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May 17, 2004
Lindy and Vicki Respond
By QBlog in
Lindy and Vicki Mack were interviewed for the Dateline NBC show about Quixtar. They are former IBOs who told of their experience with The Business. Quixtar's official response site gives a brief description of the Macks and some of the video responses also mention the Macks, at least indirectly.As a sort of response to Quixtar's response, Lindy Mack has asked me to publish the following letter and I've decided to oblige.
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The Letter:
Response to Quixtar's "response" to the Dateline exposé that aired May 7, 2004
by Lindy and Vicki Mack
Quixtar Got It Wrong
In its "response" to the Dateline NBC exposé on Quixtar and its motivational organizations, Quixtar has shown itself to be inaccurate and in many ways, deceptive. It also failed to understand that the Dateline exposé, in a very limited period of time, was trying to show that the problem is with the motivational systems operated by a few kingpin distributors. That Quixtar, and its predecessor Amway, has deliberately ignored what they themselves perceive to be an illegal pyramid scheme, and in fact have dismissed distributors who tried to change things, speaks volumes about the integrity of this multi-billion dollar company. But having billions of dollars does not make a company ethical.
First, and foremost, Quixtar's response is not a response. A response is an answer. By definition, a response waits for the issues to be raised before a contrary opinion is offered. Quixtar did not wait for the issues to be raised. It guessed what the issues might be and responded to its own guesses. It planned and prepared its "response" months before issuing it. Its response attacked the messenger in an attempt to obscure the message.
The most recent update of their website, www.quixtar-response.com, was created before the Dateline program even aired. It was on the Internet within moments of the broadcast and could not have been created in response to the program so quickly if it had been an actual response to the show.
It is simply their corporate spin, created and timed to coincide with the Dateline show. Nothing more.
Glaring Errors
Regarding the inaccuracy in the site's content, there are several glaring errors that should be pointed out and are further evidence that the "response" was not any more than a company line intended solely to protect themselves rather than to present the truth.
First, they claimed that Scott Larsen was interviewed for the program when, in fact, he was not. Their original Quixtar Response web page contained a bio about him on the same page with those of us who had appeared on the program. Quixtar changed this after Scott pointed out their error.
Second, the short biography about us is incorrect. We were not Amway Distributors from 1991-1995, as the bio states. We signed up in June, 1995, were active through the switchover to Quixtar, and remained IBOs until the end of 2001. (Although our appearance on the program may have been something of a surprise to Quixtar, they should have been able to find accurate information about us on their computers since we left the business less than three years ago.)
No Record of Complaints
A third error is Quixtar's claim that we only contacted the company regarding routine issues. As Amway distributors, we contacted them on more than one occasion about rules violations, particularly the employment of politicians and ministers onstage at Amway/Quixtar functions. This directly interfered with our building of the business. "The Right To Differ," a policy statement about which Quixtar felt so strongly that it was included in the Quixtar Response page, is a noble document, but a meaningless one since Quixtar and its predecessor, Amway, have never enforced it. In fact, Amway Customer Relations promised to look into our complaint, but their only response was to send us a copy of "The Right to Differ." We already knew about that policy. We contacted Amway to complain to the corporation about violations of that policy. As far as we were able to determine, Distributor Relations dismissed our complaint as unimportant. To our knowledge, our upline was never contacted to resolve the issue, and Amway never took our complaint seriously.
After our initial complaints to the corporation were ignored, we elected to take any further concerns to our upline directly, rather than wasting our time getting nowhere with the corporation. The reassurances we received from our upline were satisfying enough that we stayed in the business, even though nothing had significantly changed. But the issues always remained, despite the fact that we voiced our concerns about them throughout the five years of our involvement. So while it may be true that Amway/Quixtar cannot locate records of our complaints about the problems we saw, that does not mean that we were silent.
In our final complaint letter to our upline, we wrote, "We would not compromise our convictions for money - thus we will never see the money alluded to in the plan, because the big money is in the tools and speaking. We would not accept the tools money, as long as it is a secret pyramid system. We would rarely be asked to speak. Why? Because we are not Christian and we are not right wing conservative Republicans, and never will be. People who have beliefs such as ours usually leave the business much sooner than we have. We kept hoping that when we made Diamond we could speak our convictions in a way that helps others. We were told that this could happen. However, our own research has told us otherwise. Knowing that we will never be able to speak our convictions, that we must actually hide them, and continue to do so for the rest of our lives in this business, causes us to realize that we cannot do so without a tremendous loss of self-respect. We feel excluded already. Unfortunately, the sense of exclusion has only increased over time. With respect to building the business, it is extraordinarily de-motivating."
