Dear exambot,

Help me ex-ambot, you're my only help. [A message from Princess Leia to
you on my behalf.]

I really appreciated your honest web-site relative to your difficult (to
put it mildly) experience with WWDB and Amway.  I was very intrigued
because your site was the only one that highlighted WWDB-- as the
support materials system that you were associated with.

My brother-in-law has recently joined WWDB as a distributor in the
Seattle area.  I am wondering if World Wide Dream Builders--that you
refer to--is indeed the Spokane, WA based company that he is now
associated with.

Specifically I'd like to know if World Wide (here in Spokane) is guilty
of all the high priced tapes and books that you've mentioned.  I was
given four tapes to listen to on my drive back home from Seattle, one by
Brad Duncan called "EDC Attitude."  It effectively cemented my concern
about the whole World Wide system.

I look forward to further investigating his participation in this plan,
but I really need complete information about World Wide.  I would like
to think that the men at the top are not all deliberately using people's
dreams to benefit themselves...

My brother-in-law told me that the WWDB organization was Not-for-profit,
and that it only covered travel expenses of the various speakers:  he
believes that none of the super Diamond motivational speakers are
directly benefitting from their very inspirational talks--many of which
have helped my brother-in-law make some excellent changes in his life.

If he can afford the $2500 standing order/participation fee and his life
continues to improve for the better, I see no reason to bother him with
"the truth," much less risk my relationship with him--unless there is a
compelling reason to do so.

Please help get me completely educated about WWDB if you can.

Sincerely and gratefully,
 
 
 

From: ">
To: < Exambot@hotmail.com>
Subject: Any Advice?
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 16:37:12 -0500
 

Hurray for your site and others' who criticize Amway.
     I hope that you will be able to read and respond to my long letter.

     I hope that MLM's like Amway will soon be exposed for what they
truly
are....scams &  pyramid schemes (even though they skirt the definition
of
"pyramid scheme" as Clinton did in "sexual relations"!)
When our top leader in the country gets away with LYING, and is
supported
(as polls suggest), I get pessimistic about where we are headed.
     Thanks to sites like yours (and others who try to present the
truth), I
have hope that someday people will wake up.  I find it ironic that the
so-called "Christian valued" Amway members think it's okay to LIE, CHEAT
&
STEAL (anything for a buck) to build "the business".
     My husband & I are fortunate enough to not have ever been involved
with
Amway, however, one of my dearest friends is an AMO-bot, together with
her
husband.  I have read about families being torn apart and friendships
dissolving because they criticized Amway and were "dreamstealers". I
don't
know how to pull her out & warn her, etc., without losing her as a
friend.
I truly believe this will happen.  And I don't want to.  I've heard her
talk
about people who've "ragged" on Amway with bitter vehemence.  I've tried
to
maintain a calm, disinterested aloofness when she talks about her
rallies &
meetings with diamonds.  It's all I can do to keep my mouth shut when I
hear
about X or Y diamonds & how rich they are, their last vacation, blah,
blah,
blah.  Funny thing is, we have a net worth close to what the so-called
"gems" claim, dispite a single income, from frugal-living (like using
coupons, rebates, & wholesale club shopping-----which they frown upon)!
<g>
     While your site (and others like "The Perils of Amway") are
comforting
to folks like myself, what can I do about my friendship with an AMO-bot?
I
am finding it harder to keep quiet.
Sincerely,
 

Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1998 01:38:58 +0000
From:
Reply-To:
To: Exambot@hotmail.com
Subject: An Amway experience
 
 

The purpose of this letter is not to disparage anyone, rather it is
simply one person’s experience in the Amway business.

It was back in April of 1971 when a friend of mine walked into the
Kroger store where I worked as a cashier. In excited tones she exclaimed
to me how Bill Britt (then City Manager of Carrboro, N.C. had just made
$60,000 selling something called “Amway” products. I did not know Bill
Britt personally, but had heard of him. Of course I was thrilled for his
sake, but I did not know how in the world this had anything to do with
me.

A few weeks later she told me what a great thing this Amway was, and
that I should attempt to sell it myself. I had no desire to get involved
with peddling soap door to door, but I was interested in looking at any
proposal which could improve my financial situation. She let me borrow
her “Career Manual” which I Iooked over that night. Frankly, I wasn’t
impressed. Seemed like too much work for me.  Gave it back to her, and
thanked her for her time.

