Taking legal action against Amway or IBS

Chuh

I think you're missing the point here PasturesNew. The problem is not the training itself - although to be honest it's only average - but the deception that accompanies it and the benefits available through it.

During my time with Amway I estimate that about 85% of time at seminars and meetings was spent promoting the training system. Hence only 15% of time was spent on the real business i.e. products. Even worse I believe is the impression given to IBOs that the tools were a non-profit making part of the business. The 'leaders' spent their time recording tapes and researching suitable material for our benefit. We were given the impression that the money they made came from the Amway business itself.

This was a lie. It is now believed that as much as 85% of their income comes/came from training material. This is deception but explains why the tools and system were rammed down our throats and why anyone who resisted the material was frozen out.

You may feel that £20k is a lot of money to spend on tools - I agree. However, my personal experience is that we spent at least £50-75 per month on tools for ourselves. This did not include tickets to events, petrol or time. I haven't worked out exactly how much we spent because I don't want to know! Below is an estimate of how it racks up ...

1 seminar per month @ £15 - £19 per ticket (dependent on if you buy it in advance, from your upline or on the door) (approx. £204pa)
1 tape or CD per week @ £5 (approx. £260pa)
1 book per month @ £5 - 10 (approx. £90pa)
1 product tape per month @ £5 (approx. £60pa)
One open meeting per month @ £3 (approx. £36pa)
1 major function per 4 months @ £85 - 99 (dependent on if you buy it in advance, from your upline or on the door) (approx. £270pa)
Hotel accommodation for major function @ £50 (approx. 150pa)

That's £1070 pa for personal development so far.

As well as the above IBOs also purchase support materials for showing the business to prospects. These include books like Think & Grow Rich, How to Win Friends and Influence People and Have you Got Time for Success. If you are actively building your business you might have as many as 10 -20 books in your armoury at any time. You'd probably need to replace these annually.

Each time you show the business to a prospect you need to leave them with some material to review for a couple of days. These packs cost about £18 each - the box (nothing's free!), 2 CDs and a booklet. Again, if you're actively building the business and following the guidance of your upline you will have several of these. We had between 10 - 15 of these packs when we were building our business. Again, these need to be replaced regularly.

Invariably these books and packs were lost regularly as you'd give them to someone arrange to meet them in a couple of days to answer their questions and you'd never see them again! The upline advised that this was part of the journey and the more plans you showed the quicker you'd reach your goal. This meant that we were constantly having to replace lost tools - ker-ching. Although it doesn't feel like a lot of money at the time when you look back over the years it is easy to see how thousands of pounds have been spent.

There's a backdrop of we're all one big happy family and we all go out of our way to help our downline and support our upline free of charge and without condition. IBOs are told constantly how close they are ... success is just around the corner and so on. Against this backdrop of happiness and support however is a clear message that it's all dependent on the system and that 'No-one has ever succeeded in making 'real' money without the system.' and 'If you do not plug into the system your upline will not help you.' Those who resist are called losers and ostricised.

Before getting any training on products new people are encouraged to join the con-ed program. To show just how important it is the success of any leg is actually measured by how many people are on con-ed, how many seminar tickets have been sold etc.

It's easy to take the high ground when confronted by something like this but what you must consider is that these people have been perfecting their strategy for decades now. There are numerous records of problems with the training system dating back to the early 80's. Group members have been heard say that if the training system is taken away they will go bankrupot.

These people know the psychology of those they are dealing with and how to get them to accept their guidance and manipulation. They act like friends, find out what your deepest desires are and work on ways to draw you into their lair.

The Scrivens are still doing it. I guarantee that the vast majority of people at the meeting I attended yesterday have not made any money from the business. They are still hopeful, however, that their turn is close. They are following blindly and once again the Scrivens, Butlers and others will be quids in. It's very sad.

djbd1973

Chun - you have brought back to me some of the experiences that I had forgotten about as I dropped out the system 7 years ago but the costs and experiences you detailed are exactly how I remember them. 'If the dream is big enough, the facts don't count' was one of the slogans I remember. The facts clearly do count.

Its interesting to hear that other businesses are now the way they are going. We were always told that 'this business' (Amway through IBS) WAS the only business and that no others compare.

In 2000 when my upline direct and his upline direct had had enough and left to join Herbalife, they took a huge part of the Scrivens group with them. A lot of it was glossed over but a few homes truth came back from my upline direct who had quit, and it was hard to believe. I was supposedly plugged into the Scrivens via some other directs who hadn't a clue and clearly hadn't the money that was supposed to be there. Jokes were made about Herbalife and everyone was expected to get on with it, but after all those years of devoted hard graft on my part, I slowly pulled out, and was never telephoned or written to even though I did not cancel my membership until a few years later. They were not good times.

Grobbelrevell

Afternoon all.

I have just been reading this thread through and thought i would add my thoughts here on the subject.

I have been involved in the Amway business for the past 18 months or so and was quite shocked when i discovererd that the company (Amway) were under investigation and under threat of being closed down.

Since that day in May i have not been actively attempting to build the business at all and have been awaiting details on what was actually happening.