If Quixtar executives are unable or unwilling to enforce "The Right To Differ," which they describe as one of the foundations of the business, how many others rules have been deemed unworthy of enforcement, even if they appear on its books? Chaos and the potential for criminal activity are the result when rules are enforced selectively or not at all.
The fact that we did not complain to the corporation about everything that we are addressing now does not mean that we are fabricating our complaints. While we were in the business, we didn't complain about the fact that we were never taught retailing, as we were taught that retailing wasn't important. We were not even aware of the importance of the retail sales rule; we were told to ignore this rule by our upline and when pressed about it, we were told that our personal consumption applied to the rule. We went inactive in 2000 and did not renew after 2001. It is highly unlikely that Quixtar would have responded to any complaints from an inactive IBO, particularly about an issue that had been systematically ignored for at least a decade, if not much longer. We understood how seriously we were deceived by our participation in the system and how significantly it damaged our finances only after we had gone inactive. In addition, we found out that this was occurring to the vast majority of the IBOs after we had gone inactive. Given the history of ignoring these very major problems, what were certain that any complaint of ours would never be taken seriously.
Interviews Quixtar Refused To Grant and Videotaped Statements
Regarding the "Interviews Dateline Didn't Do" it must first and foremost be pointed out that Quixtar became aware of the Dateline program nine months ago when Dateline asked to interview Quixtar executives. They refused. To be accurate, the title of this section of the website should be "Video Clips of Statements by Quixtar Executives and Apologists who Refused to Grant Interviews and a Smattering of Generic Statements by People with Titles." By videotaping statements, they avoid answering any questions at all, yet give the appearance of being interviewed.
To all those who were too cowardly to appear on camera, realize that both Mr. Scheibeler and Mr. Short have been physically threatened. We do not live far from those who apparently threatened these people. We are putting our reputations and our families at risk by appearing.
Ken McDonald stated that the IBOs never registered a complaint with Quixtar. In the Dateline program, Bo Short stated on the air that he met with Mr. McDonald and talked with him specifically about Quixtar's role in supporting the approximately twenty high level IBOs who are raking in millions of dollars selling tapes and seminars to distributors like us, yet not supporting them in developing a legitimate retailing business. The tapes are designed to make IBOs feel guilty for not doing it, but do not teach how to do the business ethically. Mr. Short told Mr. McDonald to his face that people were being hurt. He was on a first name basis with Mr. McDonald. In this video clip, Mr. McDonald is not telling the truth.
Ken McDonald stated that the IBO under whom Dateline reporters joined, is a widow was supporting herself and seven children with the business. Yet in the SA-4400, it is clearly stated that the average gross income for an IBO is $1400. It is unlikely that almost anyone can support themselves with a Quixtar business, just the top few. Is this IBO outraged enough to step forward? Is she indeed supporting herself and her seven children with Quixtar income? Is Mr. McDonald accurate in this claim? Should he be believed in the absence of her corroboration?
Mr. McDonald stated that one of the ex-IBOs interviewed was just trying to promote his own company. This is false. Not one interviewee promoted any company of his own. Additionally, this ex-IBO is well connected and hardly needs to do a Dateline interview for his "fifteen minutes of fame," as Mr. McDonald claimed. Mr. McDonald clearly intended to insult him, to try to destroy his credibility. Credibility can only stand up when the facts support one's position. It appears, though, that the Quixtar executives who videotaped their statements would prefer to ignore the facts. They were so concerned about the Dateline show that they put together a carefully crafted but highly deceptive website, one that they paid Google to place in a sponsored website section.
Randy Bancino's videotaped statement clearly demonstrates that the purpose of the Quixtar Response website is to attack the messenger in order to obscure the issues. Quixtar hopes that the issue can be forgotten under all its rhetoric. Given that the website was prepared months in advance, Quixtar executives did not know what the message was going to be. Their choice was to attack the messenger rather than engage in a meaningful dialogue. This is a cheap shot in which the credibility of the messenger is attacked in such as way as to avoid acknowledging the truth or the logic of the message.
