MLM's

Is Damsel In Defense a Scam? – What You Should Know

is Damsel In Defense a scam

Damsel In Defense is said to offer an amazing business opportunity and is in business for a great cause, but are things really as they seem? Should you join this business opportunity for the purposes of women’s empowerment, safety and protection? And of course to make money? Or is Damsel In Defense a scam that you should avoid?

In this review I will be going over how this company operates and what you definitely should know before hand… Which most people out there probably are not going to tell you.

Damsel In Defense Review

Damsel In Defense, or DID as I will be referring to them for short, was founded in 2011 and is out to make the world a better and safer place for women. They sell an array of self defense products ranging from stun guns to concealed carry purses. The products sold are all about self defense. On the website they state that one in every five women is a rape survivor and they hope to change this by getting as many people to join the business as possible and getting these self defense weapons, or tools as they call them, in the hands of as many women as possible.

It is also worth noting that DID donates to the Women’s and Children’s Alliance, Wipe Every Tear, RAINN, and others, which I see as a great deed. They have even went as far as to creating safe houses in India and Cambodia that are used to help rescue girls from sex trafficking.

Overall I like what I see when it comes to their mission and vision. They are doing great things and I can see why so many women are joining the business opportunity… However, there is a major flaw that I will discuss shortly that you should definitely know of.

The Products

I’m not really going to talk much about the products here, but it will discuss them briefly.

As mentioned, DID is all about selling self defense products. These products range from stun guns, to striking tools, to tactical pens, to concealed carry purses and bags, and they even have digital protection tools to protect your identity, computer, and to monitor your social media.

I haven’t actually bought any of their products and test them out, so I cannot say from my personal experience whether they are any good or not. However, they appear to be quality products and I do not see people complaining about the products themselves, so I trust that they do work as intended.

Does The Business Opportunity Really Empower Women?

On the homepage of their website they state that one out of every five women is a survivor of rape in that you can help stop it by joining the business. Makes perfect sense… The more people to join, the more products are sold, in the more women are walking around with self defense products for protection.

But starting a business is not going to be free. You will have to purchase a Starter Kit for $99 (this price is subject to change). With your starter kit you will get…

  • Business cards
  • Catalogs
  • Guildes
  • Brochures
  • Order forms
  • Purse and some self defense tools

Basically it is a bundle of products and business materials to help get your DID business up off the ground.

DID products are not sold in stores. This is a direct sales business. Instead of having products sold in stores, they have a bunch of independent contractors, which will be you if you decide to join the business, running around selling products. They promote the use of in-home parties to sell products, although this is not the only way that it can be done.

Lots of direct sales businesses run off of in-home parties like this, particularly ones with a female market. You see this sort of thing with Pure Romance and Clever Container too.

In addition to selling products, you will also be able to make money by recruiting in others to join the business. This recruitment side to the business is what causes most of the controversy. People see this and start calling a pyramid scheme, a Ponzi scheme, etc. And although it is neither, there is a downside to this recruitment structure as you will see.

The Comp Plan

Below is a screenshot I took of the compensation plan as a whole. This gives you a nice visual of what is going on. Ranks, commissions, personal volume, team volume, group volume, downline bonuses, and more… What does this all mean? I’ll explain it below.

So at DID there are nine different ranks. The higher you move up the ranks the more of the compensation plan you unlock, which means more money, or potential money for you. The nine different ranks are as follows…

  • Recruit
  • Protoge
  • Junior Mentor
  • Mentor
  • Senior Mentor
  • Director
  • Crystal Director
  • Pearl Director
  • Diamond Director

So when you are first recruited in you will be at the rank of Recruit. At this level you will be making 25% commissions on sales and when you move up to the next rank you will be making 30% commissions. From then on you will stay making the 30% commissions with no room for improvement.

The point of moving up the ranks is to capitalize on the MLM, or multilevel marketing, structure. This multilevel structure allows you to earn commissions from people in your downline, a.k.a. your recruits, their recruits, their recruits, and so on.

Once you reach the rank of Junior Mentor you will be able to earn downline bonuses from level 1. If you move up to the next rank of Mentor you will then be able to earn downline bonuses from level 1 and level 2. If you move all the way up the ranks to that of Diamond Director you will be able to earn commissions down for levels, a separate team bonus, and down three generations.

Level 1 of your downline consists of the people that you directly recruited into the business; level 2 of the people that your personal recruits then went and recruited in; level 3 are the people that those people and recruited and, and so on. You can see how this has a pyramid -like structure that is nearby the top and branches out at the bottom.

The Problem That No One Really Tells You

MLM businesses like this have a lot of potential when it comes to making money. You will always find people that make extreme amounts of money and it can be very luring. However… They don’t work out nearly as well as you may think in this is what people don’t tell you.

Only a very small percentage of people involved in MLM businesses make good money, while the majority do not. And out of this very small percentage most of them usually employ some “scammy” marketing tactics to bring in new recruits, particularly when it comes to promoting the opportunity with misleading income claims. Truth In Advertising has a good article on this that I just read.

The reason so few people make money with MLM opportunities has to do with their basic structure. The pyramid -like structure gives people a lot of room to move up within the company, but the fact of the matter is that there will always be many more people at the bottom of the pyramid like structure that are struggling.

Commissions are being funneled up to those at the top. So that very small percentage of people at the top are reaping the rewards while those low on the pyramid are having potential earnings sucked away from them, making it more difficult to earn money. This is the reason that MLM’s always have very uneven income distributions. What you normally see is a very small percentage of distributors making the majority of the money.

I was not able to find an income disclosure for Damsel In Defense but based on what I have seen with other similarly structured MLM’s, I am assuming that most people in this business fail.

Good Opportunity or Not?

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t get involved, I just want you to know the reality of things. You are likely reading my review here because someone attempted to recruit you into the business and you thought things seemed a bit fishy. And guess what… I bet they did not tell you what I just told you about MLM’s. So just know what you’re getting involved with.

That said… Some people do excel with these types of business opportunities. If you are into throwing in-home parties to market the self defense products and think you have what it takes to recruit people into the business continuously, then this might be right up your alley.

And hey… Even if things don’t work out… Even if you join the business opportunity and fail… At least you have some good self defense products.

While I don’t care for MLM business opportunities in the least bit, I do like Damsel In Defense better than most others that I have looked into and reviewed. I just like what they stand for in the products that they sell.

Anyways… I hope you enjoyed my review and found at least somewhat helpful. Questions or comments? Please leave them below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can 🙂

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