The other day, I was unexpectedly approached by an Amway member who tried to recruit me into their company.
Even though I had heard about it, I was still shaken up when I was actually the one being solicited.
Although I was shaken up by the experience, I had many thoughts and feelings after being approached, so I thought I'd write an article about them.
In the first half, I will write mainly about what actually happened, while also including some of my thoughts.
In the second half, I will write mainly from my subjective perspective, including what I thought and felt.
The circumstances of being solicited
After becoming a working adult, I belonged to a certain sports club.
However, because I moved two or three years ago, I switched from the club I used to belong to to a new club.
This incident occurred about six months after I joined the organization.
The club leader had asked if we wanted to go out for lunch, and we had arranged to meet at a certain family restaurant.
A little while ago, I said, "I want to gather opinions and requests from the members, so please proceed in order."IndividuallyThere was talk within the club about "having a meal together."
At this point, I did feel a bit uneasy, but since the leader himself was a very eccentric person, I wasn't too wary.
That said, while meeting up after club activities might be acceptable, I wasn't keen on meeting just for lunch on a day when there were no activities.
However, since we'll be interacting in the future, I decided it would be okay and went along with it.
When I went to the store, the organizer, the leader, was there.
For a while, we ate a normal meal and chatted about club-related topics.
Then a man came along.
I had met that man once before at a drinking party organized by the club; he was a personal friend of the leader.
Both the leader and the man were unhappy with the situation, both last time and this time, because having someone who wasn't even a member of the club suddenly show up only spoils the mood.
That said, I'm not a child, so I thought we'd just have some casual small talk and then part ways when the scheduled time was up.
In the midst of all this, the man suddenly took out a tablet and began playing a video about a private tournament for the same sport we were playing, which had been incredibly exciting.
The flow of the conversation wasn't particularly unnatural, but I watched the video, thinking that he wanted to talk.
And the sponsor logo of that tournament"Amway"When I saw the characters, I understood everything.
Ah, I guess I'm going to get recruited after this.
Content of the solicitation
After the video ended, they began explaining just how amazing the person who organized the tournament was.
The content was about things like how he throws parties at an amazing villa and how he has an incredible network of connections.
After seeing the word "Amway," I had already anticipated what would happen next, so I was mostly just nodding along without much thought.
I realized just how painful it can be to be forced to listen to a story you have no interest in.
After that, the question "Do you know about Amway?" finally came up.
I knew the answer, so I replied, "Yes, I know it."
When asked, "Do you know what kind of company it is?", I replied, "It's a company that does multi-level marketing." The leader laughed as if to say, "Haha, you don't know anything," and the man also pressed on with questions.
"Where did you hear that?" "Do you really understand how it works?" "It won't hurt to know," she said, rattling off rapidly, probably because she really didn't want it to be called a multi-level marketing scheme.
I used to think that multi-level marketing itself isn't illegal, and since it is indeed multi-level marketing, they should just be open about it.
After that, I was asked questions like, "Do you know about passive income?" and they made some obvious statements like, "Wouldn't it be even better if we had more time and money in our current lives?"
Then, they explained the well-known points reward system, writing it down on paper, and at key points, they made us do calculations like, "How many points will I get in total?"
It's not a system where those who join earlier have an advantage; even those who join later can receive significant rewards if they refer many people through word of mouth.
The anger gradually grew stronger than the initial feelings of unease and confusion I had.
During that time, the leader who organized the luncheon remained silent, watching as the man explained things to me.
After the man finished his explanation, the leader then began to explain to me how Amway and the Circle are related.
The leader himself said he became a member about six months ago.
They also plan to recruit more club members in the future, and use the money saved by the leader to further improve the team's operations.
Naturally, the members were told that they were allowed to keep any money they earned for themselves.
Midway through, as the scheduled end time of the social gathering approached, I said, "It's almost time, so could we finish up a little early?"
The explanation was a little faster, but it eventually returned to normal speed after a few minutes.
I've become acutely aware of how utterly pointless my time has been, and it's making me dizzy.
Then, while I listened half-stunned, the leader handed me a catalog and some samples.
"The membership fee is only 3,600 yen, which works out to 300 yen per month."
You can return the product if you don't like it, so there's little risk in joining.
Why don't you try it out?
And then, finally, I was asked whether or not I intended to join.
Actions taken after being solicited
Naturally, when they tried to persuade me to join, I replied, "I won't be joining."
It seemed like he had a disappointed look on his face, as if to say, "It's clearly more advantageous to join, but you don't understand that?"
And since a considerable amount of time had passed, I returned the catalog and samples, suppressing my anger.
