TEAM: What Really Happened in the Six Months Between Amway/Quixtar and MonaVie?
A number of comments posted recently have been talking about the “chaotic environment” in the six months from when Orrin Woodward was terminated from Amway/Quixtar to when TEAM joined MonaVie. The Forbes article states that during this time period, Orrin was hawking his leadership training system to car dealerships, his former university, and a pizza franchise. Somewhere during this time, his dreams of becoming the “Walmart of the Internet” was washed down in a flood of purple “jungle juice” concentrate called MonaVie.
I found a re-tweeted comment on Orrin’s Twitter stream from Claude Hamilton, one of the Policy Council members on TEAM:
If you talk about your past more than your future then your a has been. – C. Hamilton
Well Claude, since Orrin isn’t going to be talking about his Amway past, I guess we can all be “has-beens” for just a little while longer while expanding on this subject. What I’d like to know from the ex-TEAM members on this board is:
What really happened in the six months between Amway and MonaVie?
Ex-TEAM members have been writing that their upline “leaders” stole and redirected entire downline groups away from distributors. Another person wrote that they were encouraged to sign a relative up in MonaVie. When the six months came up, that family member would then transfer his or her business back over to them.
Thanks for reminding me about the REGISTRATION debacle. We were bound by the no-compete clause. So what did the BIG LEADERS suggest? Oh just register a relative of yours for now and in 6 months when the no compete is over you can transfer the business back to yourself. TOTALLY WRONG…. I should have known better… And after 6 months we asked our upline DAN & LISA HAWKINS how to go about tranfering it back over to out names. They said there is nothing you can do to get it back except the relative could WILL you the business when they DIE. Thats when my wife said we need to get out of this thing because for one thing they were having us lie about the no-compete clause. Secondly, if we would have made any significant money my relative would have been liable to pay taxes on the earnings because the business was in there name. The good thing is there isn’t much chance of making any money.
Then, there was the whole FreeTheIBO website and the… what was it called, the IBO Legal Defense Fund? What ever happened to the money put in there? Did it ever help ANY IBO other than Orrin and his rascal buddies?
It’s clear to me that the “chaos” the leaders speak of are primarily due to the fact that there were some serious Line Of Sponsorship (LOS) shenanigans going on! How else could Orrin go Black Diamond in MonaVie within WEEKS of joining? By having ex-TEAM members who were there comment about those six months, I’m getting a much clearer understanding of how this was made possible. Entire groups moved from one upline to another. Other people cut out of system profits and MLM profits. Some edified and others criticized and ostracized.
With the news that TEAM’s L.I.F.E. is being positioned as a possible new MLM, will history repeat itself? Is the TEAM LOS being re-organized once again behind the backs of distributors? If TEAM is leaving MonaVie, will Dallin Larsen slap on a no-compete clause on Orrin Woodward? Will Orrin come right back with a tweet like, “I am free to go, free to come, free to succeed and certainly free to scam you again and again!”
History often has a habit of repeating itself. Claude Hamilton should be wise to heed that advice, since it looks like it’s happening again.
Ex-TEAM members. Talk about the 6-month period between Amway and MonaVie here!
AMTHRAX 
We were told much later on that the LOS was changed exactly for the reason AMTHRAX stated. To make ORRIN BLACK DIAMOND so that TEAM would have a say at the table with MONAVIE.
I don’t understand why having people combining there business’s made any difference to Orrin. Wasn’t everyone in his downline?
bogart~
Thanks for sharing that and I am really sorry about your experience.
Sounds like you understand it completely now, like everyone else, including those who stayed.
Misunderstanding…..what a flippin cop out!
That must be the ‘nice’ way to justify their corruption and sooth their consciences?
Thanks, for yet another example of the FACTS and corruption that were told to people to give away ‘their businesses,’ illegally, with the PROMISE that it would be their business again….sometime..?
