led to believe the problem was them and not the product?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2011 03:32PM by zeezrom.

Many years ago I was recruited by an LDS coworker, and I paid into the system for a few months without making any sales. I did not make a penny of my own income, but I fed a few hundred dollars into my "upline" anyway with upstart costs. They sell you a kit with sample products, order forms, and literature, that costed maybe $150ish.
Then there's immediate pressure to buy all your toiletries and other products they sell from your sponsor. So for a few months I travelled across town, sometimes even on the bus, to pick up my toilet paper and stuff. A big share of my purchases was Amway propaganda. They sold motivational tapes and books, by subscription, so they just kept coming and I just kept paying.

But the WORST part to me was the pressure to recruit your friends. I never had the gall to proposition a friend on my own, but my sponsor persuaded me to give him a few names, and he called them, which I think was much worse after all. My friends declined, and I think there's an inevitable sense of disenginuity in using your friends like that, and giving out their name to solicitors. It was a total mistake.

But now many years later I see the parasitic nature of life, and the church and Amway share some of the same mechanisms of sucking blood from people. Their "product" is a disservice.

That is the methodology employed by Sprint® Wireless.

In the 1980s-1990s they exerted unbelievable pressure on their customers to turn over to them the names and addresses of their friends and family who were not Sprint customers. Several friends and acquaintances did this with my name, without my permission.

They soon found they were no longer my friends.

Mormon: Satan will try hard to make you fail
Amway: Mr. Negative says you won't succeed

Mormon: Line upon line
Amway: Downline upon downline


Mormon: Could you give a little more to the priesthood fund?
Amway: Don't you want to buy these extra motivational tapes?

Mormon: Perhaps sin and laziness made you drop out
Amway: Lack of ambition took you out of the game

Mormon: No celestial kingdom for you
Amway: No Cadillac CTS coupe for you

Don't forget the CTR

Do you want to fly with eagles or turkeys?

I'll never forget that poster on the wall in my in-laws kitchen.


Anagrammy

This was 20+ years ago and I was a hospital financial executive in San Francisco and this person was a Doctor. He was disturbed by how a lot of medical procedures were being down-graded from necessary to optional cosmetic surgery and therefore would not be paid by insurance. He was a Dermatologist.

He said would I like to go to an Amway meeting and I agreed but I told him I would never join so there would not be any hard feelings.

Of course, as we both knew he would agree but he would think when I saw the greatness of it I would change my mind. I told him I was a student of human nature and would like to see what goes on there.

As a nevermo I once went to a Mormon snot sling Fast Sunday and chugalugged the papercup of water and ate the lump of Wonder Bread. I have been to almost every kind of church you could name.

Once.

In the 1960s I one time went to a Berkeley hippie Hare Krishna "temple" place and ate glop with my hands.
The shaved head hippie from Kansas said that when everyone on earth sings the Hara Rama song on the same day then Krishna will come out and show himself. I rember thinking Krishna is screwed as long as I am alive.

But I digress.

Dr. C_____ never got me into Amway. He died in his 60s and I am 71.

Guess Amway doesn't extend your life. I don't think he made any money from trying to get people like me to get suckers to get their friends to buy toilet paper because he kept working as a physicial till he died today. Cheryl and I retired near the end of last century.

PS Her eys are improving and she will be back here soon.

Pay Lay Alol

MLM distribution is about the most inefficient possible;

Im thinking that transpo costs are hurting them...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2011 11:36PM by guynoirprivateeye.

I just completed a search on lds.org for multilevel marketing. There were no results. I would think that the profits would warn the members about such scams but there are more important things such as making sure that the women wear only one earring in each ear.

My parents bought a few Amway products from a friend when I was younger. I was unimpressed by them. I thought that you could get similar quality products in a grocery store for a lot less money.

I know what you mean. My mother worked for Amway for a bit when I was younger. She said she got out because instead of paying her with money, they paid her with PRIZES. WTF?

I just posted this link on another thread, but I think it's even more approproate here. Mother Jones Magazine does a great job of explaining why Mormons are so susceptible to the scams otherwise known as MLM'S (Multi Level Marketing). There was also a 20/20 segment in the mid 90's on Amway as a cult. Same reasoning can be applied to Mormonism as a cult.

Here's the link.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/mitt-romney-nu-skin-multilevel-marketing-schemes

We got a food storage order and help with rent/utilities. The Bish insisted that we receive budgeting counsel with the Elder's Quorum President, who just happened to be my husband's sponsor in Amway (which I thought was a huge scam).