Let me say at that time I was a pretty good prospect for the Amway
pitch. I was trapped in a dead-end job with no future. Long hours, low
pay, dull monotonous work.
 
 

Next month the husband of a co-worker told me about a terrific money
management program. Every time he went through the checkout line he
dropped a few bits and pieces. Didn’t know it at the time, but I was
being set up. In the meantime I was hearing all kinds of things about
Amway, and how people from all walks  of life were getting rich at it.
He drove me to an “opportunity meeting “ at Bill Burch’s   (a Pearl
Direct who was sponsored by Bill Britt) house where I saw the plan for
the first time.

Bill Burch drew the circles then demonstrated some of the products.
Theoretically the plan would work, but it would depend on all of those
people going out and selling $100 worth of products. He then showed me
his scrapbook. It was filled with photocopies of checks from Bill Britt,
and later from Amway itself. That got my attention. Even if he only got
to keep half of what he received, it was still much more than I was
making as a cashier at Kroger. It was more money than my father had ever
made as an advertising executive!
 

I tried to show  it to several people, all of whom turned it down. My
sponsor then persuaded me to come with him to Charlotte to attend
something called a “rally”

Frankly it was an electrifying experience. There were about fifteen
hundred people in attendance. I had no idea so many people were involved
in this!
 

There was Dexter Yager, Bill Britt, and a lot of the other high-level
directs. I should have picked up on one thing. Why were these people
here on stage?  Wouldn’t this be a great day to be showing the Plan and
developing the business? I was told that they were there for only one
reason: To help us become as successful as they were! I was told that
they could be anywhere they wished, but that they were taking time out
of their lives to be with us and help us grow!

Have to admit one thing: Dexter does put on one hell of a show. There
was a lot of singing, and testimonials from higher ranking distributors.
Particularly moving was that  of Willie Bass, a fourth-grade dropout.
Obviously Amway had made a significant difference in his life for the
better. I was truly moved by this. I wanted so much to find someone just
like him, show him the Plan, and see him   go out and achieve the same
things Willie had! After the rally we went to a burger joint called the
“Big E” where Dexter mesmerized all of us. Every time he spoke, some
lower level distributor was holding a mike to his face, grasping every
word as if it coming directly from the Burning Bush!

I didn’t sleep at all that night, I was so excited. My sponsor and I
drove back to Chapel Hill, and I finally went to bed at around 8:00 A.M.
I was so excited I called a prospect whom I didn’t even know, went to
his house and showed him he plan. He and his wife did get into it.

Meetings didn’t  go as I thought they would. They had thirty no-shows in
a row! Factor in the time I spent with them, (gas etc.) as opposed to
doing a part-time job---well, you’re talking some serious money!
Eventually they did sponsor someone, who in turn sponsored  a couple.
Heard a lot of talk from  them about how they were going to blow Amway
wide open. I was all prepared to help them with their meetings, but
that’s all it was: Just talk! Never heard from these people again.

I sponsored six others over the course of two years. Had a real live one
who sponsored three  people the next two days, and before I knew it I
had a group in Columbia, S.C. One of the members wrote a check to me for
some products, and it bounced. I eventually collected it, but it sure
was an inconvenience. More gasoline, more wear and tear on my car!

By now I was at the $300 PV level. What little I made from that was more
than eaten up by trips to functions, book and tape purchases. Luckily
for me, at that time the tapes were only $3.00 a piece. Functions were
maybe $5 or $10.

What was wrong? I was doing everything  my upline was telling me to do,
and then some! In December of 1971 I even drove down to Ft. Lauderdale
just to hear Rich DeVos. I was the only member of the entire Britt
organization who did this. Like Dexter kept telling me, I kept hanging
in there, showing and showing the plan, all to no avail. Any questions I
had would be discussed at the meetings (which I had to pay for,
incidentally!)
 

The second Rally I attended opened my eyes somewhat. I was so eager to
see Dexter Yager again. (He does have that effect on some people).
Couldn’t get anybody in my group to attend, so it was just me, my
sponsor and his wife.

Again, I had a great time, but just a few things were bothering me. Very
conveniently located was a booth where “positive thinking” books and
motivational tapes could be purchased. I was told to make the check out
to Dexter Yager. Had been in retailing long enough to know that in these
quantities, Dexter was not selling these books at cost. At Kroger we
sold the same cassette tapes for less than fifty cents a piece. I’m sure
Dexter was buying them wholesale and was paying less than that for the
tapes. You’re talking about at least a two dollar profit per tape. And
there were thousands of them being bought by would-be Double Diamonds!
 

