[7][8][9][10][11][12] In 1983, Amway admitted to defrauding the Canadian government of customs duties and taxes by falsely undervaluing goods it imported into the country over a period of 15 years; it had to pay a fine.

[18][page needed] Earlier in 1949, DeVos and Van Andel had formed the Ja-Ri Corporation (abbreviated from their respective first names) to import wooden goods from South American countries.

Pyxis, later replaced by Fulton Innovation, pursued research and development and Access Business Group handled manufacturing and logistics for Amway, Quixtar, and third-party clients.

[33] According to the Amway website, as of 2011[update] the company operated in over 100 countries and territories, organized into regional markets: the Americas, Europe, greater China, Japan and Korea, and SE Asia/Australia.

Amway's top ten markets are China, Korea, the United States, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, India, Russia, Malaysia and Italy.

In 1998, after abuses of illegal pyramid schemes led to riots, the Chinese government enacted a ban on all direct selling companies, including Amway.

[35] After the negotiations, some companies like Amway, Avon, and Mary Kay continued to operate through a network of retail stores promoted by an independent sales force.

[1] Amway is best known in North America for its original multi-purpose cleaning product LOC, SA8 laundry detergent, and Dish Drops dishwashing liquid.

[43][44] Amway's health and beauty brands include Artistry, Satinique, Hymm, Body Series, Glister, Moiskin (South America),[45] Nutrilite, Nutriway (Scandinavia and Australia/New Zealand), Attitude (India), eSpring, Atmosphere and iCook as well as XL and XS Energy drinks.

[51] In January 2009, Amway announced a voluntary recall of Nutrilite and XS Energy Bars after learning that they had possibly been manufactured with Salmonella-contaminated ingredients from Peanut Corporation of America.

[69] In 2009, Amway Global signed a three-year deal with the San Jose Earthquakes Major League Soccer team to become the jersey sponsor.

[73][74] According to a campaign staffer quoted by the magazine, Myrick had appeared regularly on the Amway circuit, speaking at hundreds of rallies and selling $5 and $10 audiotapes.

[74] In a column published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper in August 1997,[77] reporter Molly Ivins wrote that Amway had "its own caucus in Congress...Five Republican House members are also Amway distributors: Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, Jon Christensen of Nebraska, Dick Chrysler of Michigan, Richard Pombo of California, and John Ensign of Nevada.

Their informal caucus meets several times a year with Amway bigwigs to discuss policy matters affecting the company, including China's trade status.

[74] According to a report by the Center for Public Integrity, in the 2004 election cycle, members of the Van Andel and DeVos families were the second, third and fifth largest donors to the Republican party.

[74][85][86][87] Mother Jones magazine described the Amway distributor force as "heavily influenced by the company's dual themes of Christian morality and free enterprise" and operating "like a private political army".

"[85] Philadelphia City Paper correspondent Maryam Henein stated that "The language used in motivational tools for Amway frequently echoes or directly quotes the Bible, with the unstated assumption of a shared Christian perspective.

[91][need quotation to verify] Rolling Stone's Bob Moser reported that former Amway CEO and co-founder Richard DeVos is connected with the Dominionist political movement in the United States.

[98] Patralekha Bhattacharya and Krishna Kumar Mehta, reasoned that although some critics have referred to organizations such as Amway as "cults" and have speculated that they engage in "mind control", there are other explanations that could account for the behavior of distributors.

[100] In 2006, Amway (then Quixtar in North America) introduced its Professional Development Accreditation Program in response to concerns surrounding business support materials (BSM), including books, tapes and meetings.

[103][104] The quality assurance standards state that[105][106][107] Robert Carroll, of the Skeptic's Dictionary, has described Amway as a "legal pyramid scheme", and has said that the quasi-religious devotion of its affiliates is used by the company to conceal poor performance rates by distributors.

[113][114] Studies of independent consumer watchdog agencies have shown that between 990 and 999 of 1000 participants in MLMs that use Amway-type pay plans in fact lose money.

[10][120][121] In November 2012, the Economic Offences Wing of Kerala Police conducted searches at the offices of Amway at Kozhikode, Thrissur and Kannur as part of its crackdown on money chain activities and closed down the firm's warehouses at these centres.

[126][127][128] In 2017, a Chandigarh court framed charges, under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act, against two directors of Amway India, William Scot Pinckney and Prithvai Raj Bijlani.

[129][130] In April 2022, the Enforcement Directorate attached both movable and immovable assets of Amway India worth ₹757 crore (US$87 million) including the firm's factory in Dindigul along with bank accounts under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

[142] The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), as part of its anti-piracy efforts, sued Amway and several distributors in 1996, alleging that copyrighted music was used on "highly profitable" training videotapes.

[157] The FTC later dropped the probe, but in October 2005 a class-action lawsuit was filed against McGraw by several people who used the products and claimed that the supplements, which cost $120 per month, did not stimulate weight loss.

[159][160][161][162] Some Amway distributors distributed an urban legend that the (old) Procter & Gamble service mark was in fact a Satanic symbol or that the CEO of P&G is himself a practicing Satanist.

[169] "It's hard to imagine they'd pursue it this long, especially after all the retractions we put out," said distributor Randy Haugen, a 53-year-old Ogden, Utah, businessman who maintained P&G was never able to show how it was harmed by the rumors.

For years only a privileged few, including Bill Britt, have run hugely profitable businesses selling all those books, tapes and seminars; things the rank and file distributors can't sell themselves but, are told over and over again, they need to buy in order to succeed.The program said that a Quixtar recruiter featured in the report made misleading and inconsistent statements about Quixtar earnings during a recruitment meeting and had an outstanding arrest warrant for cocaine possession from the mid-90s.