Well the boys went over our monthly bills and income. They cut out unnecessary expenses and re-tooled some things so our budget would work. When I saw the finished work sheet, I was ASTOUNDED that they left in our Amway expenses (such as the monthly autoship fee for motivational tapes and literature).

THAT was the Holy Ghost guiding the EQP?! Provident Living at it's finest.

;o)

People often behave in their own self-interest, regardless of the consequences to others...

My dad used to do Scamway, and he tried to use his Mormon connections to build his pyramid. He was recruited by an Elder in his ward and most of his recruits were Mormon as well.

I don't know in terms of business, I really don't think you need this whole social aspect coming into play. Example, my brother in law owns a store. He sells products, and people buy them, no real marketing or social networks going on. He just has good products at a reasonable price (furniture).

Being his accountant at the moment, he has a net worth of nearly $10 million, and he's only 44. Forget the Caddy CTS, he has a Custom built twin turbo Range Rover, and it's paid off.

And sorry, I despise Amway and I hate being bombarded with shameless plugs for miracle juices and overpriced soaps. And I really despised when I was taken to a "job interview" which was an Amway presentation and was told I could magically become an owner of Costco or some non sense. I apologize for the mini-vent, but I had to get it off my mind. Business is business, and people buy stuff because they need or want it, but never naturally because their friends and capitalizing on their connections at church and social gatherings.

Tell you what, TennesseeSaint, you can take your cultist attitude and go -- well, I'm too much the Southern gentlewoman to finish that sentence.


I have never known anybody who made more money than they spent on those MLMs in the long haul. Nobody.


Fortunately, I've been smart enough to avoid joining them.


Every time I've been approached to join one -- without fail -- it has been an LDS person who tried to get me to join.


Thankfully, I finally saw the light concerning the LDS cult and got myself out of that, too.


Unfortunately, though, not till I spent about 30+ years and over a hundred thousand dollars (over time, of course) in tithing.

My aunt and uncle have been doing Amway my entire life (I'm 33). They are TBM still, natch.

After all the money they have spent, last I heard they were bragging about getting $400 a month for their "part time" job. Part time! Yeah, right! All the weekends they left their five kids alone so they could go to awards ceremonies and motivational crap...

It was a nightmare for my cousins. They lived with the humiliation of every single person who came to their house being given a sales pitch--a friend's parent coming to pick them up or the tv repairman.

I agree with everyone who says that the same kind of person who can swallow Mormonism is the type of person who can swallow Amway.

There are a lot of things I don't respect about my dad, but I respect that he refused to do Amway because if he was going to spend that time converting people to something, it should be to Jesus. That's real integrity.

Most people have a circle of influence of 250 people !! That is usually how many turn up at a funeral, or the size of a typical LDS WARD .

(((Don't you think the LDS Church worked that out, grow to 250 then split the ward))) Then get each Ward to seek ""NEW MEMBERS""-- MLM Marketing at its most efficient.

BUT in MLM's to make any real money you need a multiple of 6 layers of 6 = that does not equal 36 -(Level 1 ==36 then x 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 = BUT AN AMAZING ** 7776**

So like the best way to make money is to BUY A DOWNLINE --So the best way to make huge amounts of money is to start a religion --

OOOPS I forgot --SOMEONE BEAT YOU TO IT !!!

Jb

Ok, I have an Amway story and a KM story.

Back in the late 70's, poor as church mice grad students, my VT who was on welfare (she told me that) came to my house one day, all excited about this business venture that was going to allow her to buy her own home soon. (This was in the SF Bay area, so imagine my surprise). She wouldn't tell me what it was but dropped some names of a few well connected people in the ward that had introduced her to it. I thought it was something to do with real estate, so I dragged DH to this meeting. The presenter was a distinguished dentist in the area...so far, so good. He went on and on about this business model, how McDonalds had used it, blah blah blah. After an HOUR of this, he mentioned two names I'd never heard of (DeVos and VanAndel) and said they started the "American Way Company". At that moment, I turned to DH and said "This is Amway! I was so disappointed. But, we signed up anyway! haha. We lasted about 2 months until the first big rally we went to and it seemed like a revival meeting and so phony.

Years later, one of the Amway couples we'd met tried to get me to try some new drink from a company called KM. It was very expensive stuff and she swore it cured everything. She said I could try it for free, so I took the bottle. The stuff was nasty and I only had about 4 ounces of it and took it back to her. She wanted me to pay for it! I reminded her she had said I could try it for free and she was ticked off. She told me her husband had gone off his BP meds because this stuff was supposed to cure all blood problems. Well, about 6 months later, I read his obituary...he'd died of a massive stroke. So, sometimes these wild claims about the stuff they push can kill people!