I learned through a trusted source that Al has abandoned hope of achieving financial freedom through the means of Amway. From what I can tell, he lasted about 2 or 3 years, but I have yet to hear his version of the story. I’d assume it would be frank and terse, probably: I wasn’t getting anywhere.

What is left to be said is that in the end, after years of dedication, it proved to be a big waste of time, money, and may have required some deep thinking to understand how one could allow oneself to get so involved with something obviously so wrong.

Let’s face it people, if it sounds too good to be true, run like hell!

Today I was reminded of the absurdity that still takes advantage of those who are weak to resist and offer too good to be true. Some things simply can not happen, but those that will benefit from you trying will surely tell you otherwise. For instance, imagine this scenerio:

“You can be a millionaire simply by sending me $19.99!”

I provide a way for interested parties to pay me, probably Paypal linked to a new and temporal bank account.

Once a payment comes in, I email back an e-book containing the secret - which is to create a site just like the site they bought the e-book from. There are laws in place to prevent this kind of deceptive scam, but if you include enough content to offset the scam nature, it becomes caveat emptor – or – buyer beware.

Now that I’ve exposed how anyone can make a million dollars (painfully important word is ‘can’), let us move on to a new scenario where everyone becomes a millionaire:

In the near future, the worlds largest outbreak of cyclic buying results in everyone having at least a million dollars. As a result, due to meteoric inflation, a candy bar which presently is valued at 90 cents soon costs $75. Your rent which is $700 a month becomes $58,333 a month - enough to buy a small home in Upstate NY at present market prices. This is based upon an increase of 8333% across the board when the poverty line of $12,000 becomes $1,000,000.

The reality is that monetary value is relative and volatile. Visit Wikipedia’s page on hyperinflation for examples of such scenarios which actually occurred in recent history. Some countries currency value diminished to the point of 1 US dollar = 1 trillion of their units. In 2006, 10 US dollars equaled 100,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars. Clearly, a million of nothing is still nothing.

The main point is that selling and idea that we all can be rich or millionaires is indeed possible, but the central point is that no one who understands the repercussions would ever wish it to be.

Now on to the ‘two years later’ portion of this post. This site was created a little over two years ago in a dramatic way attempting to warn a then close friend about the mistake he was making. Our friendship dried up around this time, so I’ve not had direct information regarding his Quixtar Amway Global successes. As far as I know, via mutual friends, Al is still sticking it out and has yet to see anything resembling profit. Now keep in mind that Al started about 6 months prior to this blog, so he has had about 2 and a half years to prove the effort and expense a beneficial exploit.

Myself, I started a company in late 2000 which existed on paper for the first five years as I geared up while working a ‘real’ job. During those five years, I acquired equipment, took some classes at a community college, and bought books relevant to the work. I also began working during the hours I wasn’t working at my day job on a project here and there. The first few projects were not profitable per se, but they did educate me better about how to deal with clients, work flows, and more importantly how to maintain profitability.

One could compare a foray in to Quixtar Amway Global to my experience. The problem with that is that it is vastly different. For starters, I am solely responsible for creating a product or service, marketing it, and collecting on it. I also don’t collect a percentage or deal with a point system to collect a paycheck. I have all the freedom that Quixtar Amway Global promises, but I also have the freedom to make as much as I want based upon how much I choose to work.

Another part of the comparison is that what I’ve purchased has improved my abilities or increased the services I offer directly. Amway Global members are given the opportunity to attend seminars and purchase tools to help them better their business. The sick part of this is that they are also being guided in to solely selling Amway products as a business. Why not contact a local bottling or distribution company and purchasing a pallet of products that are in public demand, then sell those products to your friends for a profit?

Anyone can be what Amway Global calls an IBO (Independent Business Owner), it’s called being self-employed. Why limit yourself to starving what people lovingly refer to as their ‘business’ and make it a real one? Here are some possible real business ventures that anyone can do and see a real profit:

1. Talk to your city hall about getting a year-round vendors license and sell snacks and cold drinks on street corners in busy areas of town which have been approved for street vendors.

2. Visit your local Salvation Army and pick out interesting clothes, video tapes, electronics and resell them on eBay. Do some research on eBay for what people want, buy products you can resell with confidence.

3. Choose a product of interest and sell them online. There are millions of things available to sell, and an endless amount of products that you can produce yourself.

There are a few ideas that anyone can do with a little work. Ah, the key word is ‘work’. Too many people believe in the magical money faery that will bring them a fortune if they follow a get rich quick scheme which doesn’t involve real work. Unless you already have money, you will need ingenuity or talent to make money for yourself. I’ve been working for myself now for four years and have been experiencing an increase each year in profits - thanks to my gumption and desire to succeed with a real business idea.

