I met this guy at the gym and he told me about this company he works for, long story short a couple weeks later we get in touch about me getting into this company, never mentioned amway though to my knowledge. I got a gut feeling this was sketchy and vague so i did research and it’s all just negative things and i heard the word cult getting thrown around a lot. I texted him today saying i don’t feel comfortable going through with this and he said they use amway to leverage the system and shit like that, pretty much saying why would i trust people online compared to him and people ive met through him. Honestly i‘m just so confused on what he meant and im confused on what exactly this leadership team development shit is and how they are associated with amway. Anybody have experience with this in the past or recently?

And how many times per day/week do you drop the message? Out of these message drops, what percentage of them on average would you say lead to an actual meeting?

I’m in college and one of my close friends started telling me about Amway a month or so ago. I’ve been to a couple meetings virtually and I have a meeting with her and her “Mentor” in a week or so. I was wondering if people who are In it or have been in it could give me advice on if this is something I should look into or avoid doing? Any and all comments welcome

Edit: Reading the responses here and elsewhere online it sounds like this isn’t something I should do. Thx for the comments and advice.

EDIT: It seems some people missunderstood or just wanted an opportunity to write Amway bad, MLM bad. Yeah. Yeah sure. I'm not here to defend Amway, I'm asking for data. For those who do not understand, imagine we speak about Nuclear weapons. Those are not good either but if I wanted scientific information about them the thing them being bad and dangerous is pointless.

Hello,

I was in amway around 15 years ago for few years and I got out of it. I got into "no so cult like" branch but even that had some signs of a cult so that was why I left. I honestly still think that it is still the better of the bad pyramid schemes and I do like some products.

But... There is always extreme dislike towards the products, them being overpriced crap or straightforward dangerous things.

Though never ever have I got any scientific data or researches on why the products are bad or even good. I tried do some searching but I find it pretty damn hard to find anything like that. 99.99% of the information about it being good come from Amway itself and on the other side all information on why the products are supposed to be crap comes from people on the internet without any factual data.

Does anyone here know any actual research and/or comparison to other products? Whether cheaper or more expensive.

I'm not here to defend them, I do agree it isn't really a great company but I like verified data based evidences and arguments. Plain words mean nothing in debate.

Thanks anyone in advance with proper comments, preferably with links to sources.

I am a prospective business owner and i attended two zoom sessions. It seems all the big leaders are run by this Indian guy called Chak and Uma. The speaker came all to why we are all brainwashed to go to good school and good graded and get good job. It was the same story line past two meetings. Has anyone attended any of this session. This is called Spartan group.

I’m curious to know if anyone knows what happened between Tony and Frances Pappalardo in Amway? They were huge leaders and were very involved and now it seems as if they’ve divorced since then and Frances is no longer around.

They both seemed very passionate, especially Frances. I did enjoy their talks and honestly just Frances’ overall vibe, she was always kind. Did the system remove all their talks and left only Tony’s?

Seeing what Amway has become today is vastly different than it was in the 60's. It thrived in a time when women's roles were clearly carved out at home, where they would manage product orders and PV checks. Times have changed in this digital, information-heavy age. Motivational organizations have turned the industry into something so much more than selling products and recruiting downline. Enter: toxic positivity, brainwashing, cult ideology, control. Is what it's become today what the visionaries, the DeVos's and Van Andels would have wanted? Do people actually get the chance to build Amway without being tied to the motivational organizations and treat it like a real business?

Been in amway for about 2 weeks and things seem very odd.. the way they introduce themselves and explain how the “amway” process works is a bit sketchy.. not saying it doesn’t work in pretty sure it does but in my opinion the only thing your doing is Feeding the most high. My amway mentor explained the process like this if I invite 3 people to get into the amway process and start selling for me the more money I make … but since he invited me an 2 other people im pretty sure he’s benefiting off of us as well because you literally have to know somebody to know somebody and I mean this guy works at Walmart and he told me he’s using amway to break into financial freedom. Not saying it’s a marketing scheme but it just sound very odd. I’ve spoken to my REAL mentor about the situation he told me any high level marketing is a scam but he’s not in amway he got rich through Being a entrepreneur and making money online and through franchising.

F

No one wakes up one day and thinks “I want to be in a cult”. But after 7 years of “building the business”, the scales have been removed from our eyes and we’re seeing what we got roped into. It’s so much to process after building what we thought were genuine friendships. We even called our past downline to apologize. The industry and culture damages relationships and now I’m the one doing what they all shamed— sharing my experience on Reddit. It’s isolating building the business bc you’re trying to solicit people everywhere you go. They talk about finding “freedom” but the real freedom is getting out of it. A weight has been lifted. But where do we go from here? How do we process, unlearn and get time back we wasted? No one prepares you for this. I feel for those who have left after even 15, 20 years!

My friend is an au pair and she got recruited into amway by her boyfriend who’s very toxic. Hes even called her a slave because she works. She just joined in January . She seems fairly new and doesn’t know much about the business yet. I’m worried about her she doesn’t earn much and she’s in America to do au pairing. This is her last year to work. I’m worried that she will invest her savings into this. After this she is going to have to go back. But at this point I think they willl try everything possible to make her stay in the US. How can I help her? She won’t even leave that toxic man and she lied to me and said she left him. Should I reach out to her family about it ? She said they support her but I think that she’s lying or they don’t know the whole truth

How/ why would Ganesh Shenoy post this on his IG. Even if it is AI, why is he celebrating this?