Got to know Dexter a little better the second time around. Actually,
when I had heard people talk about him in such reverential tones, I
expected to see a much older man. He was only 32. Seems Bill Britt got
in touch with him back in ‘69. Dexter was able to get him to drive out
to Charlotte, N.C. (about 120 miles) and show him the plan. He did this
by telling Bill Britt that he was 30 years old, and in the top two per
cent of the nation’s income bracket. Bill Britt got into the business.
He had little success with it at first. In his own recollections:

“Nine people in a row turned it down flat!” That changed after Dexter
Yager got involved. Being the city manager of Carrboro, N.C. Britt
commanded enough clout to get five couples to his house for an
opportunity meeting, which Dexter put on himself.
Let’s just say this scenario was very much the exception rather than the
rule. Would to God all rookie Amway distributors could have this break!
I don’t begrudge his success because of this, but be honest. He had a
lot of advantages in getting started that the average Joe Blow Amway did
not!

Back to the Rally. I had assumed that the primary reason for a function
such as this would be to teach us how to sponsor distributors and sell
the products. It was a little topsy turvy to say the least. There was a
little bit on how to prospect, nothing at all on how to sell Amway, and
95% of the event consisted of how to live our personal lives, and how we
were needed to turn our nation back to God. Dexter made no bones about
being a Christian. Personally I had no problem with that, but it seemed
just a little inappropriate to bring it up at a business meeting. At a
conventional business seminar, they teach you how to operate your
business, and not delve into your personal affairs.
This was just the opposite.

Dexter made a very contemptuous remark on people on welfare, which I
thought to be poorly thought out. Sure, there are well publicized cases
of welfare abuse, but what about the elderly, what about the disabled?
Seems you have to handle each situation on a case by case basis, not
just call them all lazy.
 

Still, Dexter and Birdie put on quite a show that night. It was very
moving to hear their rags to riches struggle. They seemed to imply that
if only I worked harder, then success would be right around the corner.
Returned home again at 8:00 A.M. resolving to push myself harder.

I was still troubled, though. I had gotten into the business because my
dream was to own a Mercedes Benz 600 Pullman. Their top of the line
model. At that time it retailed for $34,000.  That’s not much to pay for
a car these days, but it was almost thirty years ago. When I told Dexter
this was what I wanted, he immediately told me my car should be a
Cadillac. After all, how could I promote American Free Enterprise by
driving a foreign car? His logic seemed a little skewed to me. I drink
imported coffee, I drink imported whisky. Does that mean I don’t love
the U.S.A.? For cryin’ out loud! I thought this was a business where you
could be free!
 

Dropped by Bill Burch’s filling station (remember, he was the Pearl
Direct sponsored by Bill Britt?) and Bill Britt pulled into the service
bay very excited. He didn’t know I was there, so he blurted to Bill
Burch how he had just returned from Dexter Yager’s house, where Dexter
had shown him a suitcase with $150,000 in cash! After he noticed I had
overheard that remark, Bill Britt sternly admonished me to never mention
that to anyone! This is a business where we’re supposed to be
successful. Why the Hush Hush?

That night I did a little mental calculating. Dexter Yager was just a
Double Diamond back then. I guesstimated his Amway earnings to be
between $150-$200,000 a year.
Yet at the functions and rallies, he was talking about his lifestyle,
his cars, his vacations. There was no way he could live like that on
$200,000 a year! And if Amway only paid him that much, where did he get
that much in cash? I thought about the recent rally I attended. Must
have been twenty thousand people there. If each one paid fifteen
dollars, that’s $300,000 right there. And what about the books and tapes
he was selling? There was a lot more to this so-called “business” than
met the eye.
 

There was a lot that bothered me. My father took a dim view of the whole
set-up. He smelled a rat, I think. But since he would have been negative
about anything I might have pursued, I gave it little thought. At
another rally, Bill Britt flat out declared that anybody would have to
be an idiot not to see the Amway opportunity and get into it. I told
Bill about my father and he (Bill Britt) said I should write “My
father’s an idiot!” on paper and paste it on my bedroom wall. So much
for God’s commandment to “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother!”

One of the main selling points of Amway products is that they are
biodegradable, causing less harm to the environment than the “negative”
products out there. It was ironic to me that here were these people
distributing such products, then turning around and buying huge numbers
of cars (I believe Dexter said he owned fifty cars!) to pollute the
environment.

