Amway Global.com - Official Site of Amway Global / Quixtar Inc.
The WHOLE Story
Thursday, July 20, 2006
When I was going to Loyalist College back in the 1980s, I lived at home in Trenton and drove the 10 miles to campus every day. On Nov. 26, 1984, I got into an accident. I was driving down a four-lane highway and, as I was checking my rearview mirrors to see if I could switch lanes, the car in front of me slowed down quickly.  When my eyes came forward, I saw that she already was nearly stopped and I slammed on the brakes and spun my wheel to the right.  The road was covered with a thin sheen of ice and I just slid and slid into her.

She already had her wheels oriented to make a left turn, so after impact her car slid on the ice into the two lanes of oncoming traffic.  She was hit head on by another car (that then slid toward mine and almost hit me again). She was then hit by two other cars.  The girl driving the car did suffer some whiplash and left by ambulance.  Fortunately, everyone else was fine.  A couple people that had been driving cars behind mine offered words of support, saying they had a difficult time stopping that quickly too and almost rear-ended me.  To this day I don't know how the girl in front of me stopped so quickly when nobody else seemed to be able to do so.  I think she must have been downshifting or something.

Anyway, I was charged with "following too close" by the OPP officer, who gave me a choice between that or "reckless driving." Being a dumb kid, I didn't fight the charge, even though I felt that this was a no-fault situation. I took my lumps and figured that was the end of it.  A year later the lawsuit arrived. 

I was sued for $250,000 (which, back then, was a much bigger sum than it seems today). In the suit, I was referred to as "Miss" Robin Luymes. I was accused of driving under the influence, of driving a faulty vehicle, of recklessness, and a host of other things. Essentially, the plaintiff and her lawyer threw a lot of mud against the wall to see what would stick.  My insurance company assigned me a lawyer, who said the lawyers would meet, a settlement offer of $10,000 would be made, and that would be the end of it (which is exactly how it went down).

Today, if one of my critics took that public filing and put it up on a website, they'd be sharing the (false) allegations that I was a drunken, reckless driver of an unsafe bucket of bolts, rather than a young, inexperienced (sober) driver on my way to school in my dad's two-tone green Mercury Monarch in perfect condition. (The accident occurred on my dad's birthday, which is why the date is indelibly etched in my memory.)  If following the pattern of some others on the web, my critic would leave the complaint up on a website indefinitely and without any type of update indicating how the issue was finally resolved. 

I think the practice of using legal complaints as "proofs" is ridiculous. People can (and do) say just about anything in a complaint. This is why we have due process.

When you are operating an opinion site, however, the true story has little to do with what you include or exclude on your web pages. In fact, that's true for many news organizations, too.  Like the Dateline piece about Quixtar.  Lots of information and data provided by the company to the producers never made it to the TV screen because it did not fit the preconceived "story" they had before they even approached us to participate.

And here's the rest of the story. Critics are right that I'm not going to go into details about what's wrong with our business model or our products or our company in this blog. This company is not perfect and the business model at times allows for practices I'd rather see discontinued. Also, I'm not a fan of all of our products. That said, my focus is on what we're doing to make our business better, and not on which strands in our overall fabric are weak. 


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Comments

Carey said:
Monday, February 05, 2007 #

Yeah, the web's a great thing, and a terrible thing.  Just lost a new potential IBO to the Dateline Website.  They were really excited.  I sent the to the quixtar response site, and now we will see if they are truly open to both sides, or were just looking or an excuse.

Carey

Kia said:
Tuesday, February 06, 2007 #

Sorry to hear that Carey.  I do hope that they see there's more to our opportunity than the overhype of a few individuals and some grainy footage. It's a legitimate business than can deliver for you if you work it ... consistent effort over time.  Thanks for what you do and keep up your great work!

Raul said:
Friday, April 20, 2007 #

Sorry to hear that as well Carey.But nontheless there's hope. I was in the same boat, not from your side but your prospects side. I had seen the footage, and was honestly concerned. I almost decided to quit. Guess what? I'm still in and I had gone 1000 P.V. a few months ago. Just do the right thing and it'll work the way its suppose to. But most importantly be genuine.

Ben said:
Friday, January 11, 2008 #

Robin, I know this is an older post so it may not get read, but I just had an interesting experience with one of those negative blogs.

They were negatively attacking the business as usual, so I decided to see what would happen if I started putting in some positive opinions and facts.

Basically, they don't want to hear it. If you start in with anything positive, the other readers jump in on you and try to pick apart everything you write to their advantage. I was still keeping my comments positive and trying to get across the message that their time would be better spent doing something that builds people up versus tearing something down, but they don't want to hear that also.

I think its sad that people spend their time, energy, and talent to tear something down versus doing something uplifting and positive in their life.

I guess that's human nature, but I thought I would give it a try.

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