1) Eric Scheibeler’s story is not typical.
2) Making truly big bucks in the Amway business is also not typical.

When one realizes that 95% of all business ventures fail within the first 5 years of existence, it becomes apparent that Amway is no exception, and really quite average.

It is also of note that only 1% of all distributors reach the direct level. When you see “The Plan”, the numbers show this almost perfectly. It takes about 100 downline to support a direct distributorship.

Finally, it should also be noted that Amway itself is a manufacturer of certain household and personal products. It is not so engaged, and usually rather removed from the marketing arm which is the Amway Distributors association. The point here being, that Eric’s book, is a book dealing more with his personal relationships with independent distributors, and less about his dealings with the Amway Corporation directly. Unfortunately, not all people are above board. There are many dishonest and underhanded people out in the world, and unfortunately some get involved in systems like network marketing, and in general give it a bad name.

Understand that I’m neither defending nor supporting either side, so much as trying to add a bit of common sense to it all. Amway (in general) seems to evoke strong emotions on both sides of the argument, and sometimes one has to step back and (as Mr. Spock might say) apply a little unemotional logic to the equation.

Another Eric is caught up somewhere in the web .. may be thousands of them ..

It should also be noted that IBOFightback is in Sweden and has little or no experience with the United States. He also hasn’t been active in over ten years so his experience is outdated. He has no credibility.

The thing is that I’m making no claims about my current Amway income and I never have. I’m not making claims about other people’s income either.

Mr Scheibeler has however made numerous such claims about his Amway business, and others, but he has never once posted any of his tax returns, or any others, to back him his claims. I for one am legitimately curious how one can develop a Founders Emerald business and be making so little money.

Well, I’m not that curious, I know very well how it can be done and that’s why Scheibeler won’t go into details about his business as it will almost reflect poorly not on Amway, but on him.

Scheibeler claims there to be “countless IBO loss testimonials” on his site, which is a little bit concerning given his background as an auditor - it’s quite easy to count. It’s also quite easy to make a comparison between that number of complaints and the huge number of people who have been involved with Amway over the years. While more than zero is always too much, the number of complaints is, in comparison, trivial. If problems were a universal as Scheibeler claims, why are there so few complaints?

I also note that of those “complaints” he does post, the vast majority of them seem to have been experiencing expenses of no more than a few thousand dollars a year. As a former federal auditor I’d be curious to hear Scheibeler’s experience with the expenses of running other businesses. The expenses of running an Amway business are trivial in comparison.

Of course, it’s fair to ask then why these people were “losing” money. I note that many of them include product purchases in their “expenses”, and this offers hints of explanation. Products purchased for personal use are not a business expense - they’re a household expense. It’s not unusual to hear these folk also complain about “overpriced products” as well - which makes one wonder … if you thought they were overpriced, why were you buying them and marketing them? Indeed if you’re purchasing products not because you think they’re good value, but that you think that by doing so and getting others to do so you’ll get rich - you’re not running a business, you’re running a scam.

And that’s perhaps the difference between Scheibeler’s experience and mine. I buy Amway products because I like them and want them. There’s people in my original Amway business (long story but I gifted it to my former wife) that haven’t “shown a plan” or gone to a seminar or bought a CD etc etc for more than a decade - but they keep on buying the products. Indeed there’s nobody in that business that has had a single business expense outside of yearly membership for 10 years - yet every month people in that group buy stuff. Legitimate products, legitimate demand, legitimate customers.

That’s how you build a profitable Amway business, Eric. Throw in full retailing customers - something I was taught to have from day one - and that’s why I hit profitability, after all expenses, at the 9% level.

I have little doubt the essence of Eric’s story in MoD is true. The problem I have is that very very little of it even remotely reflects my experience with Amway, and people like Eric simply refuse to entertain the possibility that maybe some people do things differently.

They do.

“IBOFIGHTBACK uses the typical Amway apologist tactic of avoiding the only issue of substance. The documentation seems to clearly support that there has been about a 99% loss rate for Amway distributors.

The attrition rate may also be as high as 96% over 5-6 years which means that fewer than 5% think there is even enough value of staying on as an
“IBO” to buy products at “wholesale or distributor cost”. How do you address the countless IBO loss testimonials from nearly every motivational group, from countless countries around the world?
See http://merchantsofdeception.com/mod/wordpress/

His real name is David Steadson and his activities were exposed on http://amquix.info/steadson_amway_zealot.html .

It seems with all his positive internet posting he has little time to be selling Amway. David, why don’t you visit with reality for a moment and post your net income as an IBO after all expenses and that of all members of your downline?

Tax returns don’t lie.

Eric Scheibeler

I’m afraid you’ve been hoodwinked - and not by Amway but by Eric Scheibeler. He’s had this book online for free for many, many years, it’s not new - yet you’re somehow convinced that Amway are all of a sudden going to “move heaven and earth” to prevent it’s publication? Really? How much research did you do before writing this review?

While clearly Scheibeler raises some valid criticisms of his experience the book is also less than genuine in more than a few places. You may for example want to ask him in your interview how he managed to reach all the way to Emerald without knowing how the “depth bonus” (Pearl) worked? He claims his wife and he “were shocked” when the first depth bonus check arrived - yet in my very first Amway-related training meeting (before I’d even joined!) we were taught that the depth bonus starts out very small. Even a cursory understanding of it’s calculation makes this obvious, and it is explained in the Amway Business Reference Manual that Scheibeler would have had access to from the day he joined, if not before.

Could Scheibeler actually be this ignorant of how the Amway compensation plan works? Or was he exaggerating for effect in the book? Either way the credibility of the rest of his story is damaged.

In the end, Scheibeler clearly didn’t have a positive experience with Amway, but it’s interesting to note that virtually none of his book is about Amway!! It’s about the people and group he worked with. He makes various claims of “in Amway this” and “in Amway that” which may or may not have been true of the culture of the group he operated within, but I can tell you from my own personal experience these are not universal experiences. He refers to attending “Amway seminars” and then clearly describes something that is not a seminar run by Amway at all, but something altogether different - a seminar run by one of many third party companies that have been setup over the years to support and train Amway business owners. It is that he is talking about, and it is that which the book is about.

Finally, it’s of note that “Zack” and other players in the book have all since been kicked out or left Amway, and in the years since the book was first published Amway has also launched numerous initiatives to influence the way these third party training and motivational companies train and operate - including making it clear that they will not tolerate deceptive tactics such as you experienced. Amway has also dramatically increased a number of bonuses, both for new IBOs and more successful ones.

Merchants of Deception isn’t a book about Amway at all, it’s about people - many of whom aren’t even working with the Amway business any more. Unfortunately Eric Scheibeler and a handful of others are continuing to attempt to profit through damaging the lives and businesses of others - including the vast majority of Amway business owners, who try to run their businesses in an honest, ethical manner.