Moderated MLM Crap :(

[The Don]

Walmart doesn't sell Amway products.

I imagine they sell comparable products:

• Vitamins - check
• Cosmetics - check
• Water Purifiers - check

 

[icerat]

I imagine they sell comparable products:

• Vitamins - check
• Cosmetics - check
• Water Purifiers - check

• Vitamins based on organically grown plant concentrates monitored from seed to serving for maximal nutritional quality - uncheck
• Cosmetics independently assessed as being in the "prestige" category - uncheck
• Water Purifiers with UV filters, eCoupled technology, and electronic monitoring - uncheck

 

[icerat]

Personal income US, over $100,000 (2009 Census, persons over 15y/o) =

60 out of a thousand

Income over $100,000 Amway (2009 figures) =

1 out of a thousand

Accept the math.

Income over $100,000, people who would like to be NBA stars =

1 out of a very large number.

Accept the math, basketball is a scam.

Not to mention

Average Hours worked, Personal income US = 2080+
Average Hours worked, Amway = approaching zero (rounded to several decimal places)

It's amazing how many people seem to believe Amway is a scam pretty much purely because it's based on performance. They think people should make money for doing nothing!

Here's a clue - the guys promoting making money for doing nothing, they're the scammers.

 

[icerat]

First off Icerat tries to continually paint me as someone who is an outsider to this business and who doesn't have a particular connection his "special" organization called network21. The truth is that I am very connected to the business having been involved as a supplier of software too them.

You're claiming to be a software supplier to Network 21? Sorry, but I call BS. If not, PM me with the name of your software company, I can confirm with Network 21.

In addition I have a close relative who has been in the business for 30+ years. I have diamonds cell phone numbers in my iphone contact list.

How many? How many are NOT part of the Yager/Britt/Puryear downlines? How many are part of Network 21?

The math for tools works the same way no matter which organization you are in. The basically all have similar CD's with similar pricing, seminars etc etc. If he wants to dispute pricing he's welcome too but I've done the research and N21 prices very similarly to other amway organizations.

Provide it. There's over 20 such companies in North America alone.

Some details of the tools compensation scheme do differ in different organizations but the profits are basically the same because the pricing and costs are very similar.

Provide it.

I'm very familiar with the costs associated with things like CD replication, mastering, audio recording, creation of music, printing etc etc as I deal with those in the software business that I run.

Your software company has over 300 staff with offices in more than 30 countries and provides services in more than 20 languages? Well done. (not that I believe you)

I know what the overhead levels are required to be, I know how amway functions are run and I've seen the profit breakdown charts for both the traditional (which is basically a fixed commision per level difference) and the volume based tool rebates.

(1) Network 21 has never had a fixed commission per level difference. How can it be "traditional"
(2) How many functions have you been to, and run by which companies?

I've seen very specific numbers for certain large amway businesses as well. This isn't second hand, this is them running their businesses on my software and me having complete access to the data. Direct first hand knowledge.

There are thousands of Diamonds and above. How many have you seen their data for (ie all income and expenses)? How many different organisations do they represent?

Tool are tremendously profitable and are definitely what makes the scam work. If anyone besides Icerat wants to discuss this in more detail I'll show you some of the math. The bottom line is that the profit distribution is inverted compared to how a regular amway product is supposed to work. The higher up the chain you go on tools the more profit per unit they make.

Provide a tool rebate schedule. I have one and that's simply not true. From a senior executive at N21 -

Note that these schedule work like the bonus brackets of Amway so a Diamond earning at the WES 250 bracket is likely "paying out" to a couple of Emeralds and while the Diamond might net the $15 per person on their personal group it is possible that they net $10, $5 or even $0 in their downline Emerald group based on when they fall in the brackets.

Normally the profit should be concentratee at the distributors closest to the customer as the are doing the work of selling that particular product. With tools the lowest level distributor pays retail, effectively making them the customer for the high level distributors.

The "platinum" is the retailing distributor. In N21 they make, depending on their volumes, $0.00 to $1.00 per CD sale. A typical upline Diamond would make $0.00 to $0.65 on that sale.

The higher you go up the chain the more reason they have to just want to increase the size of their organization so they have more customers buying tools. Now icerat is going to dispute this and trot out some charts show how the money is supposedly split. Unfortunately it's missing where most of the money goes. This chart is simply wishful thinking.

