Amway

If you've heard of Amway, you know what this is all about.

My cousin, LJ, and I met this lady who told us about an investment, a passive income investment, not relating to stocks and real estate. With the financial crisis, what other investment is safe these days? LJ and I were both skeptical (being typical accountants) but gave the lady the benefit of a doubt. We thought this was going to be one of those pyramid schemes.

At first, the lady was very persistent that we attend this meeting. She wanted to meet the following day, if not the next day, and so forth. So we gave her a chance and LJ and I would go together just in case one of us can't say 'No' and get sucked into this. After two months, LJ and I attended the meeting.

It sounded too good to be true. Its Amway. The idea is, be a member of Amway (or get into their "pipeline" - as they call it), get discounts on their products, you get into a pool of members, meet a sales quota and then get a check for a certain % of points, try to get people to be a member and get a % of their sales. Once you've built your network, the more $ you get from their sales. Its a typical pyramid scheme, but apparently, a legal one. Its SCAMway!

Amway has been described as a cult. Members pressuring you to buy products of great quality. Having to go to meetings and selling motivational materials, telling people how they didn't have to work anymore for the rest of their lives, pressuring new recruits to sign up, etc, etc. According to some people, they've lost friends who pressured them into buying the products, this cult taking over their whole lives with all the meetings and recruiting they had to do, totally annoying other people. In the end, the reality is, a very minuscule % of the people actually receive the big checks.

I'm glad LJ and I had an open mind going to this meeting and being skeptical...and smart. It sounded too good to be true and if you're dumb enough to get sucked into it, well, that's just too bad. My advice is, don't even get into it. If you want to check it out, just be open minded and be smart about it.