Is Digital Altitude a Pyramid Scheme: The Untold Truth Behind DA
Quick Update:
As of 29 Jan 2018, Digital Altitude has officially been shut down by FTC because it has been confirmed to be an illegal pyramid scheme.
Digital Altitude is just using digital marketing products as a disguise to lure innocent people into the system and recruit more and more people. Not only that, members are required to pay for a series of tiered memberships with increasing fees.
For more information, read the official press release by Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
All in all, Digital Altitude is a scam.
Check out My Top Recommended Program to make honest money online!
Is Digital Altitude (DA) a pyramid scheme?
I've heard many people asking about this. So, I decided to write this Digital Altitude review and reveal to you the untold truth behind it.
Digital Altitude Review Summary
Product Name: Digital Altitude
Founder: Founded by Michael Force in 2015/2016
Product Type: They call themselves Affiliate Marketing, but it's more like MLM or a Pyramid Scheme in my opinion
Price: $1 to join the basic membership 14-day trial and $37/month afterwards. Plus MANY MANY UPSELLS!
There are numerous membership upsells with the cheapest being $597 and the highest $27,997
Work Best For: The Founders, Coaches & Top Few Percent Members
Summary:
Digital Altitude is a company that offers online training courses to help beginners make money online. However, it is an extremely expensive course with numerous upsells. The way it works is by helping people to promote their own membership and "recruit" even more membership. That's basically a pyramid scheme!
Rating: 45/100
Recommended: No
More...
What is Digital Altitude?
Digital Altitude is a company that offers online training courses in the form of membership site. Their courses range from personal development to online marketing.
The course is mainly to teach people how to make high-ticket commissions/sales online by leveraging their 'done-for-you' system.
They claim themselves to be an affiliate marketing business. However, I would say they are more like a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) business or even a pyramid scheme.
I'll prove to you in this review. Do stay with me because I'm going to reveal to you some of the untold truth about DA at the end as well as my top recommended online business!
Their Bold Promises
DA's main selling proposition is their 'done-for-you' system. They keep emphasizing that literally EVERYTHING you need to make money online has been done for you.
Their 'done-for-you' claims include:
- Building a sales website
- Website designs
- Online advertising
- Customer sales & support
- Closing and handling of sales
All you need to do is to keep purchasing their membership upsells, work with your "business coach" and follow through the steps.
I'm not even kidding. You can sign up for their 14-day risk-free trial and see all the bold claims and promises for yourself. It is ridiculous.
My doubt is...
If everything is done-for-you, then how in the world are you going to master the skills and build your own online business?
Are you just going to rely on Digital Altitude forever? What if they close down one day?
Another bold promise they make is that they will pay you back $500 plus your initial investment if you couldn't make your first dollar online within 90 days.
Watch how they phrase this promise!
They can easily help you make just one dollar or a few bucks and claim that you've made your first dollar online. Or they can't simply claim that you didn't follow what they teach, etc...
I've seen enough promises like this. I just want to warn beginners like you to be careful of this kind of traps.
By the way, Wealthy Affiliate is my top recommended opportunity to make legit money online. Check out how I make passive income online in just 4 simple steps.
How Does Digital Altitude Work?
The Beginning Stage
To get started with DA, you have to first sign up for their 14-day trial. If you go to the sales page via their homepage, it'll cost $37 because it is the monthly fee for Aspire, their basic membership level.
However, if you go to the sales page via other DA member's affiliate link, you can get the 14-day trial at just $1. You can even get a 'risk-free' trial if you go through links like this one.
Right after you've signed up, you'll be given a $99 upsell straight:
After the upsell, you'll be led to this page:
This is the welcome page with the first few training lessons. They call it the Aspire Business Center. You'll be assigned with a "welcome coach" once you've signed up and entered this page.
However, all the lessons are locked as shown below:
You have no access to anything unless you book a skype call with your assigned "welcome coach". Then your welcome coach will brief you on the system and answer any questions you may have.
After that, your coach will then unlock the next set of training for you to go through, be it watching videos or reading PDF documents, etc.
However, you'll hit a roadblock every time because your coach will only unlock the next step for you. You'll have to keep in touch with your coach and they'll unlock the next step for you when you're done.
This is really annoying because you basically have no access to anything in their platform. All you can do is to follow their instruction one by one.
It can be a good thing for complete newbie but it's definitely not for me.
How to Make Money with Digital Altitude?
Like I've said, Digital Altitude claims themselves to be an affiliate marketing business because they allow their members to promote DA membership with their own affiliate links.
So, the purpose of all the training is mainly to teach you how to leverage their various 'done-for-you' systems, tools and resources to promote its own membership.
You earn commissions for every membership sale. And your commission will depend on your membership level as well as the membership level your referral signed up for.
You'll earn a 40 to 60% commission for every membership sale which you've purchased the license. If your coach helps you close the sale, you'll lose around 20% of the commission which will go to your coach. Similarly, you can make commission down to the third level of your down line.
Seeing from this perspective, it's an affiliate marketing business.
However, that's not the whole story yet...
There are instances where your referrer (the one who refer you to DA) will also earn commission from your sales. On the other hand, there are instances where you can earn commission from your referral's sale.
So, this forms something like an up line and down line system. Seeing from this perspective, it's an MLM!
In addition, the only way for you to make money with DA is to "recruit" more people into the system. Isn't that a pyramid scheme as well?
They claim that you can build your own online business by learning from their training. But I doubt so...
There are so many things that have been done for you so you definitely need to rely on the system a lot. How are you going to apply it somewhere else and build your own online business apart from promoting DA?
