For the DeVos sound, use the screaming horses from Young Frankenstein whenever anyone says "Frau Bruca"

I remember in the late 70s, a friend of my parents started selling Amway and they stopped talking to her. When she called, they would say we were just leaving. If she knocked on the door, they wouldn't answer.

I was almost assaulted by Amway people, while I was a real door-to-door salesman. They're very territorial.

My parents joined amway around the time i was 4, about '92 or so. I remember some time about 10 years later though, where i might have found something still around from amway and i mentioned it to my mom who said calmly, "don't ever say that name again." Think that kinda let me know all i needed to about how that venture went. 😆

1:00:00 One thing to recognize is the quote talks about "Tools". "Amway Tools" was a interrelated but distinct grift run by completely different people from Amway proper, who basically found a way to profit off of Amway by selling tapes (the "tools") to the people in Amway (which would often be repackaged by Amway distributors to members of their downline, alongside the Amway products) that basically just told them the same stuff: that if you don't succeed its your fault so get out there and sell. These two groups (Amway and Amway Tools) actually hated each other because Amway Tools opened up Amway to greater legal threat through the promises that Tools made, and so Amway wanted Amway Tools shut down. Amway Tools suspected ulterior motives from Amway (that Amway just wanted to release their own tapes and take over the Tools, which to be fair to Tools, Amway did attempt, but was never as successful at it as Tools was). There's a youtube video about the Amway Tools scam specifically (as opposed to the Amway scam) by a guy called Sean Munger.

We sure are losing a lot of body horror art since losing syphilis, but at least we're not losing our noses... I feel like good old mostly symptomless chlamydia is a real sign of progress in society

@matthewcaldwell8100

9 ай бұрын

Why did I hear the phrase "good old mostly symptomless chlamydia" in Professor Farnsworth's voice?

@tiraXpyrrha

9 ай бұрын

"Good news everyone! I've created a new strain of chlamydia!"

@matthewcaldwell8100

9 ай бұрын

@@tiraXpyrrha A whuhhhh?

The story Jack told about the guy who only spoke Klingon around his children is basically how Hebrew became a spoken language again, except more severe and abusive, because Eliezer Ben-Yahuda didn't even let his children hear language other than Hebrew.

@IsaacMayerCreativeWorks

4 ай бұрын

and his son Itamar ben-Avi did, unsurprisingly, end up more or less completely insane

Robert's slight towards that 'perfidious peninsula,' is a beautiful remark that needed more attention. I wish I could hate Italy that much.

@Arthur-ve5lz

9 ай бұрын

Seeing this comment before listening, I just assumed the phrase meant Florida

@nerodia

24 күн бұрын

@@Arthur-ve5lz as awful as Florida is, at least they're honest about it.

I was in Amway for half a year and can I say thank you for how you presented the people scammed by them, you talked about how it's all programming and the people like me who were fooled aren't stupid just sold a false hope by genuine scum bags

@jayc5897

8 ай бұрын

Syphilis is the most British, they brought it over & infected the native Americans and their other conquests... Good times😵

"it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" - some dude from some dumb book for losers

@cowbatboots282

9 ай бұрын

I love that your comment is double ironic. The first part is true and the second part is true but only if said unironically.

@rahulmenon4357

9 ай бұрын

​@@cowbatboots282 I love how his most devoted followers hate his direct teachings

MLMs all start as failed businesses. Low-quality products with high prices in a marketplace with too much competition. Instead of calling it quits, the owner says: "Instead of trying to make money off of customers, what if we just make it off of our own workers instead?"

My parents were in Amway, then Quixtar, then Amway again off and on for my entire childhood so I'm pretty hyped for this!

@murrayent1able

8 ай бұрын

Eight years total 2 years before the internet started 😂

I joined Amway for shits and giggles a few years ago. It is a cult. Once my curiosity was satisfied and I tried to bow out, my upline was like "have you accepted Jesus Christ into your life?" 😂

@richardarriaga6271

9 ай бұрын

Should have told her she's the reason Jesus carried a whip

@cowbatboots282

9 ай бұрын

Pft! Lmao!

@rahulmenon4357

9 ай бұрын

Please tell me you said "oh yes, he mows my lawn"

There's a weird poetry in one of the first MLMs, Holiday Magic, being started by buying products off of someone who was basically garage-qualified. It's like we started at the tail of the last, as yet unknown scam, which birthed the new.

@cowbatboots282

9 ай бұрын

Could you expound on this, I'm not quite following. Disclaimer: I'm a bit high. Sorry.