In his video clip, Mr. Bancino implies that the problem is that it is a "clash" of business models. He describes the Quixtar business model of "people helping people" as clashing with Dateline's model of "putting sensational shows on television so that they can get good ratings and sell advertising." First, Dateline NBC puts its ratings and credibility on the line with every show, and has nothing to gain and everything to lose if they cannot back up their story with facts. In his carefully scripted clip, Mr. Bancino tries to imply that "sensational" translates to "untrue," which of course it does not. This is intended to deceive the reader. The story is sensational precisely because it is true. Second, when one analyzes the dollars and cents of the Quixtar business as practiced by actual IBOs, it is difficult to believe that Quixtar is truly committed to "people helping people". Quixtar's numbers clearly do not support this claim. Third, comparing business models is completely irrelevant to the issues! Mr. Bancino is comparing apples and elephants, when the issue is a few kingpins taking advantage of people's trust in their friends and family to systematically deceive them out of their hard earned cash under false pretexts. Last and most important, Dateline did not go out and look for this story. Individuals sought to put this story in the public arena, because they had suffered harm from their involvement in Amway and Quixtar, realized that most of their fellow IBOs were suffering the same fate, and wanted the truth to be in the public arena.
John Parker stated that Quixtar paid out $343 million dollars and that there are hundreds of thousands of "successful" IBOs. Do the math. Even if there were only 100,000 IBOs, that translates to a mere $3430 per IBO per year, gross income. Quixtar states the actual number is $1400 gross annually. Are these 'hundreds of thousands" of IBOs actually meeting their goals? Of course not. The facts simply do not add up. Mr. Parker stated that there were only a few disgruntled IBOs. The company's own statistics also clearly indicate that Mr. Parker is not telling the truth. Only 41% of IBOs who are considered "active" renew each year, according the SA-4400, Quixtar's legal business document. In 2001, the percentage of first-year IBOs renewing was 32%. The average PV was 38 per IBO. The average number of retail customers per IBO is 0.23. This translates to one retail customer for every 4 IBOs. One cannot have a legitimate business with four business owners per customer! It is a mathematical impossibility. In the year 2000, a Quixtar document was included in The Business Owner magazine, published by Internet Services Corporation. In that document, it was stated in very small print that less than 0.2% of IBOs were Q-12 (Platinums qualifying 12 months out of the year). But are even these IBOs profitable? Emerald Eric Scheibeler's net annual income was $34,000 at its peak.
Ken McDonald complained that Dateline interviewed a disgruntled few. It would be absurd to try to interview thousands for a twenty-minute segment. There was much material Dateline did not use. Mr. McDonald, two out of every three IBOS quit every year. It appears to us that there are far more people unhappy with your business model than are happy with it. If we had been told we would be highly unlikely to make more than $1000 a year, but that it would cost us five thousand dollars per year to attend all these seminars and functions to teach us to do this, would we have ever started in the business? No, of course not. We were lied to, and systematically taught lies to tell our prospects, by our upline, all the way up to and beyond the Diamond level. We were taught specifically not to seek verification of these statements independently.
The Quixtar Response videoclip of Thomas Donohue, CEO of the United States Chamber of Commerce falls in the category of "Generic Statements by People with Titles." His statement failed to mention Quixtar or multi-level marketing at all. He spoke about franchising, an entirely different business model. He spoke blandly about a few bad apples, but he did not address the problem of the corporate executives supporting and protecting the bad apples. He spoke generically of whistle-blower programs. Since the whole point of the Dateline NBC program was to blow the whistle, we have no idea why this was included in their response site. His statement certainly does not paint Quixtar in a positive light at all.
Who Is Quixtar Ignoring?
Now, in response to the first part of the Quixtar Response web site, Dateline did not ignore the" hundreds of thousands" of IBOs who are achieving theirgoals. Dateline, as well as we, doubts the veracity of the claim of that there are many successful IBOs. Dateline appropriately asked the tough questions on behalf of the many thousands of IBOs who were not achieving their goals. It is Quixtar who is ignoring and discounting those IBOs who, in spite of the teaching and the expected investment, were forced to leave the business with far less than they had when they registered. There is no harm in asking questions and seeking answers. The harm comes in ignoring and deceiving those who would seek to correct inequities, and when no response is forthcoming, complain about those abuses.