Three years is all it takes to become independently wealthy, with the Quixtar Amway Global plan. At least that was the original plan. As it turned out, Quixtar wasn’t the fast track, so moving to a similar orginization called LTD Team is. Who is Leadership Team Development Team? Their website is sparse on description on the onset, instead you have to do some digging to find this page:

http://www.ltdteam.com/guest/icommerce.asp

Again, it doesn’t exactly say what they do, but I’ve been lead to believe they are just like Quixtar, but somehow ‘better’. Where does one find some information on this mysterious company? The web always has something, here is what I found:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071014152515AA00RIc

Within this discussion, it appears Leadership Team Development Team has members approaching people in McDonald’s asking if they want to make more money. Ah, I get it, a splinter cell of Quixtar which isn’t directly authorized by Quixtar, but instead can add one more middle man to the line-up.

Apparently, this idea is such a smashing success. So much that the Leadership Team Development Team has set up representatives working in low wage jobs teeming with public presence to further their expansive power. Imagine the intelligence of this situation:

1. Form a company which constantly hires ‘Independant Business Owners’ to work for them

2. Have those IBOs hire more

3. Ask those IBOs buy products from the company to support the company

4. Pay them a portion back what they buy from the company in points

5. Have these IBOs spend every free moment learning how to run a better business

6. When they are not learning how to run their business, have them work shitty public jobs in hopes that they can bring more in to the fold

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was one of Al’s co-workers that introduced him to Quixtar. And so the cycle continues…

It came as no surprise to learn that Al got married shortly after the demise of Hate the Radio and the so called ‘White House’. It also came as no surprise that no one from the circle of friends which Al knew even was aware of this.

A Yahoo question asking if Quixtar is a scam garnered several negative comments, including one that went on to say that you will lose your friends. I see why now. Al put it simply: What if you spent your whole life doing something and then someone shows you what you have been missing? Apparently, what Al was missing was Christ and Quixtar. He took to both like a fish to water after more than 30 years of being a non-believer heathen and bouncing between about 50 different jobs in his life.

What Al was not missing was those who were considered friends a year previous. He also was not missing the people that he wrangled in to leaving their lives behind and moving from far off places to a horrible city in NY for the united cause of making a few hours of audio embarrassment a week. Honestly, the show was entertaining sometimes. I sure had fun when it was happening, and I’m partly sad that it disappeared.

As someone who was there for him over the years, I feel nothing more than loss. I curse Quixtar Amway Global/Alticor for manipulating the dreams and desires of the weak. I shake my head in disbelief at Al. Looking back 13 years ago when Al was holding a broken glass bottle in his hand and feeling threatening to himself, it was my door he knocked at. I was the person who showed compassion and consoled him. I was the one that took the bottle from him.

Two years ago, it was me who helped him move 800 miles North. I scrubbed his filthy kitchen floor and more free from a years worth of accumulated dirt. As Al was without any funds, it was me that paid for his gas for the return, not to mention paid his outstanding cable bill so that I could continue to work while I stayed with him prior to the move. Upon returning to NY, he paid the money I had fronted from his parents wallet.

As I am no longer around Al, the focus of this site, I have not had anything to post. This website is in effect ‘complete’. Al denouced his long standing friends and traded them in for him team of MLM dreamers. In one of our last conversations, he made it obvious that the people he ‘works’ with were his new friends and that he has was done with myself and the others who tried to warn him about Quixtar.

To Al, congratulations on getting married to your fat wife.

Answers.com defines ‘Job’ as:

1. A regular activity performed in exchange for payment, especially as one’s trade, occupation, or profession.

Note the phrase ‘in exchange for payment’. I understand that those who sell Amway products are employed by themselves, and therefore are responsible for paying themselves, just as any self-employment situation. What I don’t understand is how so many people can tell keep looking in to the future where a land of 24-karat gold plated yachts sail around a man-made lakes behind mansions owned by successful IBOs.

News Flash!
Spending 16 hours a day and paying yourself the equivilant of a Honduran making Nike appearal in Guatamala’s AAA factory is not success by conventional standards. Oh, actually, checking the records, the typical employee of the Honduran AAA/Alejandro Apparel factory makes $1.11 an hour, or $211.94 a month compared to the typical Amway/Quixtar IBO making $115 a month. Maybe the Quixtar people should move to Honduras to make some real money!

How much do you spend a month on groceries? Myself, I spend about $150 total in a month on food, which includes a weekly dining out. Let’s just say that I spend $200 on all that I need to eat for myself in a month. Now, I ask, what does the typical IBO spend?

