The Amway "housewarming" party (FauxPasofYear1114-06)

[blue2000]

Primerica is an insurance company. A friend of mine was going to go into it, but he ended up doing something else (he's always looking for a quick buck ).

Apparently, you sell people insurance, and you get a percentage of that. If it is, in fact, a pyramid scheme, your upline would get a cut of your money.

But they were very nice, and didn't push anything. Perhaps the US ones are more aggressive?

[Lauren]

Ooooh, I had this sprung on me by a guy I worked with a couple of years ago. Invited me to lunch and did the whole spiel. I was a bit iffy about it (just didn't seem logical to me) and he said that "he thought I had more ambition" Was quite annoyed about that. He rang me at home a couple of days later but (truthfully) told him my dad was in hospital dying and had to put the decision off. He quit not long after that.

Ran into him about six months ago, he's gone broke but just 'waiting for the break-though' Its actully quite sad. I gave him my card and told him to call me if he wanted a job at my work (I work in telephone sales, and the guy actully is a good salesperson that I saw of the spiel) Never heard from him.

[Cz. Burrito]

I was approached by a guy trying to get me to go to a Landmark Forum meeting at work this week. Thank goodness for this thread, otherwise I wouldn't have known what the heck he was talking about!

See?  Etiquette Hell saves lives!

[Animala]

I must be some kind of mark or something I have been approached 3x about AMWAY (or whatever it is called now).

  The first time was by my roommate's fiance's brother.  (I can't spell tonight.)  The first and last time I met him he laid in to me immediately so hard that if I had been interested there would be no way I'd do it.  I think his bother had to threated to kick him out of the apartment before he stopped.

  The second time was after I was married.  We were invited to a coworker of my husband's house.  She had set up a meeting for him with a state patrol officer to try to help him get place (he was in the police academy at night).  So the guy doesn't want to talk shop, but starts in on a schpeel .  Eventually I stop him and ask him what the name of the company was AND HE REFUSED TO SAY!  I drug my husband out.

  The third time again through someone my husband knew somehow.  They took us out to dinner (at the worst place in town) and gave their pitch.  I would have nothing to do with it and the guy got a bit abusive that I wouldn't sign up too.  My husband and I got into some pretty big arguments over it.  He did it any way.  A few weeks later after he had sold zip the guy starts calling and harassing us.  He kept telling me he need all this stuff hubby borrowed back.  I think I didn't answer the phone for awhile after that.  The only satisfaction I got from that was when we moved I threw out all the stuff he had borrowed and I am sure he didn't pay in what it was worth to that guy.

Interesting though, since we broke up I haven't been pitched for a thing.

[Chartreuse]

Oh, you guys will LOVE this one:

http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_078212142.html

CINCINNATI  Procter & Gamble Co. won a jury award of $19.25 million in a civil lawsuit filed against four former Amway distributors accused of spreading false rumors linking the company to Satanism to advance their own business.

The U.S. District Court jury in Salt Lake City on Friday found for the Cincinnati-based consumer products company in a lawsuit filed by P&G in 1995. It was one of several the company brought over rumors alleging a link with the company’s logo and Satanism.

Rumors had begun circulating as early as 1981 that the company’s logo – a bearded, crescent man-in-moon looking over a field of 13 stars – was a symbol of Satanism.

The company alleged that Amway Corp. distributors revived those rumors in 1995, using a voice mail system to tell thousands of customers that part of Procter & Gamble profits went to satanic cults....

Pyramid scam, check. 
Annoying the hell out of everyone you know, check.
Defaming your competition through illegal means, check.

[retreadbride]

Any product that is worth purchasing will not need an MLM to peddle it.

[thehunter]

I just joined the forums so I could post in this thread. 

Has anyone here heard of Premiere Designs? They're a jewelry company with a direct-selling program. A close friend of my mother's is involved in it and I've been to several parties. The jewelry is nice and the deal for party hosts is actually pretty good...and I used to think the company was quite reputable. But a couple of years ago, they added the whole "downline/upline" concept into their marketing plan, and now it seems to be just another MLM. When I was looking for a way to make money during college, my mother mentioned it to her friend, who got her to guilt-trip me into letting her come to the house and try to convince me to join the Premiere "family". As soon as I heard the word "downline," I lost any interest I may have had--which wasn't much, as I was already turned off by the idea of harrassing my friends and family into giving those annoying parties.

I was dumbfounded as to why a lot of women from my mother's church signed up--of the ones who would have been interested in hosting or attending a party, probably a quarter became members, so they were off the list. The remaining women were not many, and they were all within the same circle of friends, so if the new members wanted to make any money (or even to recover what they spent on the kit and demo jewelry), they would have had to go out and meet new people specifically for the purpose of selling to them.