I'm providing actual figures from the N21 tool rebate schedule. Simply claiming they're false does not make it so.

Unless he's literally seen the books of his upline he has absolutely no way to determine whether they are lying to him about tool profits.

I didn't get the information from my upline.

If he was to deduce they were lying based on math then maybe he would have an argument. However, the math never adds up for him.

It adds up just fine.

You claim to have all this info - why can't your provide any figures?

All hat no cattle.

 

[The Don]

• Vitamins based on organically grown plant concentrates monitored from seed to serving for maximal nutritional quality - uncheck
• Cosmetics independently assessed as being in the "prestige" category - uncheck
• Water Purifiers with UV filters, eCoupled technology, and electronic monitoring - uncheck

Oh, you really have bought into the message.

Please provide independent evidence that Amway vitamins are in any way nutritionally superior to those offered by their competitors. Walmart offers a range of dietary supplements at a reasonable proce.

"Prestige" is not an exact term and I cannot find a definitive list of those brands Euromonitor consider to be prestige brands, but the brands mentioned by Amway as being in that category are available at Walmart.

Demonstrate how the eCoupled technology end electronic monitoring delivers any benefit

 

[icerat]

Please provide independent evidence that Amway vitamins are in any way nutritionally superior to those offered by their competitors. Walmart offers a range of dietary supplements at a reasonable proce.

Please provide independent evidence that vitamin isolates are nutritionally superior than plants, which is what your position appears to be.

"Prestige" is not an exact term and I cannot find a definitive list of those brands Euromonitor consider to be prestige brands, but the brands mentioned by Amway as being in that category are available at Walmart.

"Prestige" is the Euromonitor term I believe.

Please provide evidence that other brands in the prestige category (a) are available at Walmart, and (b) generally cheaper, which is what you claimed.

Demonstrate how the eCoupled technology end electronic monitoring delivers any benefit

Funny how you didn't mention the UV filter, which is the major differentiation on technology (and cost).

Please provide evidence that water filter brands available at Walmart meet NSF/ANSI Standards 42, 53 and 55.

As for the electronic monitoring, if you don't change your filter at it's regular service cycle then not only does flow rate decrease and water quality decrease, there's a risk of water quality getting worse, as the accumulated contaminants in an old filter can begin to break off back into the water.

Very few people change their filters when they are supposed to.

That information I learned from a water quality expert who has nothing to do with Amway or eSpring. eSpring is one of the few filters that monitors both water flow and age and warns you when it needs changing. Indeed it doesn't warn you, it sounds a very irritating alarm until you do.

eCoupled, developed by Amway and basis of the Qi wireless power standard, now licenced to many other companies, is simply useful technology for implementing that technology (and the UV) safely around water.

 

[Joecool]

Income over $100,000, people who would like to be NBA stars = 1 out of a very large number.

It's likely 60 out of a thousand in the US as Marplot had suggested. You comparing pipe dreams to a successful Amway business does seem appropriate though.

 

[Mycroft]

An impossible task. Both is obviously private information. The first comes from Amway, and the second comes from any one of dozens and dozens of companies.


It's "amway critics" who constantly raise the point. Assuming they're offering products and services the purchasers consider value for money I personally don't care how much they make from what.

Okay, so you refute my claim that more money is made from the sale of tools than of product by first giving me numbers only for the sale of product, then to tell me that the numbers we would need to compare are not available, then to tell me it doesn't matter where and how people make their money.

To restate my objection, I think it's inherently dishonest to recruit people as a sales force when the reality is they're the market.

My own background includes a lot of sales, and I've seen lots of sales "tools" come my way to make me a better salesman, but those tools are bought and paid for by my company because it's in their best interest that I sell more. That's how real businesses do it.

For the time necessary to develop a significant business? No, that wouldn't be reasonable at all.

Remember, less than 1.3 in 10 even sponsor one person who generates volume. Even you did more than that

I think it's bizarre that you take evidence that so many people fail at this and turn it into "evidence" that the system works.

 

[Joecool]

The bottom line is this. Let's cut to the chase.

