I have had three personal run ins with Amway, and I can say from my Amway experience that Betsy Devos should not be appointed to ANY government office. Period. Let me explain.
During the 1990’s, I lived in the Research Triangle Park area of NC. It’s a beautiful area, and I enjoyed living there. I was attending graduate school and was trying to break into the biotech and pharmaceutical industry as a research scientist. So I was not exactly flush with cash, if you get my meaning.
My wife at the time was in a local opera group, and it is where we met a number of wonderful people and friends. One young couple hit my wife and I up on a presentation for Amway. Now, I was aware of Amway and heard it was a pyramid scheme, but this was pre-Google. And my wife was intrigued, so I agreed to have this young couple’s boss in Amway make a presenation to us.
I got the speel that shopping as we know it was going out of vogue, and we would all be marketers and selling products to those we know. I had enough of a economics background to know this was bullshit, but because this other couple was heavily involved, I deferred trashing this part of the presentation.
Instead, I had a standby excuse for saying, “NO.” I had read just a few months earlier in the New York Times that Amway was the largest contributer to the Republican Party for its takeover of the Congress after the 1994 Election. I admitted that I am a partisan Democrat, and I was not interested in helping to fund an organization that helped the Republicans win Congress.
It seemed to work. My political adamancy didn’t seem to offend them, which I was trying to avoid. I liked this other young couple, and I didn’t want to say to them and their boss, “You are fucking idiot!”
Well, my wife took some of their cheesy products to use, and after she tried to use those awful products, she had the empirical evidence that they were overpriced and ineffective. So she didn’t want anything else do to with.
Then a few months later, a woman tried to chat me up about my relatively new car. And I should have smelled a rat, but I was raised in a southern state. So you try not to go on offense immediately. We chatted some more, and she asked me where I worked, and without thinking, I let it be know it was one of the big companies in RTP.
There was no exchange of phone numbers, but you can guess what happened next. Most likely, she got my license plate number and had someone track me down. Or she could have gotten my name from the big phone list at the company I worked at, but, yes, I got a call one evening from her. And guess what great plan she had to run by me?
Amway.
I had my handy dandy Amway repeller out, and turned it up to “surge.” I explained politely BUT VERY FIRMLY that I was never going to invest in Amway because they are the number one contributer to the Republican Party, and they stand against everything that I am for.
I thought this would have ended the conversation, but she told me to “Hold on.” and she muffled the phone while she talked to her Amway handler. She came back to the phone and told me that my information was FALSE. It simply was not true! You are so sadly mistaken! I started to get into a fight with her, and I decided the best thing to do was hung up on her.
So under mysterious circumstances, some stranger got a hold of my phone number and felt it was OK to call me at home and offer me a chance at Amway. Additionally, I was so sadly mistaken when I brought out my anti-Amway get out of jail free card. Who knew I couldn’t read a simple newspaper?
Finally, still in NC, I was hit on by a young man who worked in the media prepartion room in our building. He asked me in secret if I would like to meet with him and few others in a job opportunity. When I asked what this meeting was about, he just would say it was a “business opportunity.” I later found out that the young guy was into Amway.
Everything about Amway is based on it being “hush-hush.” This is clue one that it is BS. Secondly, the business model and what they are pushing is crap to any first year economics student. Finally, when push comes to shove, they will lie right in your face and tell you the Sun rises in the West.
Betsy Devos runs such a business. While the FTC fucked up and didn’t call it a Pyramid Scheme, this is precisely what it is. And it is sad to see more than a few fall for it and are willing to try some moves that are not exactly kosher to get another mark for the Pyramid.
This is the exact opposite of education, unless you are running a school for grifters.