Amway Founders Richard De Vos and Jay Van Andel. Source: Amway

Amway is a very large organization with over 20,000 employees and many Independent Business Owners (individuals who buy-in to be direct sellers of Amway Products). Throughout Amway’s history, Amway has faced both scrutiny from journalists, former members, members, and the government of various countries. In order to capture a large picture, I reviewed articles by members, former members, journalists, and a professional review written by one of the writers of the Rico Law (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ) to show a larger picture of some of the views and opinions of Amway.

From a professional perspective (Robert Blakey), a professor of Law from Notre Dame, we found a strong sense of connection between Amway and organized crime. From individuals who were former members, we found strong evidence of false results, false hope, and the inherent rate of failure by not only Amway, but other MLM’s as well. Stephen Butterfield’s book on Amway is regarded as one of the greatest explanations of Amway and their techniques to date. An important insight his book offers is that Amway = Quixtar = Alcatel. Stephen Butterfield highlights in a very simple manner how these three organizations are exactly the same, sell the same products, have the same ownership, and are re-branded so as to hide bad press and hide beneficiaries. Robert Blakey assumes much of this information about Amway is known to individuals, and therefore is a good read, especially to understand some of the legal arguments against Amway from the perspective of the United States government.

Carol Lynn’s PHD Dissertation provides unique insight onto the tax-evasion practices of Amway as well as how much of the losses of Amway as a company and business expenses are passed onto the individual business owners, whereas the profits are shared among the various families. This helps us again understand Robert Blakey’s argument of families and individuals in the highest rank of Amway gaining from every win, but not having to make payouts for losses. Wu Winston, is a former individual of Amway, and his article is much more informal, and he provides insight into Amway from the perspective of a highly mathematical individual who shows how it is practically impossible to make gains of Amway. He shows statistics that if Amways’ claims on profit(s) were true, there would require more individuals in Amway than the population of Earth. Winston also provides a consumer pitch as to why not to join Amway.

Jure Klepic finally provides a modern day example of Amway’s business practices and philosophies by showing how Amway on Facebook inherently creates false accounts because success of network marketers is determined by the amount of individuals they are connected to.

Overall, these articles provide a broad insight the main issues of Amway (Amway’s dealings with the government, it’s association with organized crime, it’s structure as a pyramid scheme, it’s unrealistic mathematical claims, it’s modern day effects on Social Networking) from four very different perspectives.