And Why tf would the Bigger Leaders follow these orders..KNOWINGLY, tell people to do this?
Because of fear & trust of the dictators. They had to rank themselves, period!
I admit it would have been confusing for those not knowing because the dictators only would have told people what they wanted them to know, all the while they knew exactly what THEY were doing and what THEIR goal was!
The ‘culture’ of Team was and is created; based solely on a (dictatorship), for people to take & carry out orders, so people are used to the information being passed down from the ‘all knowing’ guru’s that convinced people they were ‘Honest & Godly’ and just totally ‘trusted’ them.
The ‘guru/dictators’ knew exactly what they could do in what time frame with MV, no? How do we know this? It is not rocket science people, because 6 months after the beginning of registration, all of a sudden there was a final date to do any final changes! Except, apparently those they told to put ‘their businesses in other families names,’ couldn’t be changed?
Must have been against MV rules or not? hmm..
The leaders having direct contact with their ‘orders’ from the dictators KNEW, THAT IT WAS WRONG and those LEADERS taking those orders should have stood up and stopped it! Instead they lie & cover-up and tell people it was a misunderstanding?
Real leaders stand on their integrity!
You will never convince me people aren’t brainwashed and can freely THINK on their own, ‘own their own business’; they only carry out the dictated orders, without question, period!
This will eventually catch the dictators, and those that continue, in the end. Hint: Big Part of the ROOT PROBLEM!
It really is beyond my comprehension, knowing they just screwed people out of their business, on purpose & ILLEGALLY mind you, and lay the burden on someone else that did not even chose and/or didn’t have a flippin clue they just became a part of a corrupted scam, as in the case of someone on our team (trusting them to get it changed back) who was told to do the same thing, and ended with the exact same ‘proven result ‘ as your example, they lost their business too!
What ‘Christian Principle’ is this, again?
We must have not gotten that memo.
This made us livid to put it very midly, when we found out they were screwing people, & with all the other corruption being dictated, we confronted the dictators, and people wonder why they stole our teams & money?
This Should be a no brainer, but those ‘followers’ (not leaders) chose to believe differently, otherwise they would have to face their own true motives.
The facts of this event, revolt me to no end and I cannot and will never wrap my mind around the corruption, lies, and destroying of others and even more mind boggling how these leaders stay and they haven’t been crushed under their own consciences? All for a worthless piece of silver?
There is NO amount of money worth that!
And how dare ANY of them say they ‘lead people to the truth’-GOD!
Sorry for the duplicate posts but didn’t see you had this new post up.
Good question on the IBO legal defense fund! I found out a year later someone on my team that never made a dime, they were still taking money out of her account automatically. So, I too would like to know the truth about that fund!
Have to admit, it was a crazy time. Sorta like moving into someone else’s house. Takes a bit to get used to the new surroundings.
Hey Amthrax- I just got caught up on things here and wanted to add my two cents worth of has been, negative, past talk. (Bite me Hamilton) We believed revealed all the same shananigans that we were told to pull on our team. We wouldn’t do it. We were of the school of belief that the LOS integrity should always be maintained. We all worked hard to get things to where they were and it simply wasn’t right to change things so someone upline could “set up” their business structure for max benefit. Our PC tried to persuade and also said it was just too bad for those folks who waited too long to resign. Put em in, put em in! We didn’t. We waited and made damn sure everyone was registered in order, THE RIGHT ORDER. Then we quit. We will not follow people who are that frickin dishonest. Hypocrits. Plain and simple.
I have a whole post on the departure of the Legacy leaders from TEAM back in the archives:
Pay close attention to the comments from Clear The Air, who seemed to have been a higher-than-normal distributor with Legacy, formerly TEAM. Finally, for some humor, you may also want to read:
Greedy Thieves?
That means NONE, absolutely none of the destruction needed to happen!
They clearly had 6 whole months to put people in correctly, NO?