 Taking in to account that Quixtar raves about the sales of the XS Energy Drink versus the amount of products I see Al buy for himself, I wonder some about it all. Perhaps Quixtar IBOs are the reason why the drink product sells so well… to themselves?

 Let’s do some math now. Quixtar/Amway reports that their IBOs took home “$2.2 billion in bonuses and other incentives” in a fiscal year. That sounds great, doesn’t it? Possibly, but only for a minority of the IBOs. According to Quixtar’s website, the IBOs make an average of $115 a month (they are required by law to display this fact.) Since we don’t know exactly how much real money has been paid out ($2.2 billion minus “incentives”), we will just keep with the full value.

 $115 a month = $1380 a year

$2,200,000,000 a year / $1380 a year = 1,594,203 IBOs

Many IBOs are urged to buy products from themselves in order to keep in the game. One product that seems to sell in large volume is the XS Energy Drinks. References report that XS Energy Drink sales are around $51,000,000 in 2002. If we were to assume ALL XS Energy Drinks were sold to 50% of the IBOs we get this:

50% of 1,594,203 IBOs = 797,101.5 IBOs

$51,000,000 / 797,101.5 IBOs  = $64 a year or 2.7 cases (12 cans) per year

 Hmm, doesn’t sound too unreasonable to say that half of the IBOs spend $64 a year on their claim to flame product. It also doesn’t sound impossible that most of the products (or even all) are sold directly to IBOs starving for a future of finacial freedom.

 I would love someone to tell me exactly how many IBOs are out there, or at least an average amount of active IBOs in a year. There must be a value as Quixtar gave us the $115 a month value themselves.

In the short time of 7 days of existence, ACHTUNG AL! has attracted a magical troll whom insists upon trying to advertise for free on our site. His devotion toward Quixtar/Amway has caused me to dig up some information on the internets. What I found is shocking. Here is a foto von Herr IBOSTRIKEBACK:

I would also like to announce that I’ve been tapped by my higher power and deity to promote a new sticker for sale from fadishist.com:

HOOT! FREEDOM! FLUSH THAT STINKING JOB! HOOT!

Amazing! This is simply the best way I can respond. Here, a new website that is 8 days old, ACHTUNG AL! has drawn the ire of a IBO that throws blows.

Looking back to the previous ACHTUNG NEWS post, you will see a lone comment from ‘ibofightback’. This comment comes from the desperate admin of a fresh site entitled TheTruthAboutAmway.com who simply can’t sleep a wink until spreading the ‘truth’ about Quixtar/Amway on little known websites such as this one.

 Really, this site has only been in the search engines for less than a week and already some Amway zealot is looking for a link back. Sorry pal, you don’t get a free ride here!

Quixtar has become Quit-star as the parent company Alticore decided to dump the 8 year old name. Here it was just yesterday that I mentioned that their name is overshadowed by negativity — scam accusations and IBOs complaining about financial diffuculties after failing with Quixtar. Now they repealed the new name in favor of the old name, which is most likely a distant memory in peoples’ minds.

 Personally, I believe Quixtar is a terrible business name as it may be easy to remember the sound of it, but the spelling could be many different ways. Upon hearing the name, I googled Quick Star, Quickstar, and finally Quixtar. Upon trying to remember the name, it could be misspelled Quitar, Quitxar, Quitstar, Quikstar, Quixstat, or even Quickxstar. Who knows, but I doubt the proper research was done on name branding recognition.

 Amway immediately is less threatening as a name. I relate it to a series of other names sharing the ‘way’ suffix such as Safeway or Jamesway (department store now defunct). Regardless of the name, it hasn’t changed my reaction to this company. My mind still screams ‘run away before you become hopelessly ruined!’

Read more here:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070614/BIZ/706140337/1001

Today, I explained that to Al the existence of this site and the reason for it. In doing so, I have invited him to blog his experiences in his own words in a new category entitled ‘Al’s Corner’. This should be an interesting spin against the one-sided view that I provide.

 The challenge I gave him was simple — prove me wrong. Prove to me that something worthwhile will come from working for Quixtar. I personally know that he spends countless hours seeking to improve his standing. If he can indeed make this worth his while, I will openly salute and congratulate him. I personally doubt that I will need to.

As a business owner myself, I understand how hard it is to make it. I know that sometimes it takes a long time with what seems like lots of wasted energy before profits can show. As Quixtar has a large cloud of negativity surrounding it, it will take a lot of extra effort to make a true success happen.

People do shop online for everyday items, which is one thing Quixtar offers. To Quixtar’s detriment, there are other venues which offer better prices and a wider variety of commonly known products such as Amazon’s newest Grocery section (http://www.amazon.com/grocery).