While the alleged Ponzi scheme of New York investment manager Bernie Madoff has claimed significant parts of the fortunes of celebrities, B-list millionaires, charities and foundations, another outfit has left a trail of a slightly different sort over the years: the broken dreams of middle-class wannabe entrepreneurs left only with garages full of products, motivational tapes and get-rich-quick books doing little but gathering dust.

If you watched any television at during the holiday season, you might have wondered why there seemed to be so many commercials for a company called Amway Global. Were these ads for the same company that has over the years been widely accused of running a pyramid scheme, had paid nearly $20 million in fines in a Canadian criminal fraud case twenty-five years ago, and whose image with the public in recent years soured faster than a carton of cottage cheese left standing in the sun?

Despite these controversies, and after virtually dropping out of sight in the US around the turn of the last century, Amway--currently known as "Amway Global"--appears to be heading back home. Can the company, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year, stage a successful comeback in the US, or are they throwing a very desperate Hail Mary?

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