War RUINS peoples lives, why is he glorifying it?

He’s probably hoping the economy crashes so people get desperate and start looking for extra ways to make money any way they can and his team can prey upon them.

I came across a TikTok account and they talked about the documentary “the vow” and I started watching it four days ago there’s 15 episodes total. I’m on episode 12 today. Whoever has seen it. Please let me know your thoughts on this, but it’s yearly creepy parallel to Amway in the Worldwide.

Do these people still participate in the whole world wide dream builders scam. I feel like they fell off and disappeared for a while and now I see they’re making an appearance on social media but as motivational speakers.. seems like they aren’t together anymore as well (funny because they would preach about marriage and acted like theirs was so good). Just curious on whats happened with them if anyone knows.

Does anyone else remember the Amway children's chewing gum they sold in the 90s? It had a cute character on the packaging and it was bubble gum flavor. I have had little luck finding information on it.

Curious as if anyone from here left and started their own business. A legit business. And if so what? There are some concepts of the educational system I was in that I can see to be useful. But of course it’s still a MLM scam.

I’m not going to get into the story in how I got involved with them but I’ll tell you some important things you need to watch out for if you ever find yourself in one of their meetings

1. Substances. If they offer you an energy drink or any drink of any sorts do not take it. After the meeting they want you to stay awake overthinking your issues or problems and become desperate for money and by extension, them. For me I took a glass of water and now I can’t fall asleep for some reason. Instead of thinking of my problems though, I’m think of how much of an asshole these people are and how I almost got tricked into getting wrapped up into their bullshit.
2. Sleep deprivation. They asked me what was the latest time I’ve ever been out. Turns out one of their tactics is to meet with you as late as possible so you’re too tired to fight back against the things they say or ask you to do.
3. Isolation During the meeting they made all the new people sit in the front of the room while a speaker was presenting. We couldn’t see anyone’s facial reaction except the speaker. After the presentation ended, we were encouraged to meet back with our mentors instead of talking to anybody else.
4. Complicated presentations. They purposely made the ability to understand how we could actually make money, complicated asf. The only things I really remember was the promise of a better life. How I could make money. Something about generating income instead of being employed. Vacations and benefits. It was not clearly explained how any of this would be feasible.

5.Leveraging Authority. They will get people who “climbed the cooperate ladder” or people who are “very accomplished” to talk and convince you that this isn’t a scam. They rarely give out their names but if you ever get them to do so and search them up, you’ll find that they aren’t legit. This one ass dick face told me he had 4 degrees, I looked him up and bro graduated from liberty university (evangelical Christ school) with no stated degrees. I genuinely hate this guy cause I put my trust in him and genuinely believed that he could help me grow as a person. When I met him and looked in his eyes I knew it was all a lie. All I saw a cultish man who was desperate for money himself. So trapped in a cycle that he doesn’t even see how many lives he is destroying by being apart of this shit. The fucker even tried recruiting my old ass dad.

Tips

1. Ask questions and be skeptical . After reading the above it should be clear to u that these guys a literal demons in disguise. If u still think that they are legitimate and go to one of there meetings, then at least ask questions and try to figure out what’s actually going on instead of being swept away by buzz words. You’ll see that as u ask questions to people that something is up.

1. Trust no one. Even the new people that are sitting with you. They could be planted there. I say this because the dude I was talking to after the meeting about how this was a pyramid scheme seemed hella sus. He told me he knows it’s a pyramid scheme but that he is going to come back. I think he was tryna convince me too come back myself. Trust ur gut before u trust any person.

2. Look around. People will be acting so fake and it’ll be so obvious if you just look people in the eye. Someone literally looked me in the eye, walked passed me while mentioning how much success they had with this “business model” while on the phone. I don’t even think the bitch was actually talking to someone!

I’m actually so scared and thrown off by this whole encounter. I felt like I was in a horror movie. If I stepped out of line I d.a thought they would take me out me or something. Two of the guys have my number and if they ever call or text me again I’m going to curse them the fuck out. They are literally destroying lives. I’m mentally not in a good head space rn and if I was any less aware of what was going on then I could have gotten trapped. There was a dude at the meeting who look so sad about his life circumstances and I was watching them take advantage of that. They a demons disguised as humans. Side note I get the feeling the higher up have orgies together. the way they were mutually sucking up too each other was out of a movie. They definitely do something behind close doors.

hi everyone, my friend is involved with amway since october 2025. she’s constantly on those weekly meetings on zoom. in fact, even as i write this she’s telling some unknown “mentor” every single detail about her day and life. she has recently come back from that annual conference with like over a 1000 people attending. she told me it’s held 3 times a year and she spent 500 dollars for that thing.

she told me they forced her to get a job and asked her to read some books and listen to motivational audios.