No matter how you slice and dice the numbers, Amway is an extremely poor choice of a business opportunity. That fact that many or most sign up and do nothing only cofirms this in my mind.

The tools system is not effective is accomplishing what it advertises - to help develop successful Amway businesses. Icerat will argue that all diamonds are on the "system" but conversely, all lottery winners bought a ticket. There is ZERO unbiased evidence to suggest that the system of cds and functions do anything to help rank and file IBOs. There is however, plenty of unbiased evidence to suggest that the system sales are more significant for some diamonds, than the Amway income.

If someone has the drive and ability to "go diamond", that same person would likely succeed and make more money doing just about anything else on this planet rather than Amway. I agree with what another member had said, that those who join Amway are just not equipped to objectively evaluate a business plan. If they did, they wouldn't join Amway. And I was once young and gullible and bought into the scam. Now I'm old and gullible. But I recognize the faults and issues associated with Amway and the Amway tools systems.

Lastly, Icerat will never convince me that Network 21 is some pure and above the law system. As Newton Trino explains, their pricing and overall operation is just like other comparable systems and thus, it is reasonable to expect they make a similar profit margin and their system owners and diamonds likely get similar compensation to other systems. Why is that so hard to believe?

P.S. Most consumers don't care that Amway has "special" vitamins and cleaners. If not for self consumption by the IBO salesforce, Amway sales would be insignificant.

 

[The Don]

Please provide independent evidence that vitamin isolates are nutritionally superior than plants, which is what your position appears to be.

No, I am claiming that at worst they are equivalent. Vitamin isolates provide exactly the amount of vitamin or mineral as advertised (within manufacturing tolerances).

"Prestige" is the Euromonitor term I believe.

Please provide evidence that other brands in the prestige category (a) are available at Walmart, and (b) generally cheaper, which is what you claimed.

Prestige is a Euromonitor term, but Euromonitor do not provide a full list of the brands it considers to fit in that category but L'Oreal is one of the brands that Walmart stocks specifically mentioned in Amway literature.

http://www.walmart.com/search/searc...l'oreal&ic=48_0&Find=Find&search_constraint=0

I cannot easily find an Amway product pricelist to do a price comparison.

I did however find a number of sites that do price comparisons - which aren't flattering but because I have no way of verifying the Amway prices I cannot speak to their accuracy.

Old site which claims Amway is very expensive

Old survey from Australia

Costco price comparison

Funny how you didn't mention the UV filter, which is the major differentiation on technology (and cost).

Please provide evidence that water filter brands available at Walmart meet NSF/ANSI Standards 42, 53 and 55.

As for the electronic monitoring, if you don't change your filter at it's regular service cycle then not only does flow rate decrease and water quality decrease, there's a risk of water quality getting worse, as the accumulated contaminants in an old filter can begin to break off back into the water.

Very few people change their filters when they are supposed to.

That information I learned from a water quality expert who has nothing to do with Amway or eSpring. eSpring is one of the few filters that monitors both water flow and age and warns you when it needs changing. Indeed it doesn't warn you, it sounds a very irritating alarm until you do.

eCoupled, developed by Amway and basis of the Qi wireless power standard, now licenced to many other companies, is simply useful technology for implementing that technology (and the UV) safely around water.

Tell me how much the Amway filter is and I'll find the comparable product.

 

[icerat]

Okay, so you refute my claim that more money is made from the sale of tools than of product by first giving me numbers only for the sale of product, then to tell me that the numbers we would need to compare are not available, then to tell me it doesn't matter where and how people make their money.

No, I given both average Amway payouts and the average BSM payouts for the largest company providing such services. The BSM payouts were significantly lower than Amway payouts.

What I can't do is tell you what you asked, which is give verifiable information on how dozens of different, private, independent companies around the world compensate people for marketing their products.

Can you give me that information to support your claim?

To restate my objection, I think it's inherently dishonest to recruit people as a sales force when the reality is they're the market.

I agree. What's the relevance? The majority of people who join direct sales companies do so after starting as companies, ie it's pretty damn clear they're part of the market. I certainly had the concept of me as a consumer of the products well explained to me when I joined. Indeed many people (including myself) are critical of too much emphasis on that approach.

