sminkypink - Back in the 1990s, I witnessed my own brother (a deeply dissatisfied thirty-something teacher) pretending to be making piles of money out of 'Amway.' In reality, he'd rented out his own one-up one-down, back street, terrace house and moved into my mother's large home which was stuffed full of paintings and antiques. This property was actually bought by my late father (an architect and art collector) in the late 1950s, using £2000 that he'd earned from the sale of a rare book which he'd bought for peanuts in a junk shop in Leeds.
The same book today is worth in excess of half a million pounds, but the property, only about £400 000. Eventually, my brother sold this property, but I have no idea how much cash he lost to the 'Amway' racketeers.
Prior to this, my brother also acquired, and sold, another even larger house which my mother had inherited from my father's aunt. In this way, my brother's total 'Amway' losses were easily hidden.
I was excluded from my own family and systematically branded a 'jealous anti-capatalist who refused to work, and who was trying to steal the dreams of millions of Amway business owners, ' by the group's paranoid controlling fairy story, simply for refusing to join 'Amway' and for filing complaints with the UK authorities.
Even with all these stolen advantages, my brother was so unconvincing in the role of big-hitting 'MLM' shill, that he never rose above the rank of 'Gold Producer' in the 'Amway' hierarchy. This required him to recruit, and maintain for six months, his own group of about 50 obedient adherents (all handing over the required ammount of cash each month in exchange for the unsaleable wampum). However, all these constantly-churning recruits were also counted in the personal groups of my brother's 'Upline,' and in those of his 'Upline's' 'Upline,' etc.
Had my brother maintained the same number of obedient adherents for 12 months, he would have risen to the key-rank of 'Direct Distributor,' but each year on average more than 50% of 'Amway' adherents always fail to renew their contracts.
At this time, I calculated that in order for any 'Amway' adherent to rise to the first 'total financial freedom' level of 'Diamond Distributor,' a group comprising approximately 10 000 obedient, but constantly-churning, adherents had to be recruited and maintained for 12 months. Thus, for each one of these 10 000 would-be millionaires to achieve 'Diamond Distributor' each one would also have to recruit and maintain 10 000 further constantly-churning, obedient adherents, etc. ad infinitum.
The same crackpot calculations apply to all 'MLM' cults.
When 'Amway' was finally investigated by the UK government, the organisation had dwindled to around 20 thousands constantly-churning adherents, and there was only couple occupying a higher level of 'Diamond Distributorship' in the UK.
However, since 'Amway' came to the UK in 1973, at least one millions indviduals had been churned through it.