Amway has copped a six month ban in Japan due to recruitment scamming.

An investigation by the Consumer Affairs Agency revealed Amway distributors are deceptively recruiting victims through dating apps.

As reported by Asahi on October 15th;

According to the agency’s Oct. 14 announcement, two members met a woman through a matching app in March 2021 and pestered her to register without explaining it was for membership in Amway Japan.

The men appear to have held the poor woman hostage until she signed up under them.

The woman agreed, fearing she would be late returning home if she didn’t. But no document was presented to the woman until she signed the contract.

The conduct occurred in 2021 and prompted a criminal investigation into the suspects. I’m not sure what the outcome of that case is (language barriers).

In issuing their Amway ban, the CAA concluded it

found four violations by the two Amway Japan members in their recruiting drive: They failed to divulge their names; they did not reveal what the recruitment was for and the pitch was not made in a public space; they were found to have harassed the woman in recruiting her; and failed to exchange the required documents with her.

Two other instances of illegal recruitment over social media were also cited.

As a result of the fraudulent conduct, the CAA ruled;

Amway Japan and its members will be prohibited over the six-month period from recruiting new members or proposing and signing contracts for multilevel marketing sales.

Taking a step back from Japan, imagine if other countries took deceptive MLM recruitment practices this seriously.

It’d certainly go a long way to curb the “don’t tell them the name of the scam or they won’t sign up” marketing technique.