My own background includes a lot of sales, and I've seen lots of sales "tools" come my way to make me a better salesman, but those tools are bought and paid for by my company because it's in their best interest that I sell more. That's how real businesses do it.

So the basis of your problem is with the idea of independent contractors?

Amway provides an awful lot of free training and information by the way. Does that suddenly make them a "real business"?

On the other hand, other companies, like Microsoft, (for whom I'm also a reseller) makes me pay for their seminars and training. I guess they're not a "real business" either ....

I think it's bizarre that you take evidence that so many people fail at this and turn it into "evidence" that the system works.

Huh? No evidence that "so many people fail" has been provided.

Well ... not unless you arbitrarily decide what "failure" is for other people, to the extent of dubbing them failures even when they reach their goals.

So your other issue is the idea of a compensation system where only people who produce results get paid?

 

[Mycroft]

http://www.thetruthaboutamway.com/amway-a-friend-of-mine-tried-that-it-doesnt-work/

A friend of mine has been an Amway IBO for about 4 years. She’s recently decided to stop with her goal to be Diamond, instead pursuing goals related to environmental change. That’s fine, people’s lives and ambitions change. The thing is, in that four years she was regularly attending major and minor seminars, weekly “open plans”, training sessions, team phone sessions, buying CDs and books. She was “plugged in”. Thousands of dollars spent, hundreds or thousands of hours. She never got past the 6% level.

<snip>

While she was putting a lot of time and money in to her “business”, she wasn’t doing this last part. And she admitted to me why. Everyone, including her upline, thought she was working hard and was puzzled by her lack of success. She sat down and went through her diary for the previous year and counted up the amount of “exposures” she’d done. 15. Not 15 per month. 15 total. The whole year. What business in the world would be profitable if you only spoke to 15 potential customers in a whole year?

What my friend was doing was being engaged in what’s called “busy work“. Busy work doesn’t have to be time wasting – indeed it can be stuff that is useful, even necessary, towards reaching some goal.

This article is a perfect example of how insidious Amway is. Failure is always blamed on the participant. This poor woman flounders for years, after investing thousands of dollars and huge amounts of time, and the guy only tries to identify the problem when she’s quitting.

A real sales manager would have taken action from the beginning. A short meeting is all it takes. ”Look, I see you’re working hard and not making any progress. I see your problem is that you’re not making contact with new customers, so here’s what we’re gonna do to get you back on track…” and then we set some goals that has her putting her business plan in front of potential customers before she’s allowed to even think of doing any of that “busy work”.

So why didn’t her up-line do that before she burned out? Because the “busy work” she was doing is the stuff Amway wanted her to do. It’s participating in the meetings, the phone calls, buying the books and CD’s and generally “investing” her thousands of dollars buying the stuff that makes some diamond his money.

 

[Joecool]

Here''s a link to an analysis absolutely destroying double x, which is Amway's flagship vitamin:
(Emphasis mine)

http://www.blog2success.net/review-amway-global-double

Unlike other leading multivitamins, a single serving of DOUBLE X is what you need your vitamin to be – 12 essential vitamins, 10 essential minerals, and 20 plant concentrates, giving you the antioxidant power of tomato, blueberry, broccoli, cranberry, pomegranate, and more. The B vitamins found in the NUTRILITE DOUBLE X Multivitamin unlock the energy in your food, and Double X contains more B6 and B12 vitamins than Centrum® Performance and One-a-Day Active® combined! In a clinical study, NUTRILITE DOUBLE X was shown to improve blood nutrient levels to provide your cells with the energy they need to support a healthy heart, brain, eyes, skin, bones, and immune system.

Hm… do you see a contradiction? In the directions, it says to take the three tablets twice daily… however, it says “a single serving of DOUBLE X is what you need your vitamin to be.” So why take it twice daily if a single serving will do the trick? Furthermore, most vitamins I come across are single servings daily. Also, look at the %DV of a single serving. Most of them are well over 100%, so why take it twice? The ones that are less than 100% are ones that you will get regardless unless you eat chalk for breakfast lunch and dinner.

Now, to tie it all up… the cost. Double X? $75 retail price for 1-2 months of consumption. Let’s say 2 months. So average cost of $37.5 / month.

