Thursday, June 25, 2009

Rod and Anita Swift - Reliv No More!

The following is some emails that I received from Rod and Anita Swift. They have given me permission to republish their info. I hope you find it helpful.

"Dear Reliv Friends and Former Associates,

This information was prepared for those of you who might have heard rumors and were concerned about why Reliv has felt the need to terminate our distributorship. We have been over whelmed with inquiries and appreciate every call and email from our Reliv friends over this past month . The following letter was composed as a brief explanation and we have constructed a web site to explain and clear up any misconceptions in greater detail . Thank-you all for your love and concern.

As many of you know, Anita and I resigned as Ambassadors several months ago. We realized this may come as a shock to those of you who were not yet aware of it. What may be even more shocking to you, as it was to us, is the response we received from Bob Montgomery via e-mail. Then, two months later on October 26th (and again, via e-mail), were informed by Reliv Compliance that our distributorship had been terminated (as of October 1, 2008).

It's been hard to accept that over the past few months no one from Reliv has made any effort to personally contact us by phone in regards to this issue. So much for that warm friendly relationship we were led to believe exists between Corporate and its Ambassadors.

All the reasons for our decision to resign as Ambassadors were addressed in a letter to Bob Montgomery shortly after the International Conference last August. That letter as well as Bob's response is now available to all you who care about your future with Reliv. I will only add here that after many hours of research our letter of resignation was prompted by what we believed to be serious concerns in regards to the direction Reliv was leading us. In that letter I believe that we honestly made an effort to convey our love and concern for a faltering company we had poured our heart and soul into for over six years. The unwillingness on Reliv's part to discuss much less address the issues we presented them with is evidence to me we must have struck a raw nerve.

Their delayed response was just as I predicted, "shoot the messenger." It has been my experience that corporations are always quick to scrap old worn out machinery but very slow to scrap old worn out business practices. It is stated in the Reliv PA brochure that as President and CEO Bob Montgomery is committed to helping Reliv Distributors achieve their goals. I'm sure that is true but a commitment to a vehicle running on flat tires is not a recipe for success. The reality of life is that most Reliv distributors over the past few years have experienced burn out and are left strewn along Reliv's "Road to Success" that is for them a tumultuous and costly trail of tears..

I asked myself, "Why have Reliv distributor numbers plummeted over the past couple years instead of exploding like so many other companies? If Reliv offers people such a wonderful business opportunity, why were Reliv's profits down over 40% last quarter?" How could I, as an Ambassador, honesty continue to encourage others to join me in a business that I myself, was finding harder and harder to be successful at? Talking to distributors at conference revealed that our story was not an isolated case, but rather the norm amongst nearly every distributor and Reliv Ambassador we questioned (names are being withheld for obvious reasons).

Of course, this was confirmed by the $7 million drop in sales between the 2nd quarter of 2008 and the same quarter of 2006. Obviously there have been serious Corporate decisions being made that are counter productive in this modern day marketing climate. The decline in sales can not be blamed on a few lazy Ambassadors or distributors as Bob Montgomery implied in his response to us.

Let it be known, Anita and I never QUIT Reliv, nor did we expect Reliv to toss us overboard. We just needed another source of income to make up for our dwindling Reliv check. Anita could have gone back to work with her family business, but our sense of responsibility to the organization we had worked hard to build dictated we find that additional income by working from home.

After being exposed to the power of network marketing, one can no longer think in terms of an employee. An exhaustive search led us to a company with a patented cold press method of manufacturing healthy chocolate that was backed up with tons of clinical studies that showed the power of how important antioxidant rich cacao is for our bodies immune system.

Sharing a healthy alternative product that the average American was already eating 12 pounds of a year was pretty much a "no brainer"! Because we love helping people we knew that this was something anyone could do with very little rejection and none of the stress of follow up. (Unlike soy-powder, nobody needs to instruct nor remind you to eat your daily serving of healthy, decadent Belgian chocolate).

