Tuesday, October 16, 2007

QUIXTAR: Former distributor testifies in Quixtar case

Original Source

Former distributor testifies in Quixtar case
Updated: Oct 16, 2007 06:46 PM

By JOE LaFURGEY

GRAND RAPIDS -- Testimony continues in the case against a group of former Quixtar distributors, as lawyers for the e-commerce arm of Alticor claim those former distributors violated an August court order.

At that time, the judge ruled the distributors, who were fired from Quixtar, must stop using sales training and other material supplied by Quixtar to the company. Those distributors were part of an effort to convince large numbers of other distributors to leave Quixtar.

The distributor at the center of the controversy, Orrin Woodward, testified Tuesday he did not violate the court orders. Woodward is among the distributors who sued the company, claiming it's a pyramid scheme.

This is the first time Woodward has spoken publicly about the messy divorce between the distributors and the company.

He was living what many would describe as the Amway Dream. The former GM engineer followed the plan and became a successful Quixtar distributor. "After a couple of years, I reached what they call direct or platinum level."

Woodward also devised a way to train distributors under them. He started his own company, TEAM, offering sales training and business set-up material to other Quixtar independent business owners (IBOs).

But he claimed Quixtar put the emphasis on recruitment instead of sales.

On the stand, Woodward denied he was breaking Quixtar's rules, and his lawyers provided a 2003 letter from Quixtar praising him for his business practices: "By growing right, you create a solid business foundation upon which you can continue to build."

He said he never heard anything different until he was fired in August.

But another witness who used to work under Woodward and TEAM said his associate threatened the distributorship she and her husband operated. Melissa Seeback testified that in an August phone call, "we better quit Quixtar and join the TEAM system or we wouldn't have anything left in business."

Testimony continues on Wednesday.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who was that "IBO"? Never heard of her!! And that was the worst cry acting job I have ever seen, and I have been to a lot of High School Musicals!!!!

Anonymous said...

We'll what she said was under oath, so I can only come to two conclusions. 1. There was a lack of understanding of what was trying to be communicated by her mentor. 2. Her mentor wasn't very good. I have NEVER heard of anything like this anywhere in TEAM. I know that my mentor has NEVER said anything like that to me, nor have I ever said anything like that to my downline.
-BTW, Isn't it great just to hear Orrin again?

Tom Morris said...

Given the large number of people in Team, and the emotions that have been evoked in us from the silly actions of Quixtar, I think it is possible that this actually happened. You can find 1 in a thousand that doesn't have a good self-esteem, hasn't learned good leadership skills and is green in the business. Given that at least 7,000 IBOs have left, I bet Quixtar could find a couple more stories like that.

However, how many times, when you were showing the plan, did you get someone who said something like, "I knew someone who was in that. They lied to me, they stole my money and didn't bat an eyelash doin' it."

The challenge with Team approach is that people are put in leadership positions fairly quickly, but have not had the time to read enough books to learn the leadership skills.

It still beats what I went through for a decade before team. Reading all the books on leadership only to see your team recycle every year.

Rachel said...

Just because she is under oath, doesn't mean she still isn't in cahoots with Q/A or that she is just a lier!

Anonymous said...

Why would anyone want to stay with Quixtar, all the associate was telling her was that because of Quixtar's actions no one would want to associate with Quixtar any more. The associate never told her that she had to leave or that anyone else had to leave. The associate only saw the writing on the wall and was making sure that his line was aware of what was going on. I am still scratching my head though about why she would be so sad about people wanting to leave such a corrupt and malicious company. She must really love that "quality," overpriced TP.

Anonymous said...

You know, with the rapid TEAM growth that we exerienced - Even when we did everything the way it should be done, you would end up with 2% that swear you did something wrong. It's the victim mentality that has plagued this country!

So Q/A, after I am sure, lots of searching and digging found ONE person that says somebody said something that might have been construed as...hmmmm. Considering all the witch hunting that is going on and all the slamming emails that have gone out, in a country full of victims, why am I not surprised. The only amazing part in that is that they only found one "victim". TEAM training must be doing something good in this country!

I'm not saying that it didn't happen. But if it really were happening, I think we would have heard more than 1 person's report.

Anonymous said...

ok, so this case is about Orrin giving back all the materials Quixtar and proprietary information he had? So why does it matter that an "associate" of Orrin's supposedly called this weepy woman? What did that have to do with the materials and information Orrin supposedly has? Are they trying to have us believe that Orrin himself told some "associate" to go call up this woman no one has heard of and tell her to "get out before it's too late"? So Orrin is now being held responsible for the actions of every single person in Team? Even those who recently were brought in under other Diamonds, etc? What a joke!

And yeah, I agree... it was so good just to see him again :):):)

Anonymous said...

Well...that "victim" was our upline, and we can guarantee you her mentor (who is also our mentor) NEVER pressured her in any way. If you knew the mentor she refers to (and you all do), you would NEVER even consider that her statement was true. This is our humble assessment...her business was not growing as fast as she would have liked and due to those darn people below her (mmm...who could that be?) whose business was growing by leaps and bounds, she could not attain the next "level" because she could not grow her second organization fast enough...this is only our humble opinion...no one in any way coerced us to give this explanation!

Remember the saying "Hurting people hurt others." This is a classic example.