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April 15, 2006
Students Allege Scam by Quixtar
By QBlog in Quixtar
The student-run Boston University newspaper reports that "students allege scam by Quixtar." The article is actually a poorly written account of one student's experience with Quixtar. Yet despite its problems, the article succeeds in describing a student's encounter and subsequent reaction to a couple of Quixtar IBOs.
Here are some examples of how the article succeeds, fails and puzzles.
The Good
Reporter Matt Reville recounts the student's introduction to Quixtar.
Last March, Shamir Parmar, a School of Management freshman, was approached by a young woman at the Cambridgeside Galleria.
"She told me that her brother was starting up his own business and needed a college student's help," Parmar said. "She claimed this would be good work experience and would look good on my resume."
The Bad
Reville makes some allegations (and errors) but fails to back them up with anything.
Staff members of the company Quixtar Inc., a marketing company facing multiple corruption allegations, have been targeting Boston University and Boston-area college students in attempts to recruit new members, according to recent reports...
... Quixtar is a predecessor and now a partner of Amway Corp., which has been charged by the federal government with making false statements to consumers and is surrounded by allegations of engaging in a pyramid money-making scheme...
What multiple corruption allegations? Who's making the allegations? What charges have been made by the "federal government?" Lot's of ambiguous "allegations" but no details.
Also, Quixtar IBOs are not staff members and Quixtar does not hire salespeople. Staff members or sales people often get health insurance, retirement benefits, a set salary or commission structure and vacation days or sick days. IBOs get none of that.
The Confusing
Quixtar Public Relations Specialist Leyla Kayi makes some befuddling comments (Beth, Robin are you guys paying attention?).
Kayi said once members reach a certain level in product sales, they can sponsor other people. Members then earn a commission on the sales their recruits make.
This is the first I've heard of a requirement to reach a certain level in product sales to earn the right to sponsor others. I bet the IBOAI would like to know about this.
Conclusion
Anyway, you should read this article just to get a glimpse of how the "curiosity approach" and the "mysterious meeting" plays on college campuses like Boston University. Conclusion — it doesn't work.
Comments
I don't know about the IBO, but Matt ReVille certainly has ot portrayed Quixtar correctly! He failed to notice the clear distinction between Quixtar (a legit business) and the MO's (messed up garbage).
We must remember that the article appears to be written from an interview with a prospect who knew very little. I highly doubt the IBO represented himself as an employee of Q, that is very rare as wrong as it may be. The only time I have seen that inferred is on a prospecting tape (I analized that tape on my website. Go to Index, tapes by speaker, Charlie Durso, and the tape is 'Contacting'; BWW191).
I found the article totally misrepresenting Q and certainly worthy of a retraction.
But all that being said, this is a growing trend, and a bad one in my opinion. I live in a college town and MLM's breed in these towns faster than rats (I would prefer the rats, quite frankly). They come out of the woodwork on nice summer days.
I seriously tore into the editor of this paper after reading it before seeing your blog...
I wrote perhaps 10 pages explaining what the heck they screwed up and the proper info...
sigh, if they would only use quixtarwiki.com to START their research before making baseless claims.
(Quixtar nearly has 10,000 salespeople!!!!!)
Is Reville trying to create some kind of major conspiracy that he can attach his name to? He did a horrible job representing Quixtar and the truth behind what was going on at that campus. For once I have to agree with Brad that he is "clearly uneducated" on Quixtar. I think it would pay to do a little research next time he wants to write a piece about Quixtar. I will be sending a letter to the editor as well.
Has anyone else noticed that the article has been taken down? Don't know why, but I can't imagine that they normally take an article like that down so quickly.
They probably realized the article was terrible...
perhaps Quixtar got ahold of it. I am glad it is down, it was far too misrepresenting of the company (I am also glad I took the time to read it last night:))
As off base the article may have been - it unfortunately replicates the knowledge, or lack there of, that IBO's have about AmQuix. For example, ask 10 different IBO's to sumamrize AmQuix and the opportunity and you'll get 10 different versions. It is and isn't their fault... they get jacked up at a meeting, sign up, listent to a tape and start prospecting without "real" facts. However, they are responsible for getting correct info to share with others - including the media - big or small. Obviously the news source has some journalism responsibility too - right Dan Rather?
mmm, well I'm yet to actually see any evidence that the "Rather papers" were actually faked - but that's another issue.
You are correct, the biggest "flaw" in the MLM concept is that the majority of the publics exposure tends to come from the "newest" person - who also is the least trained and educated.