Our Reliv distributorship wasn't terminated because we recruited other successful Reliv distributors.(and contrary to rumors, MXI has not paid us to bring our whole downline with us.) We were terminated because we helped a few friends who had either quit Reliv, could not afford Reliv anymore or had just plain been unsuccessful at getting their Reliv business off the ground. They saw what we were doing and asked if they could join us. The unilateral voluntary servitude contract, we ignorantly signed with Reliv over six years ago to get the best price on the products, unbeknown to us, forbade Anita and I from ever communicating anything relating to any type of business or monetary trade outside of our Reliv business, with our friends or family for up to 18 months after retiring from our duties as Reliv Ambassadors. Caring more about helping people than abiding by such a rigid contract, we decided our usual modus operandi of honesty, ethics and transparency was still the best approach, and told Reliv Corporate of our plans. Sadly, the honest approach with Reliv was a mistake as it needlessly subjected us to the wrath of Reliv dogma and soon, the 100% forfeiture of our so called "residual income."

I must tell you that passive residual income I mention had dwindled from $15,000 per month to a measly $5,000 a month over the last 3 years, in spite of massive financial expenditures (over $35,000 in advertising costs in 2007 alone) and tremendous sacrifice of time and effort on our part just to out-sponsor the continually rising attrition. Nonetheless, $5,000 a month is a small price to pay to escape Reliv's all knowing eye and regain our rights and freedom again.

Over these past months we have discovered that few network marketing companies today require anyone to sign an exclusive agreement anymore. In fact, many even encourage their distributors to explore ways to create multiple streams of income through other DSA- member companies. Once again, as a distributor, Reliv forbids you from earning any income or achieving financial success from an outside source. Once you sign up as a distributor you either succeed or die with Reliv. If Reliv is such a wonderful company to be a distributor for why do they feel they must shackle their distributors to an outdated exclusivity contract? Direct-Selling competitors such as USANA, Herbalife, MaxGXL, Youngevity, TriVita, Univera, VitaMark, MXI Corp, and so on... none of them feel a need to imprison their base of distributors to themselves, but instead offer their distributors more modern and cutting edge methods of doing business and some gather upwards of 50,000 attendees or more to their regional conferences, sadly, Reliv is a very different story.

What is it that makes Reliv feel they must chain down distributors with forced contracts of Unilateral Exclusiveness? If the Reliv Success System was as good as they had us claiming and teaching it to be, don't you think we would still be successful Reliv Ambassadors mentoring our exploding organization and just consuming healthy chocolate as an antioxidant rich treat? Your distributor contract shackles you to the Reliv plantation which promises you nothing in return from your loyalty. Reliv didn't promise you that they would never change or dilute the products. They didn't promise you that they would keep products as squeaky clean and naturally pure as the floor of the mauufaturing facilities. They called us distributors "partners" but they never asked our opininon when they decided to join the CRN.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition is a misleading name for an organization of chemical and pharmaceutical companies who's agenda is to control the food and nutritional industry under the WTO's police dog, CODEX. CODEX is scheduled to go into affect Dec. 31, 2009, Google CRN and CODEX for yourself and see how they plan on controlling your right to alternative health as well as the kind of food you buy. Monsanto now controls over 95% of soybean seed in the world and has spent $11 billion over the last ten years buying up every seed company they can get their sinister hands on. This is the company that has given the world "Agent Orange" (a defoliant), "Round-Up" (an herbicide), and a host of other deadly chemical toxins that are contaminating our planet and killing off the honey bees. If it's honey bees today will it be people tomorrow? Out of the words from their own mouth, the answer is "YES".

What benefit can Reliv hope to achieve by their alinement with muliti national chemical and pharmaceutical companies? Why has Reliv refused to put a GMO FREE (Genetically Modified Organism) label on their products? Could it be because Dr. Carl thinks St. Louis based Monsanto is a "Great Company" and he doesn's have a problem with GMO's, atificial sweeteners, artificial flavors or synthetic vitamins as long as they are FDA approved? Now, with the hiring of the new Director of Product Research, Dr. Salty & Sweet, Tom Reynolds, (who's backgound includes the development of Nutri-Sweet) we see Reliv heading down a dark road to the future. Could it be that the real reason Reliv chose to terminate us was because we began to shine some light on this secrete darkness? Why else would Bob Montgomery claim "we made such a fuss" in our efforts to get Reliv to abandon the use of artificial ingredients? We thought we had gained a victory when Dr. Carl, reluctantly agreed, to take the Acesulfame Potassium out of FibRestore and Now. Sadly to say, that victory for clean products was short lived. The whole time we were fighting that battle he was formulating the new product "Glucaffect" with that same artificical sweetener which, by they way, remains in your childrens "Kids Now."

