[ot] Amway

[liorean]

I've seen a LOT of Amway jokes recently, something which I find very strange since I hadn't heard of them before. So, now I was wondering if any of you could explain what Amway does and why everybody seems to think they're damn bloody awful - their hompage didn't exactly pointify that aspect of the company.

[MysteryMan]

Re: [ot] Amway

Originally posted by liorean
I've seen a LOT of Amway jokes recently, something which I find very strange since I hadn't heard of them before. So, now I was wondering if any of you could explain what Amway does and why everybody seems to think they're damn bloody awful - their hompage didn't exactly pointify that aspect of the company.

Sure I can explain a bit.

In the future, as we hear my about companies "cooking the books" we're going to probably use the word ENRON to define this action.

"He ENRONED the company" for example.

This is because it was the first big company to do this.

The reason Amway is talked about as an example - mostly because of it's past trouble - is because Amway was one of the first Multi-Level Marketing schemes.

What this is is follows.

I start a company. What I do is I sell business kits to get people who want to be a member of the company.

There job entails selling business kits to other people to be a member of the company.

Those people then sell kits to people to be a member of the company, by which they can make money off making other people members.

In otherwords, the company sells people the ability to sell to other people. What are they selling? The kit and ability to sell........

Every who you sign up gives you some % of the money they make for people to sign up. You make a small percentage from EVERYONE below you.

Thus the person with the most people below them, the OWNER, makes millions. But remember, the company sells nothing. One merely pays to get a kit to sell the same thing they just bought from someone.

This is multi-level marketing. Amway is one of the first people to do this.

This is actually now illegal. To get around it, many companies will do this same thing, but you also have the ability to sell some stupid product too, just to get around the law.

So that's why you here about AmWay. It was one of the biggest pyramid schemes.....

Watch those latenight crazy "make millions" infomercials? That's what those are.

They will say you can sell the kit to others, and also sell product X, but they will never talk about product X, they will focus you on selling the kit to others, so they can sell the kit to others, etc.... there is no actual product or service

This is why you found NOTHING of information on their website. There is no info... It's nothing.

[MysteryMan]

In 200o my then roomate got sucked into one such company...


www.bigsmart.com

Don't bother going there, it doesn't exist.

It was this MASSIVELY huge and popular company by which you owned an online referal internet mall.

Sure you COULD make money off sales if anyone went to your mall - but really you would only make money if you SOLD malls to other people.

FUnny thing is, now if you do a WHOIS you will find the official bigsmart email address is some idiots yahoo address.

The company failed, why?

They made millions.

But look what happened

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/08/bigsmart.htm

They were found guilty by pleading so, of multi level marketing, which is illegal..



and lost all there profit...........


It's so funny because you should have seen how awesome the website looked. They had tons of interactive videos and live help to get you going. It was a massive operation....

...and now the webmaster email is a stupid yahoo address which probably goes to the guy who lost millions by doing it all ilegally.

Is this not funny or what.

[whackaxe]

you know, with all the talented web designs and coders we could probably mount a pretty impressive site for a multi level marketing company. could finance CF for a while methinks

[MysteryMan]

Originally posted by whackaxe
you know, with all the talented web designs and coders we could probably mount a pretty impressive site for a multi level marketing company. could finance CF for a while methinks

With all the talent here, if it was organized I am sure a great deal of good stuff could come of it.

Which makes me wonder why the self-defeating anti-group of coders I see multiple places occurs....

I mean, when coders work together, great things always happen. And money is made....

Making an MLM scheme also takes a lot of money. To make is a success one would need a loan in the millions, mostly for advertising

I'm up for any legal ideas. You could always bribe the head of an MPM to pay you off to not turn them over to authorities - we all know with BUSH around, cooking the books will not be allowed

[mindlessLemming]

Originally posted by MysteryMan
- we all know with BUSH around, cooking the books will not be allowed

ROFL! But he doesn't mind cooked elections or deep-fried inteligence reports!

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by mindlessLemming
ROFL! But he doesn't mind cooked elections or deep-fried inteligence reports!

lol yeah

[whackaxe]

community projects could be fun. reminds me of a community project on *looks nervous* sitepointforums.com for an autmatic moderator