Amway/Quixtar MLM Scheme.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Prototype

I bought in, attended a few meetings, had the binder and the inspirational CD. Cost me I think about $100 at the time. Got a card to book hotel rooms at a discount. Saved about $100 over a two night stay. Haven't touched anything to do with Quixtar since.

I win.

Except that you basically lose as you had to waste all that time and effort that could've gone to other things, all just to break even.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Prototype

I bought in, attended a few meetings, had the binder and the inspirational CD. Cost me I think about $100 at the time. Got a card to book hotel rooms at a discount. Saved about $100 over a two night stay. Haven't touched anything to do with Quixtar since.

I win.

So what made you buy in?

[Prototype]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Except that you basically lose as you had to waste all that time and effort that could've gone to other things, all just to break even.

No, no. At all the meetings, there were fantastic sandwiches. I think we only went to one or two... and one of the big 'Diamond' dinners. Plus, it was a slightly average excuse to hang out with my buddy, who like me is a huge MST3K fan. We could be at a funeral, and find something absolutely hilarious about something (timing within that setting is key).

Originally Posted by Sliver

So what made you buy in?

One of my best friends, who was one of my groomsmen later in life, had mentioned the idea of signing up, with absolutely no pressure at all. They always had the catalogs kicking around, and we had skimmed through them before.

Thought we'd give it a shot, as his wife's family has done really well with it. There was more pressure from her dad towards us, but he's living in a million dollar property, and we're not.

But the main thing is who you can hook, and making sure they are going to make money at it. I can see where friendships could be destroyed by it. Ours wasn't, thankfully. They understand that it just wasn't for us, but we make sure to buy some energy drinks and the like from them from time to time.

Yeah, we got hooked, but we managed to slip off the line before we were pulled out of the water.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

I attended a Primarica seminar once,

I almost wish I wasn't as polite as I am. One of the girls got up and started to explain that they are owned by Citi Bank, and that's in the Dow Jones Index, and the Dow Jones measure how well our economy is doing.

My first thought was "no it doesn't, it measure how well industries in the US are doing". From that point on I just listened to how idiotic everything they said was.


Last year a friend of mine wanted to talk to me about a business opportunity, being the open minded person I am, I said I'd listen (frankly if I can make money at it, I'd be nuts to at least not think about it) It was FHTM or something.

The conversation with him was quite good as he explained what they were selling (I forget not but it kind of made sense).

Then I sat through a webinar where they didn't go into detail about the product, just explained how if I signed up all these people I'd make lots of money. To this day I still don't know how I'm supposed to make money by the premise they originally pitched.

It's like if someone said to you, "I've got this great franchise called Tim Horton's we sell coffee for $2 a cup, and it only costs us $0.02 to make" you'd think sweet I want to learn more about this. And then you sit down for a presentation about how to get involved and you're just told that you need to sign people up for a franchise, because the more people you sign up the more money you make... hold on, what happened to coffee? Ohhhhh, there is no coffee, no one in the company cares about coffee!

That's why MLM annoys me, sell a product is fine, sign up people to make money makes no sense

[TorqueDog]

A guy I used to play shinny with tried to get me into it. I flat out said I wasn't interested. What a great way to lose a good hookup for shinny.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Prototype

I bought in, attended a few meetings, had the binder and the inspirational CD. Cost me I think about $100 at the time. Got a card to book hotel rooms at a discount. Saved about $100 over a two night stay. Haven't touched anything to do with Quixtar since.

I win.

I attended a Primerica meeting once. I thought I was going to a job interview for a sales position. I didn't know what was happening until I was sitting there in a room full of people.

It reminded me of seeing a motivational speaker. The person speaking was doing the whole; "Who wants to be rich!?" thing. At some points people would stand up and cheer. To this day, I don't know if those people were plants or if they were seriously getting sucked in. I sat through it to be polite, but I felt really ashamed later.

[Prototype]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

To this day, I don't know if those people were plants or if they were seriously getting sucked in. I sat through it to be polite, but I felt really ashamed later.

Based on my experiences, they were plants. Looking around the room during the meetings I was involved with, I saw a lot of familiar faces, people who I already knew who bought in, but they were never introduced as people who bought in.

They just sat there listening to everything nodding their heads, smiling. There was no jumping up, but every one of these meetings has got people who believe in the 'product' already sitting in the chairs right beside you.

Either that, or their idiots for buying in so blindly.

[Thor]

Man, for a sec I thought you guys were talking about Kramerica.

[jtfrogger]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

That's why MLM annoys me, sell a product is fine, sign up people to make money makes no sense

I was involved in Melaleuca for about a year. I like their products. The person that signed me up was a member for years without signing anyone up. My friend's aunt actually makes a living selling the product. At the time, she showed me her most recent statement, and it was a decent income. She obviously had to put in a lot of work to get to that point of being able to live off it, but it was real.

