Scamway

We're taking Demi home tomorrow. *sigh* It's gonna be weirdly quiet around here when she leaves. The hamsters won't be too happy about it, either: They'll go back to eating once a day instead of, say, every 5 minutes.

My mother directed me to an excellent post about the religious cult known as Amway. Unfortunately I have a lot of experience with Amway because my ex was involved with it for roughly six months. Initially I didn't think it was such a bad idea - it's just like Avon, right? You sell soaps and baby wipes and whatnot, make a little extra money. Wrong. My first hint that something was horribly awry were the ever-growing piles of cassette tapes in his living room, with titles like "Don't Dream It, Be It" and "Diamond Destiny". Why would one need 700 motivational tapes to sell some laundry detergent, especially if it's supposed to be primo stuff? So, I did some online research. What I found was both scary and profoundly pathetic. Amway is, as so many people have learned the hard way, a quasi-religious cult/pyramid scam. I won't go into all the behavioral tricks, jargon, and moronic marketing strategies Amway (and its alter ego, Quixtar) uses, but here's just a sample:

• Amway/Quixtar is ashamed to use the name "Amway", and changed to Quixtar a few years back (around the time my ex was involved). But they're now reluctant to use the word "Quixtar" and are employing various fronts to hide it. Reps will avoid using the word until they are absolutely cornered and forced to do so. There are reasons for this. No reputable business is scared of using its own name!! Of course, the reps will tell you that Amway/Quixtar has an undeserved bad reputation - it's so powerful, successful, and innovative that its corporate rivals continually launch smear campaigns against it. Yeah. Like Michael Jackson, right?
• Quixtar reps sucker you in by pretending the pyramid is a "unique opportunity", or "not for everybody", making it into a challenge. "Well, I'd tell you all about it, but I'm not sure you can handle it..."
• Amway Diamonds, Emeralds, and Cubic Zirconias or whatever the hell they call themselves do not make most of their money from superising their own private sales forces, nor from selling baby wipes. They make most of their money from sales of retarded motivational cassette tapes, books, and seminar tickets. At least one Diamond has admitted this. Amway/Quixtar isn't illegal, but it is a thinly veiled pyramid scheme. Sure, you can theoretically get to the top - but how many people actually make it?
• The Diamonds who appear at seminars and on the cassette tapes say things like, "I sold all my oil wells because Amway is a better opportunity" and "If it was between my wife and Amway, I'd choose Amway." They only say this to people they've already initiated into the cult, of course, because they would never use the word "Amway" in mixed company.
• Mid-level Amway reps (Opals or Pearls or something like that) will tell you they're fabulously successful and well-off. But note that they never hold recruiting seminars in their own homes - they always ask you to do it. And they'll "suggest" you dress nicely and serve decent appetizers. ("Suggest" is the Amway word for "rudely demand"). Also, they'll usually park a block or two away so you won't notice they're driving an '86 Chevy Nova crammed full of cassette tapes. If asked, reps explain the tapes are being given to you "at a loss" even though you're paying $6-$10 for each one.
• Amway reps prey on the young, the poor, and the religious. They'll tell you it's all about "faith", "morals", and the American/Canadian Dream, that you're not just selling toothpaste but actually upholding the capitalist way of life. Show me one Avon rep who talks like that.

Enough! Even writing about this stuff fills me with pity. For more info on Scamway and its alter egos, visit http://www.webraw.com/quixtar/. This is a weblog by a man whose wife was once programmed by Amway/Quixtar to do their evil bidding.
Google "Amway rhino", and you'll find a hilarious Amway-to-English dictionary. Here's a definition many people will recognize:

Amafight: (verb) More than a disagreement, this is a fight between two people over any subject regarding building an Amway business. More often than not, the fight is about expenses- the next function is too expensive or the tapes cost too much. Some distributors believe these fights are actually good for married couples and later tell their own story about how they "overcame" their fight.

There are also tons of blogs and websites devoted to exposing Quixtar and other MLMs. Even if you're not one of the unfortunate souls whose loved ones have been mentally abducted by Amway, it makes for some entertaining and enlightening reading.

OK, a quick Amway joke: When I told my friend M.J. and her husband, Phil, that I'm writing a book about Satanism, Phil said, "Some of our neighbours have a cult like that, I think! There are all these cars parked on their lawn every night, and the lights are never on!"
M.J. said, "Honey, they sell Amway."
M.J. and I looked at each other and said in perfect synch "Isn't it the same thing?"