Centrum Silver? Drum roll please… we have a whopping twenty bucks for 220 capsules… That’s almost $3 / month. Even if it’s two capsules per day, it’s $6 / month.

 

[Mycroft]

The tools system is not effective is accomplishing what it advertises - to help develop successful Amway businesses. Icerat will argue that all diamonds are on the "system" but conversely, all lottery winners bought a ticket. There is ZERO unbiased evidence to suggest that the system of cds and functions do anything to help rank and file IBOs. There is however, plenty of unbiased evidence to suggest that the system sales are more significant for some diamonds, than the Amway income.

Or put it this way...

What would stop a person unrelated to Amway from starting their own "tools" business and marketing it to Amway distributors at significant savings to the same tools purchased from the Amway up-line?

Would that be okay by Amway standards? Why or why not?

 

[Mycroft]

To restate my objection, I think it's inherently dishonest to recruit people as a sales force when the reality is they're the market.

I agree. What's the relevance? The majority of people who join direct sales companies do so after starting as companies, ie it's pretty damn clear they're part of the market. I certainly had the concept of me as a consumer of the products well explained to me when I joined. Indeed many people (including myself) are critical of too much emphasis on that approach.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you're not being obtuse on purpose. I also think it's reasonable that a person uses the same products they sell. My objection is I think it's inherently dishonest to recruit people as a sale force for one set of products when the reality is they're being recruited as the market for motivational materials and "tools".

Does that make it more clear?

 

[NewtonTrino]

You're claiming to be a software supplier to Network 21? Sorry, but I call BS. If not, PM me with the name of your software company, I can confirm with Network 21.

Oh do you have some sort of insider status with N21 to find out this information?

Anyway that's not what I'm claiming. What I'm claiming is that I've supplied software to similar organizations who use exactly the same model.

I could care less whether or not someone as brainwashed as you believes me. This information is for those who have yet to get sucked into this scam. If they don't believe me, then fine.

Your software company has over 300 staff with offices in more than 30 countries and provides services in more than 20 languages? Well done. (not that I believe you)

I run several software companies that do business in MORE than 30 countries. My companies also partner with some of the largest corps in the world and we all do business worldwide in many languages including most European languages, russian, chinese, korean, japanese etc and distribute our products in those countries. I'm VERY VERY familiar with recording costs, production costs, distribution costs etc for this kind of stuff. Making audio CD's costs almost nothing. Translation is super cheap. Duplication is super cheap. Distribution is actually costly, unless you can just force this garbage down the throats of your "downline". lol. I didn't get rich sitting around on my ass like you pretending to have a real business icerat. How much money have you made from amway again? Oh, nothing? Then why are we listening to you?

(1) Network 21 has never had a fixed commission per level difference. How can it be "traditional"
(2) How many functions have you been to, and run by which companies?

I neve said N21 had a fixed commission. It is a traditional method that almost all organizations used before they switched to the volume method.

I've been to hundreds of functions. I grew up around the business.

I'm providing actual figures from the N21 tool rebate schedule. Simply claiming they're false does not make it so.

Account for 100% of the tool money in your schedule instead of just a small fraction.

Bottom line, I've argued this garbage for hundreds of posts in other threads and have no interest in responding in detail at this point.

Again let me point out that Icerat has ZERO authority to speak for amway or Network21 and doesn't have any more knowledge than any other victim of the scam.

Caveat Emptor people. Stay away from the scammers unless you want to ruin your life. I've only seen thousands of people directly get ripped off with my own eyes over the last 30 years.

 

[NewtonTrino]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you're not being obtuse on purpose. I also think it's reasonable that a person uses the same products they sell. My objection is I think it's inherently dishonest to recruit people as a sale force for one set of products when the reality is they're being recruited as the market for motivational materials and "tools".

Does that make it more clear?

He is being obtuse on purpose. Go read some of the other amway threads and you'll see the same thing. He'll basically try to assign any other meaning to what you've said than than what you actually mean.

It's not his fault though. His brain has been addled by listening to too many "tools".

The closest example I can think of is that it's like arguing with a scientologist.

 

[NewtonTrino]

One more thing I'd like to point out is that Icerat continues to claim that he's giving us information about where the tool money goes. Sorry but without a TAX RETURN I simply won't believe you. We need independently verifiable information, PERIOD, end of story.