I never signed anyone else up. The minimum monthly orders were pretty high so I eventually got out. If the minimum order was about half of what it was, I would probably still be a member. I do still buy the key products that I like through my friend.

I think that they would have substantially more sales if they sold their products to the public. They are good enough to stand on their own.

[Sliver]

I know some girls on Facebook that are drinking the Stella & Dot Kool-Aid. That one GMG, big time.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

I attended a Primarica seminar once,

I almost wish I wasn't as polite as I am. One of the girls got up and started to explain that they are owned by Citi Bank, and that's in the Dow Jones Index, and the Dow Jones measure how well our economy is doing.

My first thought was "no it doesn't, it measure how well industries in the US are doing". From that point on I just listened to how idiotic everything they said was.

I attended a Primerica seminar for kicks once, I knew all about them before going and I tried to rock the boat while at the meeting. Some a-hat brought up the Citibank being on the Dow thing to add legitimacy to the whole scam. I piped up that 'McDonalds is also on the Dow, how would you like to work there? I hear they're taking applications.'

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

A guy I used to play shinny with tried to get me into it. I flat out said I wasn't interested. What a great way to lose a good hookup for shinny.

When I used to work in sales people would approach me for both Primerica and Amway all the time; at least a couple of times per month. What I used to say was "Sure, as long as it isn't for Primerica or Amway."

No matter which company it was, for some reason they hated being lumped in with the other.

[tete]

One of my old coworkers got sucked in to the Primerica thing - she just really wanted to get into the insurance business and I think was really oblivious to the MLM aspect of it. Anyway, she invited me one night to a seminar, thinking it might be good insurance/investment advice and so, me, not knowing really what it was about, went. I was greatly amused by the "OMG, you no longer have to work for THE MAN!" comments ever three sentences. My coworker apologized to me afterwards for the pushy sales-ness of the night, whatever, they didn't bug me since I gave them a phony phone number off the start anyway.

[billybob123]

I had a coworker who signed up for Primerica and said she wanted to "practice her sales pitch". I said sure, why not, let you practice. It wasn't a practice, she tried to sign me up to both sell and buy their stupid term life insurance.

I heard the same thing - "we're a Citi group. Traded on the Dow Jones. Other scams don't do that". My fave line was "we make money because we invest in the global economy unlike other companies". Oohhhh, the GLOBAL economy. That sounds fancy.

What a load of garbage. I can't believe people fall for this crap. I really guess PT Barnum was right about suckers being born every minute, and what's the one about fools and their money?

[troutman]

I went to a BNI networking club meeting. It had many of the trappings of MLM and seemed like a strange Scientology-like cult.

http://www.grumpynerd.com/?cat=10

[afc wimbledon]

I had a friend go through several MLM scams, he never had enough money to lose much though so didn't really matter that much, I told him not to ever sell me anything, that if he was a good salesman like he thought he shouldn't need to use his friends, also told him if he really was a good salesman he should get a job selling cars or dishwashers or something in a shop where he would make just as good a living.

He was a lousy salesman of course, the various products were expensive and not that good, at one stage he was trying to sell body healing magnets, I pointed out I could get them for free at my local pizza joint and their magnets had usefull phone numbers on, we didn't talk for a while after that.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by ken0042

When I used to work in sales people would approach me for both Primerica and Amway all the time; at least a couple of times per month. What I used to say was "Sure, as long as it isn't for Primerica or Amway."

No matter which company it was, for some reason they hated being lumped in with the other.

"Because we're not like them, we're different!"

Yeah, only different in the products offered for sale. Still complete rubbish.

[billydunn]

are there any hot single women at amway meetings? Or at lest okay maybe average looking women? or just any kind of women?? I'm so lonely!!!!!

[Regulator75]

Originally Posted by billydunn

are there any hot single women at amway meetings? Or at lest okay maybe average looking women? or just any kind of women?? I'm so lonely!!!!!

So, which returning poster are you?

[Buff]

I got taken by some mlm scheme when I was 18. I managed to get back what I put in, but I was sweating bullets once I realized what I had done and thought I was losing a lot of money, but I got lucky. It was a real eye opener and I'm glad I had that experience. It taught me to be really skeptical about everything involving finances, and more.

I worked with a guy who started selling Amway a year or two after this and he was trying to get me to join in. I was just being polite until he told me that he had a future and I didn't because he was in Amway. Then the Superman Song by Crash Test Dummies came on the radio and the words "Superman never made any money.." came along and I quickly piped up, "Hear that, dude? I guess Superman never sold Amway". He left me alone after that.