The Bible tells me there are none so blind as those that have eyes, but refuse to see. History tells us that Martin Luther was persecuted as a result of his efforts to reveal truth to the dogmatic and manipulative Church of his day. The Founding Fathers of our great Nation tried to reason with and reveal truth to a close minded and controlling British King. They were persecuted and labeled as traitors for their efforts. Our story of honestly trying to open the eyes of a company we had loved dearly for six years is a far cry from the stories of Martin Luther or our Founding Fathers, but we are secure in the knowledge that we have been led where The Heavenly Father wants us and both Anita and I believe with every fiber of our beings, we have moved forward with our strength and integrity well intact and will be blessed.

As Bob Montgomery himself has said so many times over the past six years of conferences we've attended, "You will never be able to pick up that $1,000 dollar bill as long as you are holding on to the podium." Well, the Bible also tells us to be thankful for all things. So we just want to say, "Thank You Reliv, thank you for all you have done for us over the past six years. But mostly we want to thank you for cutting the chains that bound us to that Reliv podium we so dutifully clung to. We harbor no bitterness of heart, only disappointment that what we tried to communicate went unappreciated.

Anita and I are now free to grab that MXI $1,000 dollar bill, in fact, we're securely inside and driving our new vehicle toward success, road map in hand, with no speed limits. Thanks again Bob, we now know exactly where we're going and how to get there! I suppose, one way or another, Reliv really does make dreams come true.

Sincerely,
Rod and Anita Swift"

For further information, enter the info requested in this link http://RelivAmbassadorsNoMore.blogspot.com (or call or e-mail us personally 541-298-2559 omegasblooms@gorge.net ) and we'll send you link to our Private Unpublished Reliv Page where you'll have the rare opportunity to read correspondence between Rod & Anita Swift, Reliv Corporate, CEO Robert Montgomery, John & Jacquie Hayes and Reliv Compliance, all of which lead without any notice, to the sudden Full Termination of Rod & Anita Swift's entire Reliv Business, including all forms of their residual income.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Distributors Lie to Sell Reliv - Dr. Hastings a god?

The following is a post that I received from one of our readers. Thank you for taking the time to send this and if anyone else has some negative results / experience with Reliv, please take a few minutes to send it to us so that others can see that Reliv isn't a miracle drug.

"I recently was visited by my mother in law, who deems Dr Hastings as a god and Reliv as a panacea. She has been bugging me for YEARS to become a distributor and get my kids on it as fast as I can. (Fortunately, I am well-educated in nutrition and health since graduating from a well-respected kinesiology/exercise science program at a state university!) She told me that The university of Illinois recently conducted a study on the glucaeffect (Innergize) product and found that it made history by working 100% of the time for every participant and that no one dropped out of the study. (Supposedly, the researchers did a double blind controlled study and no one knew what the product was except for Hastings himself--all this told to me by my MIL who was trying to impress me, to no avail) Yet, I cannot find these remarkable and newsworthy findings anywhere! BUT I did find that Dr Hastings and Reliv was a corporate sponsor of the Functional Foods program at University of Illinois in 1997...call me a conspiracy theorist but it seems more than coincidental to me that the university chosen to do the study was Hastings' alma mater and the one he sponsors.

LOVE your website!! I check it often! Oh the stories I could tell about my experiences with the one distributor I know!"

Friday, June 5, 2009

Reliv - An Enormous Source of Frustration

The following is an email that I received from one our readers! I want to thank him for taking the time to send this and I hope that this will give you some insight into the other side of Reliv. Please read it carefully and if you have a similar story, please take a moment to share with us.

