Without a finding of market saturation, the judge determined that Amway was not a pyramid scheme. DeVos and Van Andel paid a fine for the price-fixing charge and went about their business. The FTC, meanwhile, was baffled. But then, in 1984, a light bulb: the Washington Post reported, “In 1975, when Amway came under a Federal Trade Commission investigation as an alleged pyramid scheme… Van Andel and DeVos had a 43-minute Oval Office visit with [then president Gerald R.] Ford. A month later, Van Andel was quoted in a Michigan newspaper as saying that Ford was aware of Amway’s troubles with the
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