Granted, the way this woman worked was not exactly typical of companies like Amway: she wasn't pushy or manipulative and she was okay with it if someone walked away without buying anything or joining, so I didn't have a problem with her personally. I actually bought small pieces from her on a few occasions. But the organization itself seems pretty sketchy to me. It claims to be "Biblically based" and to put "more emphasis on people than sales," and maybe that was true before they started the downline thing, but I doubt it's the case anymore.

Is there anyone else here who's had experience with these people?

[tiggeril]

Biblically based? Since when was Jesus into bling?

[LadyDyani]

We got roped into one of those meetings once.  I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't Amway, just another of those MLM schemes.  It was not long after hubby and I were married, and I think we were both 19 or 20.

We were invited to dinner by hubby's superior officer.  He said he wanted to talk to hubby about his future.  Instead, we sat at their table for FOUR hours, listening to them try to sell this stuff to us.  I took a look at the prices for these "brands", and they were more expensive than brand names at the store!  For someone who shops the store brands, the prices made my jaw drop.  We couldn't figure out any way to get out of there earlier, because this was hubby's SUPERIOR OFFICER! 

We did decline to start selling the crap, and hubby got transferred soon after that.  We recently heard about that guy.  Apparently, he hasn't been promoted in years, (hubby is actually above him now on the promotion scale), and he's been in trouble several times for trying to sell to soldiers during guard hours, as well as using his guard car for deliveries.

[Caya]

I was a member of a church once, where the pastor got suckered into MLMs sometimes. He didn't sell them to members outright, he had more integrity than that. But in that church many people got the idea that MLMs were somehow legitimate, so there were a number of those stupid things going around. I just want to slap people that are so naive and stupid, and are old enough to be my parents (in their 50's) and should know better. They also got caught up into a number of stupid Alternative Medicine hoaxes- like those stupid laundry balls, and various gadgets to "align your energies", and the whole Hulda Clark "Cure For All Cancers" LIE. The whole "Western Medical Establishment is evil and Keeping The Truth from you" thing. One church member believed that line so thoroughly, that when she developed cancer, she refused to go the Western Medical Route whatsoever, despite the advice of most everyone around her who told her to see a regular doctor, even the New-Agey woman who brought that fiction I mentioned there in the first place. She spent her last days traveling around the country, trying to find some alternative medicine "cure". They spent a ton of money on this, and finally came home to die. The cancer had eaten through her. I am told that she said she wished she had had the western medical treatment in the beginning- and she would not have died. She left behind a husband and three children. To me, those Alternative Medicine hoaxes are just the same kind of lies as MLMs, and worse sometimes.

Another forum I know of is run by a pastor, and he and a member of his church both do this one MLM, I forget which. They actively push it on that forum, its disgusting.

[Midnight Kitty]

The whole "Western Medical Establishment is evil and Keeping The Truth from you" thing.

Do you know my mother?

[Scritzy]

The whole "Western Medical Establishment is evil and Keeping The Truth from you" thing.

Do you know my mother?

She must know my mother, too. But Mother adds to it with, "I'm smarter than the doctors so I (a) won't listen to anything they say," or (b) "bully them into performing surgery that won't help just because I want to be the center of attention."

(I'm beginning to believe Mother's hypochondria has morphed into Munchausen's Syndrome.  )

[Caya]

I LOVE Quackwatch.org.  http://www.quackwatch.org/ It gives the truth on all that nonsense. The owner and author of the site is a really nice guy, too, I've written to him before. That site also maintains a number of other sites on various related subjects relating to quackery and scams and MLMs, too.

[Midnight Kitty]

(b) "bully them into performing surgery that won't help just because I want to be the center of attention."

Then she's not exactly like my mom.  The surgeon botched her right hip replacement surgery, severely damaging the sciatic nerve so she has no feeling or control over her right foot - permanently!  The surgeon thinks the surgery was successful & wants to schedule the left hip replacement.  Right   She'll schedule it right after the proverbial cold day in he!!.  Her left hip is giving her a lot of pain and it will probably fracture soon if she doesn't have the surgery.  Doesn't matter to her.  She's undergoing every *alternative* approach to regenerating cartilage, etc.  Supplements, "cold laser" therapy, whatever they have.  As long as the AMA disapproves, it must be effective & she's all for it.

[Scritzy]

(b) "bully them into performing surgery that won't help just because I want to be the center of attention."

Then she's not exactly like my mom.  The surgeon botched her right hip replacement surgery, severely damaging the sciatic nerve so she has no feeling or control over her right foot - permanently!  The surgeon thinks the surgery was successful & wants to schedule the left hip replacement.  Right   She'll schedule it right after the proverbial cold day in he!!.  Her left hip is giving her a lot of pain and it will probably fracture soon if she doesn't have the surgery.  Doesn't matter to her.  She's undergoing every *alternative* approach to regenerating cartilage, etc.  Supplements, "cold laser" therapy, whatever they have.  As long as the AMA disapproves, it must be effective & she's all for it.

Gad, that's terrible.