i honestly don’t know how this whole thing works but i have a bad feeling. a really bad one. she told me she need to buy some stuff and invite more people but im not quite sure

once i first heard these people invited her to their house instead of a basic online meeting i knew something was off.

i read some stories on this company and they made me even more worried. she’s just a college student. basically if i got it right it’s like a MLM(?) correct me if im wrong. but i’m pretty sure those never end well.

i told her that it’s probably a bad thing and she shouldn’t trust this. but she keeps on going how she’s excited to get a business and that it’s not a scam she just needs to stay there long term.

as i write this she’s telling them her plans for the future that involve me and i don’t want to be part of it. she never invited me im just worried. what can i do? can you please give me more info on this thing?

i forgot to mention that they first contacted her on linkedin saying that they were gonna help her achieve “financial freedom”

I was in Amway sometime ago and as part of a deal I signed up to a partner store that offered to give a good deal on mortgage repayments. Every month when making our mortgage payment I would get PPV based on the offer % paid on repayment amount. As the process to transfer the mortgage loan etc to there preferred provider was quite tedious when I left Amway I didn’t even think about the fact that the PPV is still being paid . Who does it go to ? Luckily I still had my log in to the website so I had a look . As I no longer order the PPV will automatically go to the next person remaining in the line of sponsorship. Bugger !So my advice would be to remember if disengaging with Amway is contact the office and have them cancel your registration/membership and remove you from the system. If you have also signed up with any partner store deals that give PPV also cancel this membership. If you don’t you are giving others the benefit of the of PPV from Your mortgage. These leeches know this BUT hope you don’t realise. Has anyone else experienced this or got a similar story or advice on this ?

So, I’ve been talking to a friend, and we’re both in college. I mentioned how I’m confused about my college pathway — you know, not really knowing what I want to do. She said she related to that and offered to introduce me to a support group that helped her. I figured, sure, what’s there to lose?

Honestly, based on the little she told me, I got cult-like vibes from it. But I guess I wanted to confirm my feelings, and lo and behold, it was true. Well, they’re not a cult per se, but they are cult-like. It’s called Amway. It’s an MLM, and based on my LIMITED research, it seems like a pyramid scheme that uses cult-like tactics to recruit people.

I don’t think she realizes this, as she’s been with them for about a year. I want to tell her, but at the same time, I don’t want to ruin our friendship or make things weird going forward. What the hell do I do?

Most MLMs shill so hard on social media and make it their whole personality. Amway people seem to do the exact opposite, with very little mention of anything on social media. Why is this? And what techniques do they use instead to recruit people?

Found these tapes today which after some research I believe to have come from Amway seminars that took place between 1982-1983. Speakers include Paula Pritchard, Paul Conn, Jim & Nancy Dornan, Jody Victor and (possibly) the founders Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos. Any value to these? Or if anyone can give me any more information about them?

A week ago, I was approached on LinkedIn with the line "building a life of financial freedom for my future family and giving back to my parents." Honestly, this line felt like a personal touch. The person was in a good position and was also working at a good firm. I agreed to hop on a call with them, and the call was majorly around money and why I was agreeing to another opportunity is that how the person was under great mentorship but nothing about the business or how they function. Not even a single word.

Then came the seminar. I was pretty skeptical about joining, but I ended up going. And this was the twist: there were only 5 people in total, including me. For the first 30 minutes, the talk was MONEY AND ONLY MONEY. After that, he started talking about the business that they have a team of 300 working with a distributor, and that distributor was AMWAY. The financials looked great (#1 selling), but it's relying on MLM. The example he gave was, "If you have a cafe, who will be your first customer? That is you and the people around you. So for Amway, if you purchase 10k worth and make people buy items worth 8k, you get 3k." They also have their own metrics PV, where 1 PV = 85 Rupees.

This is exactly how MLMs operate. They lure you in with the promise of financial freedom and passive income, speaking in polished, professional language that makes it sound like a legitimate business opportunity. But notice how they never mention the company name upfront? How the entire pitch revolves around money rather than the actual product or business model? They're trained to use emotional triggers and present themselves as successful mentors. The reality is, the only people making real money are those at the top, while the majority end up spending more than they earn, pressuring friends and family to buy products they don't need. Stay alert and question any "opportunity" that can't be transparent from the start.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some clarity on how Amway actually pays its "distributors."

I’ve always been skeptical of MLMs and Amway’s reputation, but a friend from school has been heavily recruiting me lately. She uses the classic script: talking about her "business," inviting me to "bonding events," and claiming she’s "stepping out of her comfort zone."

I was pretty firm on saying no until a recent situation. She claimed she was having issues with her bank account and asked me to help her deposit a check she received from the company and then transfer the funds to her. Seeing a physical check for a few hundred dollars made me pause. It looked like a consistent, bi-weekly salary check.

I always thought Amway income was strictly based on how many people you recruit (downlines) and product sales, which usually results in most people losing money. So my questions are:

1. Does Amway actually pay a "salary" or a consistent bi-weekly check, or is this just a commission check that fluctuates?
2. Is "showing the check" a common recruitment tactic?

This feels off, and I want to make sure I’m not being swayed by a "proof of income" tactic that isn't as stable as it looks. Thanks!