I also attended the meeting that has been mentioned saturday just gone, hosted by the Scrivens and Dave Butler. I must admit to finding it hard to believe that they would be so obvious to decieve people in the way that people on here are accusing them of (does anybody have any facts to back up these claims?).

Dont get me wrong, i am not defending these people as, at the end of the day i do not know them personally and have gone with certain advice from them and others within IBS on faith a lot of the time. I have also had nothing but good experiences during my involvement with IBS. I have not had a great deal of dealings with Jerry Scriven or Dave Butler but have dealt with a number of others, who have become friends of whom i trust.

What i would say however, a lot of what you outline i cannot argue with in terms of others accounts of what they experienced. Personally though i did not do anything against my will and thought everything through before i agreed to anything - not simply taking peoples words for it. IF however it is true that they have been deceiving people and making money on the tools then that would be a different matter as i was also told on many occasions that these were NOT sold at a profit and merely covered costs and i must say when compared to similar items and events the price does reflect well. As i said though, i have yet to hear anything other than specualtion and opinion on this matter.

A large part of the event on saturday was centred around the Scrivens and Dave Butler putting their side of the recent events across, and i must admit on the face of it the company have not acted in a way that you would expect and there seems to be a lot of propoganda coming out of Amway.

It did leave me wondering though, that there surely must have been a reason why the company would simply kick these people out? They were at pains on saturday to outline that the company were basically lying about the fact that the DTI investigation was centred around the training materials and IBS and the truth was that this was a smokescreen and the real cause of the investigation was relating to too few people making money mainly due to high prices etc.

I have also looked in to the other opportunities that were outlined on saturday and i must admit they look intrigueing but we were also told to not do anything yet as we will be formulating a method with our upline to register in the same positions as previously. The frst thing that came into my mind here was that Jerry and Dave would obviously want that to happen as they would then move into another area with a large income straight away, and therefore not losing out from being banned by Amway.

I must admit to not knowing what to think yet due to so many theories and opinions floating around. As i said though, i do have a few close friends that i have worked with within IBS and Amway and i honestly believe that they would not lie to me. These people are in a variety of levels (some quite high).
Unless they are also being deceived then that is another matter. If someone has any clear and factual reasons to make these accusations i would like to hear them as i would like to get to the bottom of this before i go any further, especially having anything more to do with IBS.

Thank you for reading anyway.

Grobbelrevell

TPAOY wrote: »

I reckon that all the costs I incurred in trying to build this "business" amounted to well over £20,000 and the knock on effect of trying to stay afloat since then has pushed things up a lot more than that. Doesn't compare with your friends experience but I can see how IBS would happily take everything from someone without caring what the end result was.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has even managed to get money back from IBS for the "tools" and "seminars".

A friend of mine who got involved for a while and later decided it wasnt for him did send all his tools back to IBS and was given a full refund - although there was a cap in the fact the refund was only available on tools purchased in the last 6 months.

djbd1973

Thanks for your input Grobbelrevell.

My comments are only from my own experiences from the 90's and very early 00's when the business had much more people involved especially when local functions were at Wembley (two of them for two different groups) and major functions were split across the country in places such as NEC arena.

To try and answer some of your points from my perspective, when the first occasion I remember where the tools and the business were questioned, it was on a programme like Watchdog or something of that nature in the mid 90's. It was all denied profoundly from stage as you would expect, and it even resulted in my own direct calling a special meeting to explain the direct's discount on the tools that they used to get. My upline was IBS down to his underpants. Lived it throughout and we followed. He counselled with J Scriven reguarly but at the point when my upline left, his story and the IBS story did not match. I trusted my then upline implicitly so couldn't understand the mistruths coming out. Alot of the emeralds of IBS of my time period would also confirm the tools scenario. Neil and Ruth Salway are two of those such emeralds.

If you have been frugal with the money spent on tools then good for you. At the time for me there was no choice. Plug into the system to get the help or there was no help. You were part of a family - 'together as one' as long as you were plugged in. If you didn't agree then you were out in the cold.

I would have a concern with joining a new network after being told this is the best business and then its not - here's a better one. This is why I didn't follow my upline when they joined Herbalife. I would also have a concern with people maintaining the same levels in the new direction. If its a new business wouldn't different principals apply? Yes you can have good people skills, but better product knowledge? If I had made the money at Diamond level, surely I wouldn't be concerned about maintaining a group under a new direction unless I needed the money I would enjoy permanent retirement in luxury. These would be my concerns.

The only real way of getting to the bottom of this is obtaining a true answer from either Amway or the DTI when the ruling comes out. The DTI is likely to be the most objective review of the facts. Incidentally, when I saw the business for the very first time in August 1993, and told my Dad I wanted to join, he wrote to the DTI for some advice. The reply was that it was legal but the wording of the letter wasn't particularly favourable as I remember although by then I had already been listening to several tapes of what I would achieve in the following 2-5 years.

It is all your choice at the end of it but good luck with whatever you do.

tomstickland

I've had a quick look on Wikipedia and here's my thoughts

Amway is a multi-level marketing, or network marketing, company

Its product lines include personal care products, jewelry, Nutrilite dietary supplements, water purifiers, air purifiers, insurance and cosmetics.