"Reliv Watchdog,

I ran across your website and I thought it may be good to share my experiences with Reliv with you as it has been an enormous source of frustration for me. It all started a couple years ago when a friend of my father introduced my parents to "The product". My parents started taking it and I think they really bought into the multiple success stories that were provided via conference call in the beginning. They were sold on it and got into the MLM scheme for the discount. My father convinced me to try it, so I did for a month and saw no benefit so I decided it was too expensive for me and stopped. My parents seemed offended by this and pressured me to start taking it again in practically every conversation. Our telephone and in-person conversations inevitably shift to the most recent over hyped Reliv success story which may just as well be coincidence. My father has a mysterious chest pain that comes and goes that he won't allow the doctor to check. When it comes back he ups the dosage and when it dissapears for a while he gives the credit to the Reliv. My mother has no real health problems, but probably likes it because the soy may help her with menopause (just a guess). I figured things would just fizzle out soon and they would shift their interest to something else, sadly I am still waiting for that day to come...

My sister has also bought into the Reliv scam. She spends hundreds if not thousands of dollars on the different powders and consumes them herself and gives them to her children. Her husband, like me, is not impressed but she is so convinced that they could not survive without Reliv that she would probably leave him and take the kids if he tried to stop her from wasting their money on it. Her daughter (six years old) suffers from eczema, bowel problems, and (just developed) asthma-like symptoms. My sister has had her on Reliv for about 2 year now and there has been no improvement, if anything her symptoms have worsened. These problems may even be aggravated or even ORIGINALLY CAUSED by the soy in Reliv. Her husband also took it for a while and dismissed as a waste when he saw no results.

So, some time passes and my parents talked me into attending a Reliv meeting. The meeting was more of an emotional support group than a business meeting. The people were sharing their problems and generic success stories such as "I feel better on Reliv, I can really tell a difference". The guy essentially running the meeting was a chiropractor who told me not to listen to doctors because they don't know anything. Everyone seemed to defer to his judgment, nobody actually knew anything about the product they were peddling and were very resistant to anything that seemed related to math, science, or facts. I asked repeatedly about the ingredients or if there had been any studies conducted to prove the claims of the people representing the product.

Here are some samples of the answers I received:
  • "Maybe try calling the company"
  • "I don't care what's in it and you shouldn't either, it just works"
  • "Check the website, all the information is there for you" - Practically no credible information exists on the website as I'm sure you already know.
Other crazy claims:
  • "Reliv works at the cellular level to restore your body"
  • "In 7 years of taking Reliv all the cells in your body will be replaced with new healthy cells"
  • "If a child got into a can of Reliv and ate the whole thing you don't need to worry"
  • "Reliv is food for your body, if you take it you don't even need to eat anything else"
  • "Reliv can cure cancer"
After this meeting, I suggested to my mother that this man (the chiropractor at the meeting) was a snake oil salesman and it erupted into a very passionate 30 minute conversation outside the hotel. I reluctantly agreed to try the product again, this time for a full 3 months. I took 4 different kinds of Reliv: Classic, Arthaffect, Fibrestore, and Innergize. I took them all simultaneously for the full 3 months, every day, multiple times, at the directed dosages of my parents and their up-line (the stuff was expensive, I wasn't going to half-way do it and not be sure at the end). I saw absolutely no change in how I felt or my overall health. I haven't taken any since. I am completely, 100% convinced that the Innergize is sold just as a flavor enhancer, because let's be honest, the stuff is disgusting without it. It's nothing but sugar, salt, and chromium to help your body metabolize the sugar... of course some gullible people are going to think they feel better after taking it, it's sugar! Just look at the ingredients on their flagship product, Reliv Classic... 7g soy protein, your usual array of vitamins and minerals, and a "Proprietary Blend" that only makes up 142mg of the dose. Even if this "Proprietary Blend" did contain the most potent magical ingredients, 142mg isn't enough to do anything. At 17.9g per dose as stated on the can, this means their "Proprietary Blend" is less than 1/126th of the total dose!

This next story is sad, but 100% true. My parent's neighbor recently discovered he had cancer. They talked him out of chemotherapy and had him taking Reliv instead. At first they reported that he was feeling better and had more energy, but after about 3 months he became very sick and his wife took care of him at home. He continued to take his Reliv and died in the middle of the night His wife said that Reliv was the last thing he had that night before falling asleep. I believe his wife blames my parents (though she has been very forgiving) and I feel terrible for her. He was a really, really, nice guy.