Did they fail to tell everyone this in the beginning to take their time and do it right? “NO ONE will be left behind”~Orrin Woodward
They created ‘chaos’ themselves with their (‘urgency’ call everyone, every hour on the hour), with threats and other bogus crap, you only had a week to put everyone in, then acted like it was beyond their control?
Seems they left out that very important little tid-bit; how convenient!
Could they have ranked themselves if they put people in, ethically, legally & morally, taken the time to not let anyone be left behind or screwed?
You can answer that for yourself.
Their “it was so chaotic”~ ‘complete BS
It was intentionally created by THEM and they need to quit trying to get sympathy, make excuses, or try and justify their shenanigans, with that one!
Try telling the truth for once, people already know they were cheated out of their (some were) entire groups, have different sponsors, threatened people and can’t get their businesses back, etc.
Only makes your ‘true character and intent’ show when they look at their groups.
For God’s sake do the right thing, and stop lying to people!
Is the ‘truth’ too ‘negative’ for you?
Shame on you!
We went to the same ‘school of belief’, which was the honorable one, and not the school of scam & corruption!
Think there’s a whole lot more that needs to be ‘admitted!’
I turned off threading in comments. Ultimately, I think it’s easier to follow the comments sequentially instead of searching through threads of replies.
What really happened during that “6 month waiting period” was my upline was being paid while the rest of his team was running around asking questions, wondering what was going on, and along with being lied to every week.
LOL….~talk about stories that haven’t been told.
Switch~Tell more of your stories, lol
I would love to tell some ‘untold’ ones, but they are not mine to tell.
Hope those folks that have the stories come here to share them.
Although, similar and bottom line it is Greed, their are some stories that are a little different and would shock some people, I know was shocked but it also confirmed what we were finding out, when I heard them.
Now, and during that process the pieces all started falling in place, after the veil is ripped open and when all this took place it sure opened our eyes to the truth and it was the exact opposite of what ( we thought) these people were about. We never thought they were capable of stooping so low! ‘Tricked’ for sure!
Just goes to show, you might spend years around someone and even if they may not be appear corrupt when you first meet them, you might find you really never knew those people after all.
Whether they were corrupt all along or something at some point (greed) takes over and they cross the line beyond your understanding.
What a waist.
The best comparison, I have found to date is the Movie, “Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.” Unbelievable how fitting the characters and how the connection between the characters and what I saw to the PC.
You could watch it and come to your own conclusion but I found it a very close character comparison!
Webelived~
You made this valid point in an above post:” they want all the new people to give away all their personals except two, one in each leg. New people do not realize they are giving up bulk order bonus’ and future check matching bonuses on the work they will do.”
Wake Up People you are Giving Money Away if you are doing this!
People should be told this when they are Registered! How would they spin and twist this to convince others to give away their personals? For starters no one studies the comp plan and rarely does anyone read the P&P!
People get started, totally trusting these people to do things legally, ethically and morally.
That is one thing they have proven to us, is they DON’T follow the rules, or care if it is legal, moral or ethical as long as it fulfills their agenda.
This would NOT be based on performace, what they say they are all about!
All the while they are taking from the person ‘earning’ it if they are bringing in more personals and giving them away and their $$?
Their hypocrisy is incomprehsible, they tout ‘Freedom, Liberty, Paid on Performance, etc.. They are completely controlling and breaking rules all over the place, just like they did in Q/Amway and now MV.
Inventory Loading, Buying rank, Customer Reporting, the Registration shenanagans!
The IBO Legal Fund? ~ Amthrax brought up was another way for these con’s to take more money from people that weren’t even making any, how did they justify this?
Does anyone know how these funds work?
Wouldn’t they have to post, report to IRS? How much was collected, Where it went, and Who received what?
Orrin stated himself he paid his OWN ‘legal’ fees out of his OWN money!
So who’s legal fees Did it pay for?
Don’t the people have the right to know where their Donated Money went too?
