Then these diamonds will tell you that the secret to achieving said lifestyle is to attend functions, listen to their cd’s daily, use voicemail. All of these things benefit these diamonds financailly while impoverishing the downline.

In the background, nobody actually sees the financials of these diamonds, who very likely make most of their income from the system and not from Amway. This is the problem with the business. This and the fact that Amway has too much baggage for most people to overcome and be successful.

I prefer the term “advocate” more than “very vocal.” If you read my latest blog entry, and I have voiced similar complaints many times in the past for Amway knowing about the problem and not taking action, you would know I hold BOTH sides responsible: google “tex” and “amway”, and go to the main page. I know Amway was held responsible in the UK, but that doesn’t do much for us in the U.S.

I agree the laws are fuzzy. I don’t know if this is due mainly to lack of knowledge, the nature of how new companies change the “landscape”, or some other reason.

I’m not sure what you mean by “toolkit issue”, what I mean by tools is the various meetings, books, CD’s, websites, voice mail systems, etc. There is more than ample evidence showing the Amway upline folks make multiple times more from these sources than from Amway, which makes the issue HUGELY germane. In fact, given the above, the tools are by definition multiple times more germane than the Amway business itself, because they result in not only multiple times more profit for the upline, but net losses for most IBO’s. Therefore, I submit there is no single factor more germane than the tools.

The tools are used, besides making a huge profit, to educate and motivate the downline, and the “how to” portions are directed mostly how to sponsor others.

Most MLM’s may be designed to reward both retail sales and downline recruitment, but how they are actually performed is, at least in the case of Amway, 95+% downline recuitment and <5% customer volume. I explain why in my previous post.

When some terminated TEAM folks disclosed the confidential <5% number a couple of years ago, one would think evidence of increased scrutiny would have been made publicly available by now. It hasn’t been.

By the way, I am a current Amway IBO, and have been for 16 years. 12 of those years were spent getting ripped off by the upline, the last 4 in creating an improved tool system and promoting shutting down the tool scam in various ways. I don’t pretend to be an expert for other companies, but feel I am one of the most, if not THE most, informed people regarding how Amway and the LCK’s (Lying Cowardly “Kingpins”) work.