I don’t find joy in anyone being swindled, but I do find a bit of irony that the DeVos family, founders of Amway, were bilked out of $100 million.
Amway is a pioneer of multi-level marketing, a concept where participants are expected to not only sell something but recruit others to sell it, too. Avon, Mary Kay, Tupperware and Herbalife are some other well-known MLMs.
Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos who was convicted of fraud charges Jan. 3, sweet talked the DeVos clan into investing in her enterprise that falsely claimed to have revolutionized blood testing.
The problem is the fancy blood-testing machine she said she invented didn’t work. And she lied to attract rich investors like the DeVoses who had dollar signs dancing in their eyes.
When the Wall Street Journal uncovered the deception, the company’s valuation dropped from $9 billion to less than nothing.
The DeVos family may be out millions but things could be much worse. They could have fallen for some other scam and ended up with a basement full of unused merchandise. That’s what happens to a lot of folks who get involved in multi-level marketing schemes.
Robert Fitzgerald, of Pyramid Scheme Alert, is an expert on MLMs.
“Think about it. Could you possibly make a living today from your home on your own, as an Amway distributor selling laundry soap or anything else like that? So, basically these detergents and other things might be consumed by the salespeople…