@kevinhengehold4387

9 ай бұрын

@@cowbatboots282 I guess I was getting Tenet vibes, where the vampire boy needs to go back and get killed so the story can happen (Never saw Tenet - gleaned it from the internet). Or the first star trek prequel, where Scottie learns time travel from Spock who learned it from Scottie in the future. Like some sort of disruption in spacetime occurred such that someone who had been thoroughly abused by an MLM was transported back before MLMs took off, and one of the first MLM creators walked by and said "oh shit, I just thought of something cool..."

@cowbatboots282

9 ай бұрын

@@kevinhengehold4387 haha, okay I get what you mean. Thanks for explaining.

I can't hear "Rich DeVos" without hearing "Rich Vos," and that's amazing.

In the UK, "you can do it too" is the tagline of a brand of toilet wipes for toddlers. Like, to help them clean themselves after using the potty.

You guys should look into Bob Barker and his role in the prison industrial complex. Some dark shit there.

@theangryholmesian4556

8 ай бұрын

As in beloved TV host Bob Barker? What the hell?

More than 20 years ago, an Amwack tried to recruit me while I was in REI with my young daughter. Suspicious but curious, I agreed to a followup the next day at Starbucks near my office. I mostly listened as I had concluded early on that Amway was the "opportunity" and listened patiently to the spiel to see how long it would take the guy to actually say "Amway" without my directly asking. It never happened. And he gave up.

I worked for one of the higher ups in amway on their private mansion compound as their vegetable gardener and they amount of wealth they had and how evil and cheap they were still haunt my mind

The most important takeaway from this and episodes like it is that social injustice creates fertile ground for scams. Sarah Howe's scheme was only possible in a society where women were prevented from having independent financial security, Amway fed off widening wealth inequality, the payday loan industry thrives at the nexus of financial precarity and consumerism, etc.

Lost opportunity to, when talking about the lady con, say "it's not a grifter, it's a grift-HER" .

@cowbatboots282

9 ай бұрын

Ha! **slow clap** 🥲😤

@danielsimmonds4913

9 ай бұрын

This is the best pun you'll ever come up with, as it's not just a female con artist, but a con artist who only conned women.

@joearnold6881

9 ай бұрын

Boo

Growing up in Michigan, we learned to loathe the name De Vos before it was cool

I remember when I was young and trying to find work while in college. I stumbled into Amway and Cutco. Experiencing how fucked up MLMs are practically turned me socialist

Good Episode!

To be fair "most of the people at the bottom make nothing and all the profits get funnelled to the people at the top" sounds like a corporation under capitalism.

I hope you do an episode on Mary Kay Ash at some point

I'm trying to figure out Sarah Howe's interest rate thingy. He claims that she gives an 8% interest, and that if you deposit $100, at the end of the year you'd have $196. Now... that's a _lot_ more than 8%, I even checked 8% compounded daily (which is only $108.33); maybe he meant 80%... which is virtually impossible but at 80% compounded semiannually, that _does_ equal $196. But then he adds that you get 3 months free interest? I have to assume he _meant_ 80% but also did the math in his head and somehow didn't come up with $180 (compounded annually), or $216.94 (compounded monthly) or $263.29 if you get 3 free months _(and_ it is compounded monthly). Whatever, I'm a nerd... the point is, it sounded too good to be true and it was.

@deyeaus

9 ай бұрын

8% per month according to wiki (I'm not checking the math)

@Wendy_O._Koopa

9 ай бұрын

@@deyeaus Well, then it's between $108 and $110.52 if it was compounded daily and you got an extra 3 months. Certainly much more plausible, but still not sustainable in the long run.

@channelname1019

9 ай бұрын

Sarah Howe kidnapped my child.

howe hustle

@commandantcarpenter

9 ай бұрын

"i'm gonna give 'em the ol'

Ah, "sheer tyranny of will". Another Norm enjoyer I see haha

I'm a fan of fictional grifts, like Confederated Products

My mom buys amway products, all the nutrilife stuff is garbage but the amway laundry detergent is great.

I'm in GR and absolutely despise these clowns.

@raak4070

9 ай бұрын

Gr?

"they deserve their pain for trusting a woman with their money"

what's an Amway? about 3 pounds?

Yeah I get it "eat the rich" but "hur dur Madoff funny" is not a good look.

@ms-literary6320

8 ай бұрын

And specifically targeted the Jewish community. He scammed a lot of rich people, sure, but a lot of normal folks lost money trusting him too. And he destroyed his own family.

You take too long to get started

@ behindthebastards could you please make an episode on Opera? 🙏🙏🙏