Digital Altitude Pricing Details
Take a look at the pricing details for all their membership levels below:
- Aspire Walker (Digital Business Sales System) - $37/month
- Aspire Hiker - $67/month
- Aspire Climber - $127/month
- Base (Digital Business Mastery Course) - $597 (one-time)
- Rise (Digital Marketing Mastery Course) - $1,997 (one-time)
- Ascend (Digital Business Profit Workshop) - $9,997 (one-time)
- Peak (Digital Business Prosper Retreat) - $16,997 (one-time)
- Apex (Digital Business Legacy Experience) - $27,997 (one-time)
I won't go into the details of what each membership level offers like many other reviews because I know that's not the most important thing people are looking for.
But just take a look at the number of upsells (membership levels) and the ridiculous pricing.
I'm not against high-ticket products because I believe there are programs that really worth the price.
Here's a comparison...
For example, I've recently spend S$2,136 for Peng Joon's Internet Income Intensive Program and S$1,600 for Tony Robbin's Unleash the Power Within 2018.
I have listened to Peng Joon's live presentation before and I trust him. I can see the value to invest in the seminar.
However, compare Digital Altitude's price to Tony Robbin's event. The most expensive ticket for Tony Robbin's 4-day event is only S$5,000. What about DA?
The highest is $27,997!!
Another bad thing about DA is that you can only get commission for the membership levels you have purchased. For example, if you only have Aspire membership, you won't be able to promote Apex membership and earn high-ticket commission for that.
How is that affiliate marketing when you have to pay money in order to be an affiliate?
So, let's add up all the prices together...
$37+$67+$127+$597+$1997+$9997+$16997+$27997 = $57,816!!
The worst thing is that most beginners are not aware of all the different upsells that are waiting for them. Digital Altitude's website doesn't mention a single price on its products page!
Even if you want to purchase the higher membership level, they'll still lead you to purchase Aspire first, followed by the next and the next...
Pros & Cons
The Good
The good thing about DA is that they have a very clear step-by-step training to help beginners get started.
Every member is also assigned with a coach to help them which is another bonus to newbies.
Some of their lessons like social media marketing skills (running FB campaigns) can be applied to other online businesses.
Also, their courses are decent and easy-to-follow.
For your info, I've seen real people making huge bucks and being successful with DA. So, I'm not saying you can't make real money with Digital Altitude. However, whether this business is ethical and whether it's suitable for everyone is another story.
Normally, a pyramid scheme is only profitable for the top few percent members and it is not a sustainable business model.
DA was only founded in 2015/2016. Let's see how long it can survive and how big it can grow.
The Bad
- Very very expensive
- A system that is like a MLM and pyramid scheme
- The training courses seem to be reused from My Top Tier Business (MTTB)
- Only for beginners
- You have to pay to become an affiliate
- The only way to make money is to promote DA
- You can only make commissions on those products for which you've purchased the license
There's a member in the community I'm part of who asked "Has anyone heard of Digital Altitude?" Here are some answers...
Positive Reviews
Negative Reviews
The Untold Truth Behind Digital Altitude
So far, I've revealed to you quite a lot of insights into the DA system. But there are a lot more insider secrets I've found regarding DA.
#1 Digital Altitude is very similar to the Six Figure Mentors (SFM). I was a member of SFM as well so I'm familiar with their sales techniques. SFM also has a lot of membership levels to upsell you. The highest membership level costs $20,000. I eventually quit SFM after I finally realized how this kind of system works. You can read my Six Figure Mentors review here.
#2 Digital Altitude is also very similar to My Top Tier Business (MTTB) and My Online Business Empire (MOBE). Since DA is so similar to MOBE, MOBE actually filed a lawsuit against DA for copyright infringement.
#3 Your assigned "coach" will be very friendly and patient to you at the start. Their main purpose is to persuade you to purchase the next level upsell because that's how they make money. However, once you refuse to purchase and continue, some coaches will start to be mean and sarcastic to you. They're only nice and patience to you because you are still helping them to make money.
#4 Since they'll keep asking you to put in more and more "investments", there are people who can't afford it. So, some of them may even ask you to get a loan from somewhere else to fund the product purchase. This is really bad and unethical.
#5 Your "coach" will close all sales for you because they want to make money. This inhibit you from learning how to really make sales so you won't be able to build your own online business because you don't know how to sell.
#6 From my research, all the positive reviews that promote Digital Altitude are from people who are affiliated with DA. Because they need to rely on DA's system to make money so they'll definitely offer it a good review. No other people left a good review on DA.
#7 Among the top reviews on the internet, about 80 to 90% of them are negative reviews. The only positive reviews are from DA members.
#8 Michael Force has been involved in many other "make money online business opportunity". Carbon Copy Pro and Empower Network are two of them. Many of the so-called "business opportunity has been folded. Another funny thing is that the Jay Kubassek was working with Michael for Carbon Copy Pro and Jay is the Co-Founder of SFM!
Take a look at Ethan Vanderbuilt's review on Digital Altitude:
So, is Digital Altitude a Pyramid Scheme?
To conclude, Digital Altitude is not a scam because it has some legit training and there are people actually making money from it.
However, it really looks like a pyramid scheme to me because the only way for you to make money with DA is to "recruit" more people into the system.
This is unlike Wealthy Affiliate where they'll teach you how to build your own niche website and make money from any market you like.
So, I'll definitely recommend you to stay away from DA because eventually they'll keep asking you to put in more and more money.
Wealthy Affiliate is still my top recommended platform for you to make money online. There's NO UPSELL, no ridiculous amount of investment needed and it's FREE to get started. There's no limited trial period and you're given 2 free websites to start with.