Made the biggest mistake of my life back in April of 1972. I quit my
cashier’s job at Kroger, and resolved to do Amway full time. I had three
months salary saved up, and all the big-name distributors assured me I
could make direct in three months. “Very easily!”  Money was going to
run out then, so nobody can tell me I wasn’t motivated, or didn’t work
the business hard enough!

Three months later I was a real “broke loser” The people I sponsored
didn’t do the business, others dropped out. I was spinning myself into a
mudhole. Upliners assured me that success was just around the corner. It
was very humiliating when my first check bounced. That had never
happened to me before. I had no steady job, no income coming in. Yes, I
detested my job at Kroger, but at least I was getting paid every week
and my self esteem was still  intact. Bills were now coming in, and I
had to try to stall my creditors. It was winter and I dreaded being
evicted from my apartment. I had too much pride to return home.

In retrospect, I have nobody to blame but myself. No one in my upline
actually TOLD me to go quit my job! But it was the incessant downgrading
of jobs from people like Dexter and Bill Britt that encouraged me to do
that. I like a quote from Dexter:

“Nobody can make an intelligent decision without knowing ALL the facts!”
So far, so good. I have no quarrel with that statement. How  I wish the
NET had been available to me twenty-eight years ago. Then I could have
discovered:
 

Less than one distributor in a thousand makes in excess of $15,000 a
year.
Even if you make it to Direct, you can still have a loss due to
operating expenses. Don’t even think about quitting your job at this
point!

Your chances of making it to Diamond are about  one in ten thousand.
You can become a millionaire in Amway, but it won’t be from selling
products or sponsoring distributors. It will be from tape sales book
sales, speaker’s fees.

I consider those facts to be pretty important. I would have liked to
have known them.   Certainly anyone contemplating getting into Amway
would want to know them. Somehow I don’t think Sergeant Joe Friday (Just
the facts,  m’am) could have been a success as an Amway distributor!

In ‘73 I took a long look at what I had accomplished those two years.
Lost a job, ruptured relationships, a box of motivational cassettes,
making payments on a small Toyota, worrying about the rent. I did not
renew that year. But I did go to the A&P and bought my first “negative
product” in two years. Don’t know how to describe it but instinctively I
felt a real sense of freedom.

Got another job and slowly began to rebuild my life.
 

Epilogue

Does my story have a happy ending. Yes, there IS life after Amway! I’ve
been with the U.S. Postal Service fifteen years, and run a liquor store
part time. You know what I love? No prospecting! Been married almost
fourteen years. My wife works full time and is a terrific mother to our
eleven year-old son. We live in a nice subdivision, take nice trips, and
give generously to our favorite charities. I drive a late model Mark
VIII that’s paid for. We have a net worth in excess of $850,000, and
earn over $100,000 a year.  Less than 1% of all the people in Amway can
make that statement.

Here’s to JOBS. Ain't’ it Great!

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 03:19:57 -0400
From: David
To: Exambot@hotmail.com
Subject: funny emails.

I've never been a part of the Amway lifestyle, so I think I can present
an objective viewpoint here.  I just stumbled across this page and I'm
laughing hysterically at your hate mail/fan mail section.

Here are some simple yet objective observations.

The fan mail seems to be pretty consistent.  On average it seems to be
authored by normal, well-adjusted people who don't appreciate being fed
a bunch of half-truths.

The hate mail always seems to contain the following:

1.  Poor spelling and murderous grammar.
2.  A plea for you to stop presenting an opposing viewpoint so that
potential cult recruits can make an open-minded decision without being
poisoned by your web page.  (check me if I'm wrong, but doesn't an
open-minded decision involve checking both sides of the fence?)
3.  Laughable statistics and figures which never seem to have any
foundation in fact and mysteriously never have a source attributed to
them, either.
4.  References to the dramatic success of Amway corporation.  "How can
it be bad if it's so successful?"  Amway corp. is successful because of
chumps who devote a large percentage of the money they make at their
J.O.B. buying only Amway products.  Then they spend all of their spare
time recruiting other chumps to do the same.  Amway has the best sales
force in the world.
 

I could go on for pages, but why repeat what other people have already
typed.  Thank you for the very entertaining web page.  I have enjoyed it
so much that I am realistically considering the possibility of devoting
some of my web space to a similar page.  In the meantime, I'm going to
research this a bit further so I can dig up some really good
ammunition.  Drop me a line!

--D