So it's a pyramid marketing scheme that sells tat.

Sorry to be harsh, but it should have become apparent a bit sooner than £20K that this was potentially a bad idea.

As to claiming money back, I think you'd end up with a landmark court case that would cost a lot of money and then probably lose. Best to cut your losses. Maybe set up a website detailing your grievances to help others.

Plent of hate pages out there:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/hate-mail.html

http://www.mlmsurvivor.com/index.htm

A book an ex employee wrote: http://www.merchantsofdeception.com/

I was shocked to learn and document almost 100% of distributors recruited into the Motivational Organizations lose money, with many losing tens of thousands of dollars.

Grobbelrevell

djbd1973, thank you for the reply on that.

That was one point that has stuck in my mind and made me think twice. Everyone i have dealt with within IBS and Amway have always maintained an unwavering belief that this was THE best networking business out there bar none. Now it appears that Jerry and Dave and IBS in general have been banned by the company this has all of a sudden changed.

Dave Butler and Various others likened the Amway business to "riding a horse" last weekend, while suggesting that these new opportunities would allow us to "go by ferrari". And how it would be a lot easier than "selling soap powder". All of these quotes and the obvious change in attitude did alarm me im not afraid to admit that as it went against everything i had been led to believe from people i trusted and respected for their honesty.

Obviously i do not know the facts as to what has actually gone on though. IBS would have you believe that the company has acted completely immorally and backhandedly and that is the reason that they have now seen the light and are looking for another area to explore. They did actually read paragraphs from letters that they had been sent by the company and to be honest it did not paint the company in a good light. The company on the other hand have not made any comment (obviously due to the legal action taking place) but have implied by what they have said and their actions that the tools were causing a harm to the business - and hence banning them. Does this mean that they were in fact being sold at a profit as some people claim?

The scrivens and Dave Butler, through reading through their letters from the company also highlighted the companies reason for banning them and this was the fact that they had been ordered to remove their websites (IBS sites) in May when the investigation was announced. The company had seemingly found a single page that was apparently linked to a now defunct website but had resulted in one third of their bonus being stopped by the company without any chance of a comeback from IBS. Later they also recieved another letter that stated that they had since found another page that reffered to IBS and were therefore suspending them all together. Jerry again pointed out that this particular page was a site set up not by IBS but by a member of their group. Again they had no chance to comeback on this. It still poses the question for me though, surely there must be more to it than this for the company to ban seemingly two of the core members of the business in this country?

What does appear to have happened now though is a lot of people within IBS have gone along with the IBS line - mainly due to trust - and will now be registering in the same lines within two or more organisations.

To answer another question posed. IBS is still active. The new venture will only involve the scrivens though and not the gregorys, and as a result the team moving forward will be called just that - "the team".

The reason for this is that Pat and Greta Gregory are obviously co-founders of IBS and are not having any involvement moving forward so they cannot now operate under the IBS banner.

Also in quick response to the chap who claims to have lost £20k. Im sure in another thread that figure is quoted by the same person as being £50k. As i said i am not in any court here but am attempting to gather some facts (if anyone has any to offer) but please do get your story straight before posting remarks like that.

djbd1973

tomstickland wrote: »

I've had a quick look on Wikipedia and here's my thoughts




So it's a pyramid marketing scheme that sells tat.

Sorry to be harsh, but it should have become apparent a bit sooner than £20K that this was potentially a bad idea.

As to claiming money back, I think you'd end up with a landmark court case that would cost a lot of money and then probably lose. Best to cut your losses. Maybe set up a website detailing your grievances to help others.

Plent of hate pages out there:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/hate-mail.html

http://www.mlmsurvivor.com/index.htm

A book an ex employee wrote: http://www.merchantsofdeception.com/

Hi Tom,

When you get trapped - you get trapped. Thats life and it happened to me.
Incidentally, the merchants of deception is not written by an ex employee but a former independent business person via Amway. We were not employees but distributors.

FredChopin_2

It seems that Fred Harteis, (a frequent speaker at IBS meetings) among others, has issued legal proceedings against Quixtar in the US for evolving into an illegal pyramid scheme:


http://www.webraw.com/quixtar/resources/files/Complaint.pdf

It look like even those who have "made it" are turning against them now.

ibofightback

FredChopin wrote: »

It seems that Fred Harteis, (a frequent speaker at IBS meetings) among others, has issued legal proceedings against Quixtar in the US for evolving into an illegal pyramid scheme:

As soon as that lawsuit was submitted Fred Harteis had his name withdrawn claiming he knew nothing about it.

Anyway - briefly, I found this forum looking for info about IBS. I run www.thetruthaboutamway.com - now the biggest Amway related-site on the Internet. I'm an Amway IBO, and pro-Amway as well as pro professional training systems, and am more than delighted the corp. is (finally) taking some action to clean up the parts of the business that needed cleaning up.

I however know very little about IBS, except I've heard that Amway has refused to renew the contracts of the IBS diamonds and many emeralds, and that IBS itself is considered "not in good standing". If anyone is able to give me some more information I'd love to know it.

Cheers,
/i