I told them, "I came here expecting a get-together for the club, so I was honestly disappointed that you talked about things unrelated to that."
The leader apologized for what happened, but it didn't calm me down at all.
Naturally, the payments were made separately.
It's a common joke online, with people saying things like, "If you're making that much money, you should treat me to something," but when I actually experienced it myself, I was so angry and shaken up that I didn't have the capacity to laugh it off.
Thankfully, I wasn't pressured to stay any longer, and I was able to go home safely.
Those few hours felt incredibly long.
The problem this time
What hurt me the most this time was that I went there expecting to have a casual chat about sports, but instead, my time was wasted on completely unrelated solicitations.
Considering that they had prepared catalogs and samples, and had invited a male member, it was clearly a planned recruitment attempt.
The sole purpose of recruiting others is to earn points for oneself.
No matter how much you justify it by saying it's for the sake of team management or to help the other party prosper, it's inevitable that it will be seen that way.
They are "deceiving" others into coming to them for their own benefit, and then wasting their time on things they have no interest in.
I really disliked this too.
If you call what you're doing a "business," then you should avoid doing anything that will cause you to lose customer trust from the very beginning.
Also, I later learned online that inviting someone in without disclosing that they are a member and then soliciting them is apparently a violation of the Specified Commercial Transactions Act.
Well, it's true that if someone were to say, "I'm a member of a multi-level marketing scheme, and I'd like to recruit you to join, so would you be willing to meet?", there's no way they would agree to meet.
It seems the only option is to schedule an appointment for a different purpose, as in this case.
I believe this is the only clear violation of the law.
Another thing I disliked was the constant feeling that my own life was being mocked.
The recruiter spoke about passive income in a tone that portrayed workers who sell their time for money as pitiable.
I myself am reasonably satisfied with my current life, so it was unpleasant to hear them assume that it was somehow unhappy.
Contradictions I personally noticed
In the previous section, I wrote about the points that are clearly bad.
From here on, these are points that I personally found contradictory.
However, I didn't ask about this contradiction at the time because I wasn't interested in resolving it.
My strongest feeling was that I wanted to go home as soon as possible.
It's expensive for an everyday item.
During the sales pitch, I was told something like, "Do you have any particular preferences for everyday necessities? Probably not. All you have to do is change those everyday necessities."
The minimum amount required to earn points is 30,000 yen per month, and it seems that points cannot be carried over to the next month (this was not explained).
Frankly, I don't think anyone should be spending 30,000 yen a month on dish soap or laundry detergent.
I was told, "It's a little expensive, but the quality is good and it lasts a long time," but since I don't really care about quality in the first place, that's not a benefit for me.
I felt that if it lasted even longer, the purchase price would decrease even further.
I suspect the high price is due to the fact that the product already includes points for redemption.
Passive income and unearned income
Another phrase that often comes up is "passive income."
I was told that if I recruited lower-ranking members, I would receive points as a reward.
I sensed a deliberate attempt at misleading readers, such as misrepresenting "royalty income" as "unearned income," in several key places.
The very beginning of the recruitment process involves stating that "it's not about who's been doing it first; what matters is how hard you've worked on word-of-mouth marketing," which ultimately means you have to keep recruiting through word-of-mouth.
Since the purchase amount cannot be carried over to the next month, it's easy to fall into the mindset of "I have to buy at least 30,000 yen worth."
There's no guarantee that the people you recruit will continue using your service, and you won't see your own earnings increase unless you keep adding more members.
Ultimately, the system requires you to keep recruiting indefinitely, so there's never enough time.
I was approached with a misleading offer that made me believe I could live comfortably without working, so I think the recruiter's explanation was malicious.
Amway itself is not inherently evil.
I've written a lot of negative things, but I don't think Amway itself is bad.
I think the problem lies with the people who are soliciting without following the proper rules.
However, I felt that Amway's structure makes it impossible to operate properly if you strictly adhere to the rules.
If you continue to use deceptive tactics like this, it's inevitable that some people, like me, will feel uncomfortable and distance themselves from you.
If this kind of approach, which involves consuming human relationships, is considered the norm, then I would say it's hardly healthy.
Furthermore, since the system is structured in a way that benefits the person making the recommendation, it's problematic because you can't really trust whether they're recommending the product because it's genuinely good.
If the product has overwhelmingly superior features, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it.
How to continue our relationship
The leader explained that they would not try to recruit someone again if they had already declined.
However, I think we will continue to recruit members individually within the team going forward.
If the leader continues to behave this way, I predict that relationships will break down, and the group itself will collapse.
I, too, will try to distance myself from it from now on and focus on its original purpose: enjoying sports.