Amway Corp. and two of its largest recruiting affiliates will pay $225 million to resolve allegations from the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Washington that they lured people into the company’s multilevel-marketing business with false earnings claims. The FTC announced the proposed order on September 17, 2026, and said it is the largest monetary recovery it has ever obtained against a multilevel-marketing company. Nearly all of the money is slated to go back to participants who lost money after being recruited by the affiliates, World Wide Group and Leadership Team Development.
What the FTC and Washington say Amway promised recruits
Amway sells nutritional supplements, energy drinks, makeup, skincare and other household products through people it calls Independent Business Owners, or IBOs. According to the FTC’s announcement, the joint complaint alleges that Amway, Spokane Valley-based World Wide Group and North Carolina-based Leadership Team Development told recruits they were likely to earn more than $40,000 a year, replace a full-time job or retire early.
The complaint alleges the reality was far different. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown’s office said only about 1% of participants earn that much, and that most people who joined through the two affiliates after 2020 spent more on Amway products and training than they received from the company. Recruits were also allegedly told they would bring in multiple new participants of their own and gain access to an exclusive circle of highly successful mentors. The regulators say most recruits did not sign up multiple people, and the mentors were typically not highly successful.
“Amway and its affiliates misled prospective workers with false earnings claims and then pressured them to buy Amway products they were unlikely to be able to sell,” said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
The allegations carry particular weight for older Americans. Pitches that promise a path to early retirement or a supplement to a fixed income tend to appeal to people nearing or already in retirement, and losses on inventory and training fees can come straight out of savings.
When a refund announcement draws callers. Big settlements like this one are often followed by people offering to speed up a payment, and the first-hour recovery plan lays out which calls to make first if a bank or card number has already been shared, in The Senior Fraud Defense & First-Hour Recovery Kit.
How the affiliates allegedly pushed product purchases
World Wide Group and Leadership Team Development are two of Amway’s largest “approved provider” groups. Both sell training materials and services that, according to the complaint, were marketed as essential to success and cost participants thousands of dollars a year. In those trainings, the regulators say, participants were told to buy a set amount of Amway products every month whether or not they could resell them or wanted them, and to spend their time recruiting others to do the same.
The FTC and Washington describe that arrangement as an unfair system that pressured people to buy products for reasons other than genuine demand. High prices made retail sales harder still. Brown’s office pointed to one example cited in the complaint: until recently, Amway sold a case of 24 bottles of water for $52.
The complaint further alleges that Amway and the affiliates instructed participants to report sales that never happened, making the business look as if it revolved around selling products to outside customers rather than recruiting new participants who would buy the products themselves.
“Amway and its affiliates profited by taking advantage of regular people’s hopes and ambitions,” Brown said. He added that many Washingtonians joined seeking to provide for their families, “only to lose time and money and wind up with cabinets full of products they don’t want or need.” Washington alleges the companies violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act, and the attorney general’s office said thousands of Washington residents may be eligible for compensation.
The business changes Amway must make
Beyond the $225 million judgment, the proposed order requires Amway and its affiliates to overhaul how the business operates. The main terms include:
- Participants must resell to others at least 70% of the products they buy from Amway each month, a rule aimed at preventing stockpiled inventory from inflating sales.
- Recruiters will receive substantially reduced compensation if the people they recruit buy products but do not resell them.
- Participants must promptly report all customer sales, including the actual sales price, and Amway will send receipts to those customers.
- Amway must terminate participants who fake sales or teach others to do so, and an independent outside auditor will regularly review its sales records.
- Participants must be trained on the new rules before they are allowed to recruit.
- Approved providers, including World Wide Group and Leadership Team Development, may not charge new recruits for any training or services during their first year.
The customer-receipt and outside-audit provisions are designed to make it harder to disguise recruiting-driven purchases as retail sales. The first-year ban on training fees targets one of the largest early costs that new participants described.
Where the case stands and how refunds will work
The FTC and Washington filed the complaint and a stipulated proposed final order in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The Commission voted 2-0 to authorize the filing. A stipulated order takes on the force of law once a federal judge approves and signs it, and the complaint’s allegations have not been proven in court.
The FTC said information on its redress program for the case will be provided at a later date. The agency will administer the payments, and nearly all of the judgment is earmarked for participants across the country who lost money after joining through World Wide Group or Leadership Team Development. No claim form, deadline or individual payment amount has been announced.
That gap is exactly where refund scams tend to appear. The FTC warns that scammers impersonate the agency, and it says it will never threaten people, tell them they must transfer money to get a refund, or promise a prize. Former participants who want to follow the case can check the FTC’s refund programs page, where the agency posts official notices when payments begin. Anyone contacted by a caller or website offering to reserve a share of the Amway money for a fee can report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Former participants may also want to gather what records they still have, including receipts for product purchases, invoices for training events or materials from the affiliates, and statements of any income received from Amway. Those documents show the gap between spending and earnings that the regulators say defined the business for most recruits, and they may be useful once the FTC explains how eligibility will be determined.
Keeping a paper trail while the Amway payments are pending
Months can pass between a settlement announcement and the first refund check, and that waiting period is when former participants are most likely to hear from strangers claiming inside access to the money.
The Senior Fraud Defense & First-Hour Recovery Kit includes a fraud evidence and report log for writing down who called, what they asked for and where it was reported, along with the free credit-freeze steps for anyone who has already handed over personal details.
Start the call log with The Senior Fraud Defense & First-Hour Recovery Kit.
This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed against the linked official sources.