Would this be like a charity fund? People donated (autoship like) directly out of their accounts to this fund for a long time!
Anyone know?
Webelieved~
Excellent post! I laughed out loud at your restitution paragraph; I totally agree with it all and that IT WILL NEVER happen, UNTIL the power greater than themselves crushes them! When your image of yourself is a god and your ego is bigger than life, you treat and see people only as objects to serve you and your power hungry sickness and greed; it will take a miracle to crush them! They have Zero humility or remorse and the only thing left for them to do is to continue to lie to themselves, be arrogant, defend their position and attack others character and truth by calling people liars, jealous, haters and quitters etc.
We too personally experienced his meetings with teams and know Orrin & Laurie spoke to people, DURING the gag order! Flat out breaking the law! Apparently he has no respect for the law thinks it doesn’t pertain to him; the end justifies the means, in his mind. You can’t justify that!
And people follow and believe he has a ‘spotless’ character, and follow Christian principles knowing all this? Wow, the love of money and power must completely be blinding. How can they stand on a stage in front of thousands of people and GOD as their witness and say they are honest, Christians whom have integrity, and practice what they preach?
All the mis-leaders that still follow know this truth, yikes, just think what this does to their mind, body, and soul, when they continue to lie to themselves and others. Who are the liars, again?
It reminds me of Pharaoh when he wouldn’t let the people go and GOD hardened his heart because of pride and the choices he continued to make. Pharaoh thought he ruled too, he had a false sense of power, but the truth was he wasn’t in charge and was powerless! He was blinded by his ego and pride and had to be crushed before he let the people go.
How ironic!
Do these people not remember the things they were asked to do that were unethical, immoral and for some pretty sure illegal? That to me is just like Dr Parnassus making a bid with the devil. But yet, their pride won’t allow them to admit how they wronged tens of thousands and still are by bringing people into their illegal pyramid scam system. KNOWINLY, intentionally, illegal pyramid, because of their pay plan and no end users?!!!
As you already stated they know this! The leaders keep this secret from everyone they bring in?
They distract and pretend they are righteous in their ways, are leading people to the truth (lie) and distract others with their indoctrinating messages on Leadership. You can brow beat others to death with messages on leadership but if you don’t follow it yourself, and know right from wrong, your leadership is nothing but a false message and a distraction to the real truth behind it! Orrin’s ‘appears’ (false) with his implied messages he is the only one who has the highest level of leadership and continues to imply others don’t.
He has been operating his illegal system scam since 1999 when he broke off his upline in Amway. So the PC hasn’t been able to make it a legal in 12 years?! Wow, maybe they should have taken that ‘legal fund’ that they took from others and used it to make it legal for all those people who don’t know they are involved in an illegal pyramid, profit-sharing scam! Orrin stood on stage and (paraphrased) told everyone there were many lawyers who studied ‘HIS’ profit-sharing and gave it a thumbs up, that it was the fairest and best? What is the rest of that story? How about that passive, residual income? The Attorney General Dirty, Malicious Attack that they used others for. Just like Amway was the best business bar-none and were ‘happy’ and gave us a thumbs-up to keep building, and then sue them for being an illegal pyramid scheme and bashed them all over the web!
Who are the liars and haters, again? It is Crystal Clear! They lie, deceive, cheat, steal, and willingly bring people in to an illegal pyramid profit-sharing scam where their cover is a ‘product’ that they know and break the rules, where they take people’s money and 99% go broke, all in the name of Christianity… THAT’S WHAT I HATE!!!!
Hi. I just found this while searching for something else. (Funny how that happens.) Anyway, I thought I’d relay my experience.
I joined TEAM in summer 2006. I joined mostly because of the leadership training system. I loved the books and CDs. I was less than thrilled to deal with Quixtar… again ( I was in Amway briefly, just before the launch of Quixtar). I tried half heartedly to sell the products and the business for the next year or so. Then in the summer of 2007, things started to get funny.