Quixtar claims that, in spite of not being "perfect," they do a lot of things right. Perhaps they could answer why more than 50% of IBOs do not renew every year and 99% of IBOs never achieve profitability. Perhaps they could explain why the overwhelming majority of IBOs work their businesses as we did, with complete faithfulness to the teachings of the system, fail to profit in their business, and lose year after year. Perhaps they could explain why they fail to acknowledge and attempt to hide the existence of documents like the Blakey Report and the Postma Memo.
Tools Are Optional, and So Is Success
Quixtar's claim that the tools are optional doesn't preclude the fact that IBOs are pressured into buying them. With repeated messages that "the tools are optional, and so is success," IBOs have little choice in the matter. An IBO not subscribing to the tapes and not participating in the seminars is ignored and shunned by their upline, despite very clear rules to the contrary. Additionally, and very importantly, when we signed up for the business, no one informed us that anyone derived income from the sale of tools and function tickets, and our upline denied that such profiteering was occurring.
Values
Doug DeVos spoke of "the values of the business," not elaborating on what those values might be. Given the inaccuracies and the deception surrounding this business, one has to wonder. The Dateline program was about the motivational systems, the leaders of which are the defendants in various lawsuits. It was not necessarily about Quixtar, the company. Mr. DeVos, you would do well to heed the words of your own father:
"Let me talk to you about the legal side, beyond price fixing, that deals with pyramids, that deals with the illegal operation of a business that does not have an end consumer, where the product is not retailed. That would include all books and tapes. The sad news, folks, is that when those things go out that way and they become excessive, beyond my ten or twenty percent theoretical guideline, hopefully acceptable, to where it's a reasonable support system, but not beyond the reasonable element, then it becomes an out and out illegal pyramid."
That Quixtar chooses to align itself with the few who are making over 90% of their Quixtar-related income from the motivational system, which the founder of Amway deems an "illegal pyramid" and less than 10% from product sales, preying on the hopes and dreams of thousands of IBOs, often leading to derailed careers and ruined finances, speaks volumes about the truth of Quixtar and its goals.
Quixtar, and its predecessor, Amway, has allowed these abuses to continue for more than twenty-five years. Quixtar's propaganda campaign cannot hide that fact.
Comments
Lindy and Vicki,
I am proud of both of you for your willingness to stand up and be heard. As well, this repsonse is right on the mark.
Sincerely,
Bo
Quixtar also pointed out that they had asked me to occasionally remove material from his website. I was only contacted once to remove material from my site and that was to remove the copy of the Blakey report (this year) http://www.amquix.info/blakey.html The retouched photos, from a parody I had written, which Quixar references in their response, were removed from my website within 48 hours of when they were posted and weeks before Quixtar contacted me about the matter.
I would reword this part:
"Only 41% of IBOs who are considered "active" renew each year, according the SA-4400, Quixtar's legal business document."
To;
Of the IBOs who renewed their business and were surveyed about their previous years income, those considered active were 66% of those surveyed and earned on average $115/month in gross earnings, according to their SA-4400.
Thanks,
Scott
Thanks to all who were willing to be interviewed. I was loyal for ten years and in a different ( Crawford ) line. Lindy and Vickie, your story is very similar to mine, except I was not vocal until I was on my way out, and I am a Christian and free enterpriser. Right now I am trying to refuse the bonus I did not qualify for and it seems to be creating a bunch of hassle, they say no one has ever refused a cheque before. I find this hard to believe.
This is slightly off point, but I thought I would share anyway. I became interested in this site after the dateline show, because I found it amazing that quixtar had charmed enough people to warrant a 30 minute dateline segment
I became acquainted with quixtar about a year ago. Here is my story:
I have a friend from work who, incidentally, is horrible at money management. She and her hubby earn in excess of $100K/yr, and only drive one car because with their $95k in credit card debt, they can't afford two cars. Basically, her husband spends like there's no tomorrow, the epitome of, "I still have checks, I can't be broke." My friend spends her time obsessing on how to get out of debt.
She and I used to talk finances, since I, too, had credit card debt.
About a year ago I got this cryptic message on my answering machine about an opportunity to make some extra money. I was invited to the dog and pony show, and went because I couldn't say no.
