Thirty Years of Building
The Work of a Lifetime.
Built for Others.
Steve and Gina Merritt did not stumble into direct selling. They chose it, committed to it, and mastered it over more than thirty years. They built one of the industry's highest-performing organizations, helped countless individuals reach financial milestones — including many who achieved millionaire status — and reached more than seven million Americans through the people they trained and led.
For them, direct selling was never just about income. It was a calling. The single mother who needed flexibility. The man who never finished high school but had everything it takes. The couple who had run out of every other option. Steve and Gina spent three decades telling those people: where you start does not have to be where you finish. They believed it. They lived it.
They built their business to the standards their company set and their honest understanding of what the law required — and in all those years, it went unquestioned. They described their results truthfully. They shared real photographs from their real life. They told the truth, and it was enough.
What Changed
After more than three decades in the industry, the Federal Trade Commission brought action against them — not over a defective product, not over harm to any customer, but over how they had described their business, the earnings of the people in their organization, and photographs taken in their own home. The same descriptions that had been accepted without question for decades were now called deceptive under a standard they had never been given and could not have read.
They resolved the matter, admitting no wrongdoing, and put it behind them. They are among the fortunate — they had the financial resources and the stamina to see it through. Most families in this business would not have either.
What their case revealed is not a story about one couple. It is a story about a legal gap that leaves every honest direct seller in America exposed to the same thing. No other industry faces this standard. A banker, a broker, a real estate agent, a franchise owner — any of them can share the same words, describe the same income, show the same photographs, without consequence. Only direct sellers can have the truth used against them.
Why They Fight
Steve and Gina are not fighting to reopen their own case. They are not fighting for themselves. They are using their time, their name, and their own resources to pursue the only remedy that will protect anyone else: legislation. A law passed by Congress that sets one clear, durable national standard — the same standard that applies to every other industry in America.
The Direct Selling Clarity Act would write that standard into law, define both the legitimate business and the criminal scheme, and create a fair path for truthful, verifiable statements about real results. It would make fraud harder to hide and honest selling impossible to prosecute. It is not anti-enforcement. It is pro-clarity — the kind of clarity every other industry already has.
Steve and Gina have asked that 50,000 Americans write to Congress by October 1, 2026. Not because they need sympathy for what happened to them. Because the woman across the kitchen table — building something for her children — deserves to stand equal before the law with everyone else who earns an honest living.