Amway to pay $225 million over MLM recruiting tactics

Amway Corp. and two of its largest recruiting affiliates, World Wide Group, L.L.C. and Leadership Team Development, Inc., will pay $225 million to settle allegations from the Federal Trade Commission and the State of Washington that they used deceptive earnings claims and unfair pressure tactics to recruit and sell to Independent Business Owners. The FTC announced the action on September 17, 2026, calling it the largest monetary recovery it has ever obtained from a multilevel marketing company.

The FTC and Washington filed the complaint and a proposed stipulated final order together in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington (*FTC and State of Washington v. Amway Corp. et al.*, No. 2:26-cv-3474). A stipulated order has the force of law once a judge signs it, but it is not yet in effect.

What the complaint alleges

Amway offers what it calls Independent Business Owners, or IBOs, the chance to run their own business reselling Amway products, from nutritional supplements to energy drinks to health and beauty items. World Wide Group and Leadership Team Development are two of Amway's largest "approved provider" groups, selling training and mentorship they market as essential to succeeding as an Amway IBO.

The complaint says WWG and LTD trainings instructed IBOs to buy a fixed amount of Amway product every month, regardless of whether they wanted it or could resell it, and to spend their time recruiting others into the same pattern rather than building real customer demand. Combined with Amway, the complaint says, that created a system pressuring IBOs to buy products for reasons that had nothing to do with genuine sales.

Specific deceptions the complaint lists include:

• False earnings claims. IBOs were told they were likely to earn more than $40,000 a year, or enough to replace a full-time income or retire early, when most people who joined WWG or LTD after 2020 spent more on Amway products and training than they earned back.
• False recruitment promises. IBOs were told they would likely recruit multiple other IBOs to help them succeed, when most participants recruited none.
• False mentorship claims. IBOs were told they were joining an exclusive opportunity with access to highly successful mentors, when the opportunity is open to anyone who follows a recruiter's instructions and the "mentors" are typically not highly successful themselves.
• Fake sales reporting. IBOs were allegedly instructed to falsely report product as sold that had not actually been sold, to make the business look sales-driven rather than recruitment-driven.

What the order requires going forward

Beyond the $225 million, nearly all of which the FTC says will go to IBOs recruited by WWG or LTD who lost money, the proposed order requires Amway to:

• Require IBOs to resell at least 70% of the product they buy from Amway each month.
• Substantially cut a recruiter's compensation when the people they recruit buy product but do not resell it.
• Require prompt, accurate reporting of every customer sale, including the real price, with Amway sending a receipt to each of an IBO's customers.
• Terminate any IBO who fakes sales or teaches others to.
• Have an independent outside auditor regularly review its sales records.
• Train IBOs on these rules before they are allowed to recruit anyone else.
• Bar approved providers, including WWG and LTD, from charging new IBOs for training or services in their first year.

The Commission's vote authorizing staff to file the complaint and proposed order was 2-0. As in most FTC settlements, Amway, WWG and LTD neither admit nor deny the allegations; what that means for a settlement explains the standard clause.

Is there a refund

Not yet. The proposed order still needs a federal judge's approval before it takes effect, and the FTC says information about the redress program for IBOs will be provided at a later date. When a payment round opens, it will appear on the agency's refund-programs page and on FTC refunds, the tracker this desk keeps for programs actually paying out.