On to the most recent episode. My wife is currently pregnant, and my parents wanted her to use Reliv during pregnancy. At first I didn't have a problem with it as they agreed to give us the products for free and I viewed Reliv as a "harmless waste of money maybe slightly superior to a multivitamin". Now I think my initial assessment was wrong. My wife took the cans to her doctor and she was told not to take it, of course I had to break the news to my parents and once again I look like the bad guy because "Those doctors just don't know anything". I just can't win, my family has chosen some wacko vitamin powder over me. If there is some sort of birth defect I'll never hear the end of how Reliv could have prevented it.

I'll wrap this up with some final thoughts:

This next part is purely speculation, but it's something to think about. Once they convince you to buy in and spend the thousands of dollars up front to become a distributor, it's probably not easy to back out without taking a loss. I have never sold the stuff myself, but I imagine that if you wanted to quit you would have to find a way to get rid of all the cans of Reliv stacked up in your basement. This keeps people perpetuating the hype while they try desperately to avoid financial failure. I'm sure many people spend money they don't have on these products and panic when they aren't able to sell them, thus they are willing to say anything for a sale.

The whole thing reminds me a lot of a cult, like the "Christian scientists" that believe all medical problems and sickness can be cured with prayer. I'm not sure if it's like this everywhere, but from the cross-section I've been exposed to so far, most of these people are Christians and they seem to get Reliv intertwined with religion and it almost becomes their new religion. The distributors push it like a group of crazies and make outrageous claims like it can cure aids, cancer, hepatitis, and anything else you can imagine (no exaggeration here). The support structure creates emotional links and false hope that keep this whole scam going and it takes advantage of people in vulnerable situations looking for help. It has practically destroyed the relationship I had with my family and I'm sure wasted much of their wealth and time.

Thanks for your website, I hope one day I can find a way to convince my family that Reliv is a bunch of BS. Hopefully the company will go bankrupt due to the recession or something. If you put this on your website, please don't use my last name.

Thanks,
"Concerned Person""

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Serious Warning about Reliv

The following article was copied from http://relivnomore.blogspot.com. To read the full article please visit their blog at the address above.

The following Correspondence includes letters and emails following up to Reliv's harsh and injudicious Termination of dedicated & hard working distributors, Presidential Bronze Ambassadors, Rod & Anita Swift, stripping them of their million dollar distributorship, including all Rank Advancements, all Level Positions & Entitlements, their entire organization including personally sponsored distributors and downline hierarchy, the cancellation of all monthly Generation Royalties (lifelong residual earnings per Reliv's Compensation Plan, as well as the removal of all future bonus pay).

Grave Concerns Regarding
Reliv's Chosen Path

Like many distributors before us, we've had our share of concerns with respect to countless product changes (whether known or unknown), the addition of synthetic ingredients, the inclusion of arguably dubious artificial sweeteners and other man-made chemical or non-natural flavoring agents. Such unannounced, closed-door product tinkering has not helped, but hindered our efforts to effectively promote Reliv products in recent years, plaguing us with an increasing distributor (and customer) attrition rate that Anita and I found more and more difficult to keep up with. We have witnessed the exodus of many key Reliv distributors crossline to us, and watched everyone new and old, struggle just to maintain the status-quo. The steady decline of our own income throughout 2008 glaringly lends itself to the fact that Reliv's profits were down company-wide, by 40% in the 3rd quarter [3Q/08] which falls in direct proportion to the decline in sponsoring and rising attrition experienced by the majority of active distributors still trying to build a profitable distribution network.

Last summer around mid July, we became so alarmed by the early warning signs that trouble is on the horizon for Reliv that we decided to write a somber letter to our up-line, John & Jacquie Hayes (outlining the same four key-points we later wrote to Reliv CEO, Bob Montgomery) in which we documented our concern over these alarming trends, possible causes and potential solutions. At this time, Anita and I felt compelled to include Mr. Montgomery in our missives and also convey to him what we were experiencing in the field. With Reliv's 20th Anniversary Conference celebration drawing near, we felt it would be more appropriate to wait until after all the festivities before sending our letter to Bob in order to thwart any dampening of spirits. After all, weren't we promised something BIG that would rejuvenate our floundering businesses to be announced on stage for all Conference Attendees? Weren't we supposed to see upwards of 20,000 or more cheering distributors at the big 20th Anniversary Reliv bash? Well, as so many of us already know, this big conference was a total bust. "Auto Ship" was Corporate's 'Bright Idea' to fix dismal quarterly sales, with Reliv attracting an equally dismal attendance count of a paltry 5,000 participants for its Big 20th Year Birthday Celebration in St. Louis. On his organizational call the following Monday morning, our upline John Hayes' only remark regarding the conference was, "I'm not satisfied with where Reliv is, at this point."