I was turned off by the fact that this "business" was introduced to my friend by her pastor. My friend is one of those people we all know, who has had an extremely problematic life, tries really hard to fit in and be accepted, and recently found Jesus. She's really obsessive, and never does anything halfway. As such, she has devoted her life to the church. Her pastor says, "jump," and she asks how high. Again, we all know the type. Anyway, it seemed a bit unseemly that a church pastor was recruiting "business partners."
Despite this, I managed to get excited after the meeting, because selling direct off the internet sounded intriguing (and I did need the cash).
However, when I went home and looked at the website, I couldn't get any information about the "product." I couldn't even get on the website without a password. I found this odd. Aren't most internet retailers begging for traffic? Why the secrecy?
Oh well, who knows. I asked my friend what exactly quixtar sells, as I was interested in the profit potential before making my "investment." My friend tells me that she prefers I talk to her business parter (aka upline), as she is new to the business, and feels that he can better address my questions. Again, I found this odd. My college educated friend was unable to tell me what she sells in her own "business?" Well, I didn't want to become anymore involved with her upline than I had to. He reminded me of those telemarketers you can't get rid of, and I didn't yet have caller ID.
So, I went to google and typed in Quixtar. Well, I was bombarded with article after article, site after site, of the Amway/Quixtar miracle money machine. That was all I needed. I had vague memories as of a family friend losing everything (including his wife) as a result of his amway obsession in the 70s. I also knew for a fact that my friend had already had a negative Amway experience. So I politely declined, and printed up a few of the more objective Amway/Quixtar connection articles for her to look at.
She didn't speak to me for about 6 months, except to occasionally suggest that I might want to consider buying my new refrigerator or microwave from her business. She also set up a display of energy bars and drinks on her desk.
When I left for a new job, she told me she and her hubby would be retiring in a few years, so she wasn't looking for change. "It's really a shame that you turned down that business opportunity." She proceeded to use all of her accrued leave balances to attend rallies in Tennessee.
I heard from a mutual friend that her "upline" had recommended that she leave the important business decisions to her husband. This translated to, he puts all business expenses on the credit card, and leaves her out of it. He pays the credit card bills. I know him, and this means he pays the minimum, and they'll pay off the cards eventually when their ship comes in.
The kicker was on April 15, when my friend called me to ask about my tax refund, and to let me know that thanks to their business, they were getting a big enough tax refund to pay for their daughter's wedding. In order to get a tax refund, don't you have to have business LOSSES?
Anyway, that dateline special made me understand it much better, because it fits right in with her sweet, gullible, NEEDY personality type. I could just hear her chanting "Flush that stinkin' job." And sad as it is, I know that she believes that these people are helping her, and have her best interests at heart. And their upline is obviously savvy enough to realize since his profits depend on his "downline," put Hubby in charge of "business decisions." He'll spend like there's no tomorrow.
I have often wondered how Quixtar has inspired enough emotion to have started all these websites. Funny, I think I just wrote a whole essay on the one time experience I had...
Thanks to all for the kind comments. And Scott, thank you for the clarification.
Also, I think it's important to point out that the techniques used to promote the business play (prey) upon insecurities that are pretty common to everyone. We all want to feel that we are helping people. We all want to be there and provide for our families. We all want less stress in our lives.
I don't think there's any particular "type" who is more or less likely to be drawn into the scam. It simply depends upon your situation at the time you are approached.
If we REALLY want to be "people helping people," start talking about this. Get the word out. Friends don't let friends do Quixtar. (sorry, got a bit carried away.) But seriously, please let people know about this. We have a job to do, and central to that job is COMMUNICATION.
Again, thanks for your responses.
Lindy
In Ken McDonald's own words, Dateline's "type of story" is based on "isolated incidents that do not reflect the experience of the vast majority of people who rely on their Quixtar-powered businesses to achieve their goals."
If this is the case, I would challenge Quixtar to send a memorandum to every single registered IBO, exhorting those who are currently spending more money on BSM's than they bring in in Quixtar bonuses to quit the business immediately. If these people are in the minority, their absence should not have more than an infinitesimal effect on Quixtar's revenues, RIGHT?
I can't vouch for the situation at Quixtar as it currently stands since my wife and I were so angry with Amway by the time we left in 1999 that we didn't even care about all the promises they were making about how Quixtar would change everything. I don't know if Quixtar still publishes a monthly magazine like the Amagram or Achieve, but I certainly recall that Dexter Yager and Bill Britt, who represent the opposite of everything Ken McDonald seems to imply that Quixtar is about, appeared on the cover of those magazines several times a year each!