 

[icerat]

No, I am claiming that at worst they are equivalent. Vitamin isolates provide exactly the amount of vitamin or mineral as advertised (within manufacturing tolerances).

Sure, but there's a lot more than vitamin isolates in plants. I find it hard to believe you've never encountered the overwhelming research that a diet high in plants is healthy. There is no such overwhelming research for isolated vitamin supplements.

Take Vitamin E for example. It was first discovered in 1922. One form, alpha-tocopherol, was first isolated in 1936. dl-alpha-tocopherol, the synthetic form, was first synthesised in 1938. In 1968 it was declared an essential nutrient. About the same time, it was legislated that for something to be labelled as containing Vitamin E, it was only required to contain dl-alpha-tocopherol.

Here's the thing. There are 8 forms of "Vitamin E" in nature, 4 tocopherols and 4 tocotrienols. There is increasing evidence that alternative forms, especially the tocotrienols, may have health benefits that alpha-tocopherol does not have.

Why this story?

Well, the first Nutrilite product was introduced in 1934. Before even one form of Vitamin E was isolated, before it was synthesised, before it was ever included in vitamin supplements or in fortified foods.

That nutrilite product contained not only alpha-tocopherol but a range of other tocopherols and tocotrienols.

How? Because one of it's key ingredients was concentrated alfalfa, which we now know is a good source of the whole spectrum of Vitamin E.

We know now that plants have a whole range of substances that contribute to our health, not just the particular chemicals we've synthesised. You've undoubtedly heard words like flavonoids, polyphenols, quercetin, lycopene, Isothiocyanates, carotenoids etc etc.

That's the kind of stuff you find in plants, including nutrilite plant concentrates, but not in synthesised isolate vitamin tablets.

But go ahead and believe there's no difference. Doesn't change reality.

(more on this here)

Prestige is a Euromonitor term, but Euromonitor do not provide a full list of the brands it considers to fit in that category but L'Oreal is one of the brands that Walmart stocks specifically mentioned in Amway literature.

Can you provide a link to that Amway literature ? I believe L'Oreal is considered mass-market (masstige), not prestige. The brands that have appeared in that category with Euromonitor I know of are Clinique, Estée Lauder, Lancôme, Chanel, and I think Shiseido.

http://www.walmart.com/search/searc...l'oreal&ic=48_0&Find=Find&search_constraint=0

I cannot easily find an Amway product pricelist to do a price comparison.

I'm curious - how were you able to find walmart.com but not amway.com?

I did however find a number of sites that do price comparisons - which aren't flattering but because I have no way of verifying the Amway prices I cannot speak to their accuracy.

You plan on comparing 2011 Amway prices with prices on websites that are many years (in some cases, decades) old?

Here's a critique of that Amway vs Costco price comparison, which includes correct price comparisons.

It's impossible to do accurate price comparisons if you don't actually know anything about the products. There was one site I saw that compared Amway's LOC products with equivalents like Spray n' Wipe and completely ignored the fact the LOC product was supposed to be mixed with water first to make 4 times the volume!

Tell me how much the Amway filter is and I'll find the comparable product.

How about you just find a product that meets NSF/ANSI Standards 42, 53 and 55

 

[Joecool]

You plan on comparing 2011 Amway prices with prices on websites that are many years (in some cases, decades) old?

Here's a critique of that Amway vs Costco price comparison, which includes correct price comparisons.

It's impossible to do accurate price comparisons if you don't actually know anything about the products. There was one site I saw that compared Amway's LOC products with equivalents like Spray n' Wipe and completely ignored the fact the LOC product was supposed to be mixed with water first to make 4 times the volume!

Icerat's critique of the price comparison is not valid. I did that price comparison by using a current (at the time) Amway catalog and my prices were what I saw on the shelf at Costco. Icerat then used a Costco online price listing, which is more expensive than buying the product at the store.

Here's the eye opening comparison. The exact same product significantly cheaper than Amway:

Progresso soups 8 19 oz cans $19.99
Progresso soups 8 19 oz cans $11.99 (Costco)

Also, I was able to get a footlong hotdog and bottomless soda (unlimited refills) at Costco for $1.50. Nothing Amway has compares to that!