Categories
Amway has been banned for six months in Japan because of scams to get people to join.
An investigation by the Consumer Affairs Agency found that Amway distributors are using dating apps to trick people into becoming customers.
As Asahi reported on October 15:
The agency said on Oct. 14 that two members met a woman through a dating app in March 2021 and kept bugging her to sign up without telling her it was for an Amway Japan membership.
The poor woman seems to have been held hostage by the men until she agreed to work for them.
The woman agreed because she was afraid that if she didn’t, she would be late getting home. But the woman didn’t get a copy of anything until she signed the contract.
The behavior happened in 2021, which is why the suspects are being looked into by the police. I don’t know what will happen in that case (language barriers).
When the CAA banned Amway, they said that
They found that the two Amway Japan members didn’t follow the rules when they tried to recruit a woman. They didn’t tell her their names; they didn’t say what the recruitment was for; and they didn’t make their pitch in a public place. They also harassed the woman and didn’t give her the required documents.
There were also two other examples of illegal recruiting on social media.
Because of the fraud, the CAA said the following:
During the six months, Amway Japan and its members won’t be able to bring on new members or propose and sign contracts for multilevel marketing sales.
Putting Japan aside, think about what would happen in other countries if they took deceptive MLM recruitment practices as seriously as they do in Japan.
It would stop the marketing strategy of “don’t tell them the name of the scam or they won’t sign up.”