I'm sure that there are people in Quixtar who don't participate in the tools system and perhaps make a few dollars selling to themselves and their friends, but guys like Britt and Yager don't get to be where they are saying the things they say unless THOUSANDS of people are buying into their "Get filthy stupid rich like me" pitches year after year.
Those who came forth to be interviewed on Dateline are NOT in the minority among current and former Quixtar distributors, and I for one salute you for your courage to stepping up to expose this horrible abuse of people's trust.
Mike
Vicki & Lindy,
While Bo and Eric were able to expose the inner workings of the business, you were the "average" testimonial which I have always considered the most damning to the business. That's how many, many people learned to despise the name amway long before the Internet. It's how many people will still learn to despise the name quixtar. Thanks for sticking your necks out and sharing, you know you have saved lots of others from the same nightmare.
I applaud everyone that speaks out against the practices of Amway/Quixtar/Alticor. I, for the past month or so have been setting aside money to pay to become an IBO. I was told that it cost $150 for the Quixtar side of things and that the other side was $100 for BWW (Britt WorldWide). I already considered myself to be motivated and needed no tapes, books, CD's, meetings or functions to provide any futher motivation. What i was looking for was info. I thought that there had to be something missing...i was told that in order to really make any sort of decent money, i had to purchase the tools and attend the events. After receiving the BWW intro tool bundles, i found myself wondering...why would i pay for a standing order of personal anecdotes? How will listening to such help me? I have been blown off repeatedly when i ask questions. I just keep getting told to just "plug in" and results will come. I just have to be willing to "delay gratification". LOL till when? Also, i was lead to believe that it was a rare treat (maybe they saw a bit of gullibility in me) for me to have gone to my first open and actually stick around for "Training" and get invited to their "Night Owl" afterwards without actually being an IBO yet. I realized after listening to a man that claimed to have a background in computers that was an Emerald upline preach the gospel better than some Preachers i've seen. Now i realize why its so rare for a 1st Open guest to attend the "Night Owl" It's an event for those already hooked and things said and done there can be a bit too much for a "newbie" to take.
Anyways, enough rambling...I want to thank again all that speak out because it saved me from a far worse fate than what i've suffered already. I've invested time, and money to attend one Rally and i'm done. I was one week away from starting this thing when i got wind of the Dateline thing. I didn't get the chance to see it but after browsing online at this site and others, i had a change of heart. I am not convinced that mlm's are all bad, its the stuff like mandatory tools that killed it for me.
TY BO, LINDY, VICKY, SCOTT AND OTHERS...
I HONESTLY THINK YOU HELPED SAVE A MARRIAGE FROM A POTENTIAL FINANCIAL DEATH... sincerely with much love and thanks, Brian Gomez
I was told that Quixtar was started for Latinos because Ken McDonald was in a car accident in Mexico and that because of how good the people were to him he wanted to help out... We were never told of their association to Amway... Only through their own website was I able to obtain that information. Thank God I was a little more inteligent than they assumed I was and did not get suckered in and thank God that the other people invited to their "meeting" don't have the money to do it... Other wise a lot of people would be hurting right now...
Wow. I must be in a different Quixtar.
Dwighty, do you mostly retail product or are you currently buying more tapes, books and function tickets, exceeding what you retail? I can't remember, do you retail to others or only just yourself? When will you be "free"?
"Wow. I must be in a different Quixtar.
Posted by: Dwighty at May 19, 2004 03:34 PM"
I guess so.
But maybe not. Better keep your eyes open. 8-)
Lindy
You must have been in a different Quixtar.I'm doing well with the business.I love it.You don't have to be christian to be in the business.Upline is not your boss.They only guide you to success.Reading postive books helps you mentallyBecause everybody in the world is very negative.many people are afraid of being different,but its ok to be different.You make your own destiny in life.
If the "tools" and "functions" are so helpful and if they are deemed necessary by Quixtar, don't you think that because Quixtar has a vested interest in the success of their IBO/distributors, that they would provide such services themselves for a lower cost if not free? There is a mutually financially beneficial relationship between Quixtar and the "motivation salesmen" kingpin diamonds like Britt...hence Britt World Wide. Quixtar knows about this racket and has chosen to turn a blind eye to it. In fact, check around on either this site or one of the anti-MLM sites. Those sites may be biased against Quixtar, but theres no denying the validity of the "Postma Memo" sent between Amway execs from all the way back in 1983, where they acknowledge everything i've claimed above and yet very little has changed if not gotten worse. There's nothing wrong with seeking fact from an informed source but your upline will never condone something that jeopardizes his/her depth...