QUIXTAR IS THE BEST BUSINESS EVER! IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE SO MUCH IN A POSITIVE WAY! I LOVE IT! THESE PEOPLE R SO NEGATIVE BECAUSE THEY R QUITERS. QUITERS R LOSERS AND WINNERS R DIMOND!
Wow John....Did you come up with all that eloquence by yourself?
John,
umm..get off the Dbl XS C
http://www.amquix.info/humor/dea/Ecstasy.html
Well,
I hear that some VERY smart and VERY good looking people went to BU. And, they were thankful that they had budding BU journalists in their classes - because grading was done on a curve.
Go Terriers!
I'm on a Canadian vacation for the week so I'm not going to spend a lot of time arguing on this site, but this ignorance shouldn't be left uncontested.
"mmm, well I'm yet to actually see any evidence that the 'Rather papers' were actually faked - but that's another issue"
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12526&only
It's a simple "Occam's Razor" line of reasoning. Unless, of course, one hates Bush so much that any convoluted argument that impeaches him seems more logical.
The link to the article is gone.(If you have it I’d like to read it please)..but reading your excerpt about what a Quixtar public relations person supposedly said vis a vis sponsoring. is technically correct...Quixtar in a whole only really recognizes Silvers and above.(do you recall w-a-y- back to the days when you had to be allowed by your platinum direct to order directly from warehouse? .) It’s why Directs had to write out their own groups bonus checks and each down line did it. In turn for their group?..(Now point of order I am a Quixtar IBO for 12 yrs down line in the WWDB Duncan group. so how someone else did it may differ..)
A system (like WWDB) can opt to encourage greater sponsorship profit and long term success by allowing everyone to sponsor people regardless of pin/PV level. But the Direct is the 1st “real†contact you have directly with the Company,.
Other Systems may have other ways of doing it…which would allow some groups to run a sell xxx amount for xx days and you can sponsor some one…(why you’d do that is beyond me. .unfair and unprofitable!)
And as to the PR person using the “commission
word at all….um..I am thinking that the writer of the article made the whole quote up. Quixtar has never never ever in my 12 years as an IBO used that word!
Quixtar/Amway are what you call "Tool" business. Where they brainwash their IBO's then sell them the "Dream." Then tell their IBO's that to reach that "Dream" they need to buy Training "Tools" in the form of CD's and such. Then string their IBO's along so they keep buying these "Tools." Plus dont forget the "Drink once eat twice" a day scam. Where they have their IBO's buy energy drinks called XS and meal replacement bars. Hmmm smells fishy. The IBO that tried to recruit me, recruited 4 people in 1 month for a fee of 270.00 apiece and only got paid 2.76!! All you get for that price is 3 CD's and a book!Oh and a webpage that you pay (which is included in the price)45.00 a year for. The CD's had a guy named Chris Brady and Orrin (cant remember his first name) spouting on about how the internet was going to make you a millionaire like it was an ATM machine. Even after I asked some questions I never got a straight answer. I had one of them basically calling me stupid! Well anyways after them showing me something called the "Plan" (which included some bubbles or soemething)lets just say I passed.
Someone is trying to get me into quixtar and I don't want to get into it...I got into BigSmart back in 2000 about a month before they got shut down...anything that has a pyramid scheme to it is a scam...BigSmart and Quixtar are so identical...the reason why people make these scams is because when they get shut down they still make millions in profit after they pay their fines.
I dunno about you guys, the way I understood the business is that you have to generate volume in order to sponsor more people. How do we generate volume? It all begins with the IBO. He/She has to set up an account that automatically buys the products they'll need from anyway money every month and teach your downline IBOs to do the same. The problem with the business is that it has a lot of bad apples. If only these Sponsoring IBO would take the time to mentor the new IBO downline on how to generate automatic volume, then we would have less disgruntled IBO who end up quitting. I have read in blogs that these IBOs only earn $7.50/month well that's the figure the sponsoring IBO presented during the plan. and it is up to you to have donwlines duplicating you to increase your volume. imagine if you have 75 donwlines copying your 100 PV (minimum PV to get the performance bonus), that is 7600 PV which could give you an income of $2000-$5000/month extra income. Just because people fail to teach the right way to do the business does not mean that the business is not working. Like everything in business, if the owner does not do the work or worse does not have the proper training, the business would fail. Put it this way, if a store owner of McDonald's decide to use biscuits instead of bread buns for his hamburgers in his store, do you think his store would be as successful as the other McDonalds franchises? I bet his store would fail because he didn't follow the ingredients. Right? He'll probably make a blog cursing McDonalds as a bad business... sad but this usually occurs when people feel that their fool proof plan didn't work.