I’d heard the rumors about a coming split. There was even a rally outside the Kent County Courthouse in Grand Rapids, MI (I was there!). Next thing I know, I’m (happily) resigning from Quixtar and ready to endure the 6 months in exile.
There was a bit of confusion at first. Then, several changes started to coalesce, ough without any consistency save two. First, we were told that we were no longer an MLM. Second, that we were to sell TEAM Leadership Development Packages. I was excited!
I believe there was some mention of sponsorships and applications and making money from system sales (the original 2 leg TEAM strategy remained, but payout was up to your upline Diamond, now called TEAM Policy Council). Thus, we meandered for or 6 months. I even had a downline on the verge of setting up a deal to supply Leadership Inc. (the TEAM brand at the time) to none other than ITT Technical Institute! But, Then…
In March 2008, after an open meeting, a large group of us gathered at my upline’s house in Holland, MI (I think she was a Sapphire in Quixtar). We were then inroduced to the Monavie plan and told that this was the direction TEAM was headed. Really? A juice? At $40/bottle MSRP? I’m sorry, I come from the poor side of town. Who pays that for juice? Anyway…
I followed along for about another year. Got on, then off of auto ship for both the juice AND the training system. I had to eat the cost of my bus (we rented a coach) seat to the October ’08 Major Function in Louisville, KY because I had a car payment to make and couldn’t buy my ticket. She, my upline, asked me which was more important, my future or a car payment. Long story short, I quit it all. I realized that she and I were on totally different pages. It was simply time to move on.
Don’t get me wrong. I learned a lot from my experiences with TEAM. I had a lot of fun with those people and am even still in touch with my other TEAMmates. I simply realized that I had learned what I need to learn from the whole thing. I think I can look back on the whole experience favorably because I wasn’t treating it like a business and therefore I was ignorant to all of the pitfalls that LOTS of people were running into. I guess ignorance is bliss.
CaptainKhaotik`~Hey, glad you made it out, hope without too much damage. Sounds like you were in for 3 years so I am pretty sure you have some major losses. You would be definitely in the minority. Read the comments on here and you will get a clear picture of what really happened. How were you able to stay away from the pitfalls that LOTS of people were running into? Who told you the “payout was up to your upline Diamond, now called TEAM Policy Council”, was that a reliable source?
Not surprised at all the advice to you was; ‘your future’ was more important than a car payment. But what she should have told you she NEEDED you to get a ticket, because her biggest PAYDAY is from the MAJORS, that would have been the real truth. There are thousands of comments on here, from big leaders that were close to the PC & Orrin, who know and experienced some serious corruption.
A message for the “navy seal” as Claude Hamilton would like to say he was when in fact he was a diver who repaired the hulls of ships. Quite a difference. Claude is nothing more than a modern day snake oil salesman. As an accountant for many of his downline occult members I have yet to see a single one turn a profit while witnessing many a marriage break and bankruptcy. These republican pinheads should be shackled and hauled off to the nearest third-world prison.
Ernie Larsen~
Thanks for your perspective…and for the 99%… if they are lucky…financial loss will be their best case scenario. Too sad. It is quite creative.. how they dress up their fake images…
It sounds like a bunch of third graders crying about not succeeding in a performance based business, your forgetting one critical part in your comments, you have to get off your butt and actually earn it. No free rides in this kind of business, sorry to all you lazy people out there! Orrin Woodward and the rest of the team has been a blessing to my wife and I.
Performanced based?….hahahahah…is that what you call the… ‘special deals’? No gettin off your butt for those nor is it ‘earning it’. Nice try though….glad O has been a blessing to you, but there are hundreds, if not thousands or more who disagree with you…but hey you are entitled to that opinion… and if you would even read this thread, not to mention the rest of the site…you would see it doesn’t have anything to do with ‘performanced based’…it would be called CORRUPTION, theft, and destruction. I see why you are bedazzled by Orrin…like attracts like.