After some sleepless nights following conference (which many say felt more like a memorial service) Anita and I realized we could no longer, in-good faith nor conscience, continue representing Reliv in the capacity we'd served as Ambassadors. Grieving over what appeared to us like a warning sign of things to come looming ever closer to our beloved Reliv, the decision to pull away from our leadership position was not an easy one, and writing a letter of resignation to Bob even more difficult.

From the time I had sent Bob our 'Signature Delivery Certified' letter, an entire month passed without a response from anyone, Bob notwithstanding. In light of Reliv's failure to respond in a timely or respectful fashion, I wrote a follow up letter to remind Bob (or anybody at Corporate for that matter) that Anita and I still had not received an acknowledgment from him, aside from the certified postal confirmation allegedly signed by Bob when he took receipt of my letter. So Anita and I waited with earnest patience once again in hopes our request would be received, and again found ourselves waited some more... And more... And still we waited... A week, then two weeks had passed and still not a peep from anyone, which began to put us in an awkward position, feeling marginalized if not a little neglected, our resignation request pending indefinitely or outright forgotten.

Suddenly, after two and a half weeks (6 1/2 weeks total), it happened, we got a call... only it wasn't exactly the call we expected from Bob or Steve Hastings or somebody at Corporate, it was our own downline, a frontline Ambassador asking us if the rumors were true that Anita and I had resigned as Reliv Ambassadors? The feeling of betrayal was undeniable, like we'd just crashed into some hidden Reliv iceberg in realization of what had seemingly just occurred without our knowing... Reliv Corporate had gone behind our backs and called several key people (but not us) in our organization, informing them of our resignation from Reliv and warning them to stay away and sever all further ties with us, indicating we might (false) be secretly planning to recruit them into a more profitable competing company outside of Reliv. (We had already been working our new network marking venture for almost two consecutive months prior to this and not a single distributor in our entire organization had ever complained we had mentioned nor tried to sponsor them into some other business!) Reliv's subterfuge and subsequent paranoid slander is disturbingly unethical, if not utterly mystifying to Anita and myself.

The very next day we finally get the response we had expected 6 weeks sooner. It was a rather harsh and hastily written e-mail from Reliv CEO, Bob Montgomery. He briefly acknowledged our resignation, stating he would personally handle our speedy removal as Ambassadors from Reliv. Bob went on to say that if a distributor's business ever falters financially, it is solely the distributor's fault and their fault alone, because Reliv is considered infallible by many and essentially above reproach. No compassion whatsoever to our plight, no concern regarding the issues we brought to light, no.. "I'm sorry these issues are affecting you," no... "What can we do to help change things for the better?" ... not a single iota of regard for distributors needs nor well-being. Just pious warnings and veiled legal threats that he [Bob] would do every thing in his vested power to retain allegiance and ownership of Reliv's property and trade commodity; its legions of contract-bound distributors. Anita and I were saddened to learn Bob's harsh response would be the extent of love and attention we would ever get again from Reliv's Top-Dog. Our praise for six long years of unending hard work and selfless promotion of Reliv and all that it promises. For voicing our concern and offering to open proactive dialog of dwindling incomes and endemic attrition rates, our reward is cruel and unjust back-stabbing, total ex-communication and utter abandonment from the very man who once garnered so much respect from us. Truly we are all witnessing the end of Reliv as we've known it.

