Recent interaction with Quixstar

[Imalawman]

I recently ran into two friends of mine, who are married, when I went to NC. They have been in the business for years, giving themselves wholly to the effort of making it big. This includes spending valentine's day night at Target and Best Buy meeting people instead of spending time with each other. They recently made it to a big milestone, (some mineral, right below Emerald). Yet, they both work full-time jobs and are struggling financially. The "business" truly has taken over their lives and in my opinion is ruining their lives. He had very promising career and now is so far behind his peers because of the years he's lost to quixstar, that he'll likely never catch up.

I guess my point is simply to rant a little about how crooked the likes of Bill Britt et al really are. They know full well, their system doesn't yield any significant source of income. But yet, they'll never disclose their money comes from selling their "tools" and charging for speaking engagements. So far 5 friends have lost their savings and marriages to this scam and more friends could have lost the same had I not talked them out of it. Anyway, seeing these friends of mine reminded me that this scam is still very active and claiming more victims every day.

[wserra]

The "business" truly has taken over their lives and in my opinion is ruining their lives. He had very promising career and now is so far behind his peers because of the years he's lost to quixstar, that he'll likely never catch up.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2739458876

I guess my point is simply to rant a little about how crooked the likes of Bill Britt et al really are. They know full well, their system doesn't yield any significant source of income.

Which is exactly why the FTC's proposed bizop disclosure rules are so important.

[VinnyZ]

I met with a prospective tax client a few years ago. Combined, they both made pretty good money but, upon reviewing their prior returns, I noticed they also had a Schedule C that showed $6k-$7k loss year after year (about 7 years in total). Their prior preparer had warned them about the hobby loss rules but they had insisted they had a profit motive because they were eventually going to be making lots of money. I asked if this was Quixtar. They said "yes" and how did I know that. I told them the large losses year after year were a good sign. They didn't seem to get it. While the IRS hadn't noticed their losses (yet), they state had. While, the state wasn't denying the losses, it was asking them to review the hobby loss rules. I told them that they needed to quit this and they seemed offended. I told them where the people at the top really made their money (the tools) and they wouldn't believe me. They claimed that "no one makes money on the tools". They were well brainwashed. They had an canned answer for every comment I made. The cultlike brainwashing had done its job. Needless to say, I lost them as a client but I couldn't let them go on every year like this without saying something and besides, it was approaching April 15th and they were really really disorganized.

Earlier this year, I did talk our receptionist out of Quixtar. She is only 22 and had never heard of Quixtar or even Amway for that matter. I asked her if her sponsor was trying to get her to go to seminar. She said "yes". Apparently, there was one the next weekend that she "had to be at" (according to him) and it was about 500 miles away. He and a few of his prospects were going to roadtrip. She called him and quit. Well, at least I saved one.

The higher ups at Quixtar really don't want their downline to be successful. There is so much money made on those seminars that, if the downlines started actually being successful, they would stop coming.

[wserra]

As usual, when you look at the numbers, these are truly terrible "opportunities" if you are looking to make money. They are actually pretty good opportunities to become better acquainted with your local bankruptcy judge.

According to Quixtar itself, the average "active" distributor grosses $115 per month. Since (by Quixtar's own definition) only two-thirds of its distributors are "active", the average distributor grosses under $1000 per year. This is fairly typical of how badly MLMs stack the deck.

Again from Quixtar's own numbers: Quixtar claims that 370K distributors received "bonuses and incentives" in FY2005. They report paying them $345M in "bonuses and incentives". That's under $1K per distributor. While Quixtar does not define "bonuses and incentives", on the same page it reports "Independent Business Owners have pocketed $1.7 billion out of Quixtar's $5.2 billion in sales in the form of bonuses and incentives since 1999" and "IBOs earned $345 million in bonuses and incentives in fiscal 2005, bringing their six-year total to more than $1.72 billion". The term "bonuses and incentives" therefore clearly means all payments from Quixtar to distributors. While I suppose that this term excludes a distributor's profits from product sales, those sales are not the numbers Quixtar brags about. The numbers about which they brag amount, as before, to under $1K per year per distributor who receives money.

What an incredible deal.