In his online book "Merchants of Deception", former Quixtar IBO Eric Scheibeler stated that he and his family received death threats from his uplines during a business meeting and from an anonymous phone call. In 2006, a Swedish newspaper published statements attributed to Scheibeler which implied that Amway/Quixtar employees were responsible for these threats. Amway and Quixtar sued Scheibeler on February 27, 2007 for defamation. In July 2007, Scheibeler wrote a letter to an attorney for Amway and Quixtar clarifying among other things that, to his knowledge, Doug DeVos or Amway/Quixtar employees never made any death threats to him.