With so much conjecture and many baseless remarks, I wrote Bob a follow up email that night, refuting some of his harsh accusations regarding our heartfelt decision to gently withdraw as active Ambassadors (while still maintaining our current level of support to the Reliv community at large.) The next morning, on Oct 1st, Anita gets a call from our up-line friend and esteemed mentor Jacquie Hayes. The two of them share warm, congenial conversation as they have so many times before. Jacquie seems so understanding toward the issues we discuss and knows the importance of supplementing our income, crying and getting mushy and telling us how much she regrets seeing us resign and how much she appreciates having us in her and John's downline. Because Anita has always felt a kinship with Jacquie (this call being no different), she confided in her that we had obliged Alex Rad and Gwen Curtis' request that Anita and I sponsor them (both of whom were no longer active in Reliv) into our new business (and no, we didn't recruit them, as some false rumors allege, both Alex and Gwen asked us at different times if we would be willing to sponsor them, so we obliged their wishes) Jacquie warned us to be careful saying, "You know Reliv policies."

Strangely, on Oct 1st, that very same day, our Reliv Distributorship was Terminated, only hours after Jacquie's call. Of course, we would not be made aware of this news for almost a month! In fact, we heard nothing from anyone following Jacquie's call. Our nearest active upline Ambassador, Janet Brewer, called us on Oct 26th to inform us we were no longer showing up in her Reliv downline organizer?! That was the first indicator that we had possibly been terminated. Of course once again, nobody from Reliv Corporate bothered to lift a finger and give Anita and I a clue of this shocking news, deciding instead to leave us virtually in the dark regarding the status of our own business for an additional 20 days.

Our only direct communiqué from Reliv was a solitary letter of Termination, which we found amidst a pile of other mixed mail in our rural mail drop upon returning from our annual Hawaii trip, November 6th. Anita managed to find a generic boilerplate e-mail from Reliv Compliance on her laptop regarding the Termination, I guess in case we didn't get the surface letter. We found no messages on our answering machine from Reliv either, no condolences, no farewells, no advanced nor prior notices of an impending banishment nor reason thereof. Yes, there you have it Boys and Girls, that's the way you're treated by Reliv International if you care enough about integrity and morals to stand up and make waves or help promote the best-interests of the people through better products; you get silenced, shunned, and your check gets shafted, all in one day!

With all that was said and done over the course of this recently concluded fiasco, Anita and I are still thankful for what the Reliv opportunity provided us these past several years. Not only did it give us an opportunity to learn and experience many awesome things, it helped us earn an income while strengthening our character and providing us a way to meet each of you, now part of our extended family, which has proven time and again as the best possible blessing God could have ever given us during our Reliv career. We also want you to know that we harbor no lingering resentments toward Bob and Reliv for the stinging blows so harshly dealt us, because a scorpion does what scorpions do, they cannot behave any other way than what's in their nature. Anita and I are just sorry that we were in no way, shape or form, successful in opening Reliv's eyes to what we felt were (and still are) critical areas needing deadly serious attention and solutions for, in order to help ensure that each Distributor, whether new or old, gets a chance to experience and achieve the same levels of success Anita and I did. Sadly, Reliv's hidden agenda for its commodity of walking billboards shall remain a mystery...

In the end, Anita and I are both eternally thankful that Reliv has chosen to turn its back on us by Terminating our Distributorship and income altogether because its smoother sailing now as we chart a new course for success and so much more satisfying than the outdated square-peg system Reliv tried to force us to follow. And while we're happily gaining momentum in our exciting new business, we cannot deny the fact that we loved Reliv a lot. In fact our dedication was so strong, we would have probably went on futilely wasting endless time and energy, sounding the call in attempts to keep Reliv's products wholesome and begging Corporate to please join the Internet Age before profits and retention crumbles another 40%. Now after having just read the ingredient label on the newest product 'GlucAffect,' we can clearly see that Reliv isn't really all that concerned with keeping the products as "Squeaky Clean," as they are cleaning the mirror-finish floors the products themselves are manufactured on.

Bob has often plagiarized the famous Zig Ziglar line, "If you help enough people get what they want, you will get everything you want." We have found that when given a choice, people prefer the tasty benefits of all natural Healthy Chocolate 10-to-1 over synthetically infused, chemically sweetened, artificially flavored GMO soy powder, and with similar health results through consistent daily use. Anita and I are making a ton of money as our momentum explodes marketing online and off, and we're having the time of our lives offering people that choice.


Rod & Anita Swift


To read the actually letters sent to and from Reliv please visit, http://www.relivnomore.blogspot.com/