Sometime in the very early 90's a nephew of mine (hereinafter nephew #1) got suckered into Amway, Betsy De Vos's family racket. He didn't quit his job, but his stay at home wife ended up spending a lot of her time doing it, and nephew #1 spent a lot of nights and weekends on it. Money, time, travel, etc. Have you ever noticed that when you ask people involved in MLM how their "business" is going, they seem to internalize the blame for not making much money? As in, "Well I really have to start putting in the time/effort they recommend so I can do better". The cult that MLMs are probably drums this into their heads. He would always talk about how well his friend who was at a higher level than he was making. They kept at it for a few years, and I don't know how much money or time they ended up earning or losing, but it didn't seem to put them ahead of the game. Meantime, a lot of people around them ended up buying enough Amway crap to keep them from pestering about it. I heard from family that when his friend at the higher level finally threw in the towel, nephew #1 saw the writing on the wall and gave it up too. I also heard that Amway itself had some kind of problem, after which it went in a new direction. Maybe that's when my nephew quit, but I never discussed it directly with him.
At about the same time, another nephew (nephew #2) got involved with something that I think was called "Market America". Perhaps b/c he got involved relatively early in the life of the organization, he seemed to be doing really well. He was an engineer with an MBA earning good money. He and his wife, who also had a good job, both quit their jobs. Family word was that they were making $5000 wk.(early 90's money). Oddly enough, he was kind of a cautious guy who traveled to Washington DC to speak to the founder of the company in order to reassure himself it was the real deal. He would always correct anyone who called his company MLM, saying it did not follow that model. In truth, I would always zone out when he started to explain exactly why it was different from the usual MLM. Something about only 2 people below each person, a lot of mumbo jumbo to me. But they claimed it wasn't vulnerable to the usual weaknesses of MLM. He talked his brother (nephew #3) into joining up, and just as in nephew #1's case, nephew #3's stay at home wife devoted a lot of her time to it, while nephew #3 kept his job. Nephew #2 even tried to talk his cousin, nephew #1, into leaving Amway to join Market America. Nephew #1 said he was too deep into Amway to switch, but would have if he'd known sooner how great Market America was.
Nephew #3 was in closer touch with me b/c he lives near me. He kept at Market America for about 7 yrs., maybe b/c he saw his brother doing so well for a while. In the end, I don't think he was able to salvage much from the whole effort. I deduce he gave up after his brother did. And again the answer to the "how's the business going?" was always the same as indicated above. Business is not doing well b/c I'm not trying hard enough.
Nephew #2 really did seem to do well for a few years, often traveling to Australia to train or recruit or something. (Maybe that's a sign that they were running out of U.S. suckers). He lives far from me so we lost touch, but I heard through family that he had given it up, I don't know when. There must have been some kind of collapse at that point, b/c I can't see why else he would have quit. He had given up acquiring rental RE when he started Market America, saying that the residuals he got through that were better than rents. Let's hope he saved his money when it was coming in!