Troy, at least a third grader can read which is obvious something you did not do or you would not have posted such an ignorant post about not doing the work. You see only what you want to see.
Ahhhhh yes troy, you mind telling me how people got their worked ripped away and then GIVEN to another person/group so they could have this so called “rank/image” that the system is proven? But you call that “performanced based”?
I believe that’s one critical thing you’ve forgotten in your comments.
Troy, unfortunately in MLM work or performance does not equal results. If you care to discuss this topic further feel free to email me @ hansen.brent@rocketmail.com. I would be glad to give you a phone call, and have a conversation at a much higher level than a third grader would have. thanks!
Brent~
Your phone must be ringing off the wall…Cheers!
Yeah…interesting huh? I keep offering but there are never any takers. I would love to help people understand some of the finer points of starting and operating an MLM business. Sixty thousand dollars huh Speak? Wow, you got off easy…….
That was just cd’s…my friend! Also you have way more patience..I wonder why you haven’t been taken up on that offer, it is mind boggling? Kinda shoots the ole’ hiding behind the curtain theory, I could be wrong but isn’t it what they want is to talk to those on here? Maybe you scare them..hahaha or perhaps they aren’t ready for the math lesson? 🙂 Keep trying.
Hey Ernie Larsen,
Your message about Claude Hamilton fixing hulls of ships and is nothing more than a modern day snake oil salesman is definitely off track. Having been in the military myself, I can tell you that a clearance diver, which is what Claude was, does not repair hulls of ships, in Canada and Australia, the clearance divers are a feeder unit for the special forces. I can tell you that special forces guys don’t talk a lot about their past or operations. No cd from Claude has ever glorified himself…it is usually others who don’t know about the terminology of the military.
The rest of your argument could refer to any business. It’s not easy. At least with mlm, your risks or running costs are not as high as conventional business.
Peter
Sydney, Australia
Peter~
You say; “The rest of your argument could refer to any business. It’s not easy. At least with mlm, your risks or running costs are not as high as conventional business.”
First, ‘the rest of his argument’ IS about the MLM business and we aren’t talking about conventional business. But Gotta love your ‘at least’ argument, like even if true which it isn’t, doesn’t make all the other deception, lies, stealing of others teams and money, the churning, the odds and built in failure rates..Build and replace, undisclosed ‘special deals’ that only a ‘few get’. That isn’t even close to being a better opportunity or like any conventional business. But since you brought it up I can tell you we spent way more in the Team MLM business that we did NOT our own, (that we own and make our decisions for not Orrin, neither do you if you are in LIEf, Orrin owns that b-type passive, pipeline business NOT YOU) WE also made a decent profit in the first year in our conventional business which we did not make a ‘profit’ in the MLM. And after years of blowing money and giving it to the top when we did make a ‘profit’ the majority went right back into it because of many reasons you can find on this blog.
I see you failed to comment on Ernie Larsen’s point when he said he was an accountant with first hand knowledge, that he has ‘yet to see Claude’s downline turn a profit’…
So, I would say your argument blows; it is Not like any other business, not even close, as your argument implies. Typical though, the MLM’ers always want to say they are NOT like a ‘conventional business’ when if serves their agenda’ and then in the same breath say it is like any other conventional business. The double messages are astounding!
What ‘conventional business’ do you know of that is ‘designed with the built in failure rates’ that guarantee the losses for the majority? Perhaps you should study and understand the LIEf P&P’s and Comp Plan analysis before you jump too quickly with the same ole bs rhetoric.
BTW..Peter..Did you even read the post and this thread in its entirety because if you did I am shocked you would come here with any defense or bogus argument.
Speak excellent comments Peter needs to understand the difference between statistics and mathematical certainty.
MLM idiots love to use statistics, but do not even understand them. In business, no one is subject to statistics, but in MLM everyone is subject to mathematics.