Lindy & Vicki,
Thanks for expressing the real truth. For over 10 years, my wife and I lived on the false hope and promises that if we just continued to be lead blindly down the primrose path, we would "someday" reap the rewards. Many times, I was encouraged to express others' beliefs as my own and to continue to "invest" money into my "future" and to ignore other opportunities that made much more sense from an economic perspective. Being from Tampa, I personally know Bo and know hime to be a man of character and integrity. You sound like people of character and integrity also and I wish you much success. Thanks again, Hal
Ann ... That's a very negative statement ...
"Reading postive books helps you mentallyBecause everybody in the world is very negative."
I'm an IBO and a part of Ledbetter International, and even if there is a scam and people are being "tricked" into buying tapes and motivational material it doesn't change the buisness plan. I know a number of people who haven't made millions in this buisness but have a job making 50G's a year and making an extra 30G because of this buisness. Now if you leave your job to do this buisness you're taking a risk, especailly if you don't show the plan 4 to 5 nights a week. One reason people get broken hearted is because they get in this buisness and expect that if they buy the tapes and read the books, then the buisness will just take care of itself, IF YOU DON'T SHOW THE PLAN YOU WON'T MAKE ZILCH! Like i said i've met to many people who have greatly benifited from this buisness to read what crap people have to say about it. If britt is making a ton a money off people by making false promises then i'm sorry to hear that and i truly hope that justice will someday be served. Untill then i know that Ledbetter International is a totally different team, one that both inspires and brings up those around them.
My heart goes out to those who were badly effected by BWW. His day will come...
To whomever,
I don't know what kind of business everyone else that posted a comment is in but I can tell you for sure that Quixtar works. My parents have been working on developing their business for a while now and I have seen the checks that they recieve for their efforts. The checks are nice. So to anyone who says that the business "doesn't work", no offense intended or anything but I'm suggesting that the problem might be you and not the business. The corporation doesn't make any promises as to how big your business can get, it simply offers an opportunity and I don't think everyone has the guts to grab that opportunity and fully run with it. I know a man who had been living at poverty level income for a good portion of his life and thanks to the opportunity the business gave him and the insane amounts of work he did, he's going to be recieving a check for close to $20,000 within the next two months. Tell him it doesn't work.
you people are typical loosers who all need someone or something else to blame for your lack of success. the reason any of you failed at a quixtar powered business is because you are emotional wimps who didn't do the basics required to be successfull, contact and show the plan. You are unable to look at yourself as the reason you failed. Buying books and tapes is easy. Going to seminars is easy. Showing 100 plans and getting rejected 80 times is discouraging; but, do it enough and you get free.
And the rest of you who simply looked for an excuse not to get involved by asking the loosers who failed, give me a break! If you asked a someone who failed as a mortgage loan officer if he thought you could be successful and a loan officer, what do you think he would say? He would say that you would fail. Don't waste your time. But if you ask someone who regularly earns a five figure monthly income as a mortgage loan officer if it was possible to be successful in his industry, what do think he would say? Unfortunately for you if you are reading this you will not understand what I am saying, or you will be offended by the truth. All I can say to you loosers is this, "have fun being the pack mules of the rich"
See what I have to say about your company
I've read this twice. Unless you're an attorney or a network publicist, you did not write it. It's funny how people crave the control of others and revel in their perceived ability to "bring down Goliath". This noble yet pathetic attempt at self gratification is entertaining at best. I've done a lot of research on Quixtar in the last 2 years. There is a LOT of negative hype, which you'd expect when an industry giant is involved. This is America, get used to it. If you want the socialist system so badly go to a country that isn't involved in a CAPITALIST way of life. Those too lazy to get to where they want without a work ethic and a modecum of ambition are famous for the tripe published above.
You want a pyramid? Go back to your 9-5 cubicle and do the math concerning your place in the company...Who's making all that money on your back? Petty minds are difficult to suffer...
Bravo!
Posted by: Question_Q | May 17, 2004 9:01 PM