The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took note and investigated, winning one case and settling another two. Then the FTC went after Amway, the white whale, filing prosecution in 1975. By then, however, DeVos and Van Andel had friends in high places. Soon-to-become president Gerald Ford, who was raised ten minutes away from where DeVos and Van Andel grew up, was already a friend and fund recipient of Amway. In 1979, the verdict came in: Amway was guilty of deceptive recruitment tactics, but innocent of the government’s biggest allegation, that the organization was an “endless chain” (aka pyramid
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