Online Trading Academy Sued by FTC

As a long-time non-fan of "OTA", and am amazed that it took this long for the FTC to lasso them. It also reminds me of Al Capone -- caught not for running liquor, but for tax fraud: how does the OTA hang themselves? Through a phony theory? Nope: through "misleading claims of financial success". I don't get it.

I will miss their cookies, though.
I went to their crap-inars probably every time they came to town, just to take notes of the fraud, mourn the victims, and eat their cookies.

https://www.elitetrader.com/et/search/10421035/?q=online+trading&o=date&c[user][0]=80340
 
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I have always found OTA, which is not an academy, worthless like those other sites that claim to be academies or universities (funny video on them at:
). CFTC has taken down Open Range Trading, Advanced Trading Workshop, MSLO Trading but somehow missed Puretick. And you right; you sign a rigid agreement that forecloses on any refunds.
 
gaussian said:
I never got a free kindle for attending :(. One time I got a nice dinner from some people that wanted to sell me hearing aids though! haha.

OTA is operating in some really murky waters. They've adapted MLM tactics to trading which, while brilliant, is despicable.
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What is MLM?

As for their "patented supply and demand" strategy, I tried to search the USPTO on "supply and demand" trading but didn't find any hit.
 
According to Dr.Dean, there are 1982 futures rooms of which 98.89 are sales rooms! So obviously the "futures trade industry" is actually a "futures sales industry". Selling is easier, literally no risk, no inventory, and no regulations so you can say what you want - OLA just demonstrated.
Trading futures live is really hard because so very very few actually do it.
 
gaussian said:
I get an ad for these guys once every few months. I've also seen their commercials. Always struck me as odd.

FWIW their percentages more-or-less reflect trading of leveraged derivatives so I'm not totally surprised. What does surprise me is that people would pay $12,000-$60,000 for lessons. You could stumble through the market blind folded and come out profitable with that kind of capital.
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I did the OTA basic course many years ago for about $2,000. I though it was an excellent introductory course about how the stock market works. BTW. they pointed out at the beginning of the course that they were not attempting to teach students how to make money; they were attempting only to show how the markets work. After I did the first course, I attended a couple of their free "introductory" courses. These were merely high-pressure sales events, and their prices increased to more than $20,000. I haven't been to any of their events since then.

As for trading results, I have been tweeting (@RandomFour) all my trades BEFORE placing the trades for over a year. My ROI is running a little over 100% per year. (147% as of today.)
 
I attended one of their so called free seminars like maybe, 10 years ago. Guess what? From start to finish, they just hyped how much monies you were going to make in the stockmarket and they are the guys that are supposed to teach you? Yet, not a single setup was discussed in the so called free seminar? These guys were salesmen no less. After their so called spiel, they had other salesmen trying to convince me to pay for their so called service. If these guys had a clue, they would be taking their millions and trading their method themselves. Why do they need your monies of a couple of thousand dollars? All BS of course.
 
I contacted Dow Daddy about their program; they wrote back: "When you choose to learn and embrace the “Proximity Coalition Method” you’ll be able to reach a multiple six figure or even 7 figure yearly income". Is that galactically stupid or what!
 
Dazz said:
according to complaint OTA made over $350MM in last 10 years - man there are a lot of suckers out there!
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Dazz said:
I contacted Dow Daddy about their program; they wrote back: "When you choose to learn and embrace the “Proximity Coalition Method” you’ll be able to reach a multiple six figure or even 7 figure yearly income". Is that galactically stupid or what!
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“Proximity Coalition Method”: OTA says the same, but calls it "Supply and Demand", we amateurs call it "follow the money"?

In all seriousness, we retails are desperate to learn how to make money trading, for some of us newbies, going to class/course will often make us learn faster and pick up some good trading skills, just make sure we don't overpay. Instead of OTA I signed up for Coursera courses to learn basic finance/option market/programming knowledge and read books by McMillan, Hull. However they didn't make me an elite trader. :mad:

If we follow the herd, don't expect to get paid a handsome profit, even if we are on the right side of the trade, professionals like @destriero, @taowave, @Kevin Schmit, etc. skim most of the profits from the top before they get to us. I trade where the field is less crowded, or assets nobody wants, easier to make a living trading that way.

Best wishes.
 
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