i signed up two weeks ago for an IBO. i have a degree, a home and family. this was presented to me by a friend of more than two years. one day we were just talking and he told me about something he had been doing for about three years. at first it started off slow, then the snowball effect happened. he now has conference calls with people all over the world.
he doesn't try to sell me b.s. horara tapes and all that crap. i ordered some stuff that i would have bought anyway at the grocery store and saved some money, plus earned points. i showed a few people and they really enjoyed the energy drinks and since have a small little business going. only been two weeks, don't understand it all but im already at some bonus level.
what is the big f'ing deal??? bought stuff that i would have bought anyway and if a few more friends enjoy my purchases then maybe they'll sign up. if i can make a few extra hundred a month, maybe more whats wrong with that???
everything in life is a pyramid, banks, stores, government, family and sorry to say, most of us are at the bottom of them all. why not start your own and see what you can make of it? there are bad apples in any business and there is a failure rate in any business. if all you want to do is knock me for trying something different then f*** you. at least i'm trying while ur just running your mouth...
Late last year, a buddy I knew in high school tried getting me to join Quixtar. Of course at the time, I knew nothing about the company. I had actually gotten up to the point where
I was going to pay $200 to go on some trip to Greenville, Tennessee/Kentucky/West Virginia....some crap like that. Anyway, it was for a big seminar thing they just happened to be having the week I was gonna join. But I thought this all sounded too good to be true.
So one night I YouTube'd Quixtar and found that Dateline special on Quixtar/Amway being a scam...and that left me frozen by the end of it. I was so close to giving in to this bullcrap until I saw that video. I tried warning my high school buddy about it by sending him the link to that video...but he didn't buy it.
The sponser guy also tried calling me again, mentioning that my high school buddy told him that I'd seen some negative things about Quixtar on the internet...and that he wanted to have a talk. I haven't heard from either of them since then.
Gt- Well thats what I do, if you do not want to be in the business to make money and you give into the beliefs of a scam I am not going to keep calling you. I dont want to take time out to persuade you because there are millinos of others trying to make money.
I just don't know... I was 2 seconds away from becoming an IBO until I decided to go to college half way across the country to help better my life. Now I know that some people have had success w/ Quixtar and some consider it a complete scam, I have no clue one way or the other. But what I can say is that I think it's kind of scary knowing that these other IBO's are so determined to recruit other people that they don't consider the circumstances of the ones they are trying to recruit. I don't mean adults... I mean 18 year old kids. I know there's nothing illegal about high pressure tactics to teenagers, but the unbelievable thing is that throughout my entire time w/ Quixtar, not one person suggested that I finish school first, because education is one of the most important things in someone's life. The only words of wisdom I received from my "recruiter" was "Great! do you have any idea how many people you could show the plan to in college?!!" Luckily, I put school first and passed on the whole Quixtar idea.
I was involved with Quixtar for the past 6 months and the whole time and effort I put into working the plan and attending 2 big functions, one in Louisville KT, the other in Greenville SC, I only got back a total of $18.90. I would say after buying the 100PV each month and going to the weekly meetings and night-owls (nightly meeting that runs from about 10pm-2am sometimes and still spending money) and going to functions and spending a total of $700 on both it totals well into the $3,000 mark. And I worked this thing hard too and nothing happened. Not including the bullshit CD's, books, and other literature you have to pay for. All of my closest friends said that Quixtar business is bullshit and even my twin brother warned me about but hell I gave it a hell of a good shot and spend more than enough time with to get a reward of something but I never will get back nearly as much time and money that I put into it. One more thing that really put me over the edge is that after my sponsor/mentor/upline whatever the hell you want to call those people lied to me and told me this wasn't apart of a previous scam-piramid-schemed Amway and I have found out that is after being lied to for so long I am ready to go beat some ass at one of those nightly meetings. They call this the best business opportunity in America, If it was why is there soooo many people that are opposed to Quixtar and Amway and want them to stop?
This business is nothing but a scam and piramid and I know one day that something will be done about it. Keep your money and work for yourself if you want aspirations to own your own company cause Quixtar was nothing but a waste of my time and money.
Quick qustions... my friend recently got suckered into this Quixtar mess and he's quickly calling EVERYONE in his phonebook (I told him to leave me the F*** alone as I've read that this stuff ruins friendships). Anyway, what kind of money is he looking at for getting one person to sign up to their program? I ask b/c I know he's having a tough time recruiting anyone.
Thanks!
This IBO was a Dum Bass!!! If I track down who it is I am contacting QStar about his actions and breach of contract. (Saying he is an employee or employeer for QStar is a BIG no-no)
As for this article: Very unfortunate, clearly uneducated, and will not affect my business.
Posted by: Brad | April 15, 2006 2:07 AM