MLM schemes @ the hall, i.e Amway, , etc...

by avishai 48 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  skeeter1

  What about the vitamin/supplement market?

  In the 1990's, both my folks were into buying super-expensive herb supplements and vitamins from a "sister" who doubled as an eye reader. The sister set up shop in my parent's spare bedroom to read JWs eyes. About 20 or so JWs saw her one evening. Each one came out with aweful conditions & $200 to $300 of herbs! She even said that "brown eyes" were caused by toxins in the body. That's why all babies are born with blue eyes. So, the brown eyed people had to buy extra colin cleansers!

  Lately, my father has been buying AMBROTOSE and ADVANCED AMBROTOSE from another sister. Governments around the world have called the parent company of Amrotose to be a fraud. But, I can't convince my father. He has the hots for the peddler sister. Sex sells, I suppose. Or, the Ambrotose works like Viagra. I haven't figured out which one.

  Skeeter
• 

  95stormfront

  Primeamerica....yep...and one of the elders that got into that is now into ACN....and he still isnt getting wealthy. Avon, Tupperware, Mary Kay, Amway, Herbalife, ACN, Primeamerica, PamperedChef, Tahitian Noni, PartyLite (candles), Shaklee.... most of them are still making the rounds through the congos locally. Trimline was big here in the 80s.

  Back when I was making my exit my elder f-i-l introduced me to another elder who was big into Primerica. I actually went to one of the sales meetings he was speaking at. It was a typical pyramid scheme selling worthless insurance products, where we were told that we weren't actually "selling" anything, just acting as financial consultants. We were specifically instructed to get as many as our friends and family involved as we could....to sell the product to at least ten people who would seel to another ten as your downline....etc. etc.....

  After I stopped going to the seminars and backed off of meeting him with the names of the ten people I was supposed to bring him, he got all pissy and called one day to chastise me for wasting his time.

  Yeah....he was all friendly at first faking spiritual concern when what he really wanted was me in his downline. When he saw he wasn't getting anywhere with me, his attitude soured in a hurry.
• 

  joanne_

  I think the funniest recollection of this sort of thing happened about 10 years ago. A husband and wife I know got invited out to a sisters house for 'lunch'. The lunch was really nice. The sister took alot of care and effort in preparing it. Then after the lunch she put on her sales pitch....it was for.....paracites!!!! She went into great detail of what they looked like and how to get rid of them...etc...It was funny. My friends were totally shocked...still makes me chuckle. Poor sister was only trying to make extra money...
• 

  PaNiCAtTaCk

  I know a lot of witnesses in arkansas are getting involved with "colors on parade". (Mobile car painting.) There is always an Elder at the top recruiting the lowly poorer witnesses to do all the hard work part of it, with promises of owning there own franchise one day. The one guy I talked to was working around 55 hours a week and making 300 dollars a week!!! But, he had signed some stupid contract with an Elder that had him bound for a while longer. Another Witness had trained with the same Elder, but never actually bought in to it. Once you agree to train with them, you are not supposed to paint in the area of the person who trained you. But, he learned enough to paint cars on his own so he did, and the other Elder took him to the Elders. Another witness trained with the same elder and also never bought into the franchise and he moved to california for a short period and then moved back to arkansas and started painting in secret. Its all so stupid.
• 

  Gregor

  Yeah, it's kind of like JWs are no different than anyone else, but they think they are better. What is the word I'm looking for....hyp....hypo....HYPOCRIT!! thats it!.

  How many times have we had the parable of the good Samaritan spoon fed to us by the WTS? The point of the parable was that the victim that had been beaten and robbed was a jew, but his fellow jews who came upon him walked around him and kept going. It was a stranger from Samaria that stopped to give aid. It doesn't take a genius to understand the lesson which is basically love for ones fellow human in dire need regardless of his affiliation.

  The JWs today seem to feel that their brothers and sisters are there to be exploited and taken advantage of. Real charity is very rare in the org. and that is because the mother organization absolutely practices a 180 degree opposite attitude from the above parable. They have even issued 'orders' that charity should not be given directly to aid groups helping everybody (i.e. the tsunami and Katrina) but that it should be given through the WTS so it can be dispersed only to brothers (yeah, sure).

  There is nothing wrong with many kinds of MLM. But when JWs use their spiritual brothers and sisters in financial schemes it is obvious that monetary benefit supercedes "Ag'ape". We could compile a thick book of ugly cases of falling outs between JWs over monetary issues.
• 

  marmot

  Here's a list of some of the MLM schemes I've encountered/been pressured to join during my life as a witness:
  
  - Trimline (I'd completely forgotten about this one until reading this thread)
  - Melaleuca
  - Herbalife
  - Mary Kay
  - ACN
  - Tupperware
  - Usana
  - Electrolux
  - Tristar
  - Aloette
  - those stupid candle parties
  - I forget the name of this next one but it had something to do with placing magnets under your mattress
  
  and not really MLM but insidious nonetheless, homeopathic remedies. My mother got duped into this and believes 110% that it's real.
• 

  AnnOMaly

  Mulan said

  My point is, that some of the MLM business are very good, with excellent products. How well you do, depends on you.

  I agree. I'm still a member of one, but I'm only in for the product, not the business, which I sucked at. I know honest, ethical people who made a good living out of it. Having said that, the sales tactics and mindset at the MLM meetings were uncannily like Thursday Service Meetings. Some of the people were cultish about the business opportunity and products, and unsurprisingly also came from 'heterodox' religions.
• 

  endlosung

  One of the big reasons the older ones used to get into this crap is that the society used to rail agains modern medicin. So if you talk to old witnesses and they are all vitamins and herbs, it is becasue they were indoctrinated with the AMA is satans man on earth crap.

  I had an uncle who used to tell me how the society told it rank and file not to take or let their chirldren get imunizations. It was the puss of horses. bla bla bla.
• 

  DaCheech

  before we had kids, my wife would buy scented candles. I blessed her wishes, since they never caused trouble. I even shopped with her in the expensive yankee candle stores.

  well, one day she got invited to a JW party. when she came back, she had 2 candles in her hand.

  I asked what's up? she said the sister had this spread of merchendise, and she feld awkward so she bought these.

  when I saw the bill, it was twice what we spend in the expenside stores!

  was I mad!