Here are few quotes from oneup trader, taken from several different emails as they couldn't give me a straight answer in one reply, I had to keep rephrasing my question to get an honest answer.
"Example if you lose the Funded Trading Account from breaking rules you will get a % from the previous profits based on account length with seeder which goes up to 80%. 100% is for over threshold when you request. If the account has been traded for a month you will receive 50% and if for 3 months then 80% of all profits before infraction."
"To answer your questions. If you decide to withdraw funds under the threshold you will not receive 100% of the profits. You will receive a portion depending on how long you are funded like mentioned in the previous email."
In my experience, OUT's support team is laughably worse than TST, but because OUT seemed to have a better "leave you alone" attitude toward funded traders, I leaned toward them more. I understand their need to not let traders cash out 100% of profits on new accounts, because of what someone posted on this site about the newly funded accounts actually being demo accounts at the very beginning. They're taking losses if we withdraw out of these when we make demo money but honestly I don't give 2 fucks about their losses in this situation since they're lying about the funded accounts in the first place.
With that said, if they do allow 100% withdraws past the $1500 threshold, I'm okay with it. That original $1500 can serve as the buffer for losses while I'm above it, since the aim is to bring the drawdown up to $0 (from -$1500) anyway. I figure if you're a legitimate trader and want to make good money off this system you should stick around til you make $10k anyway, and that would take many new traders a few months at least.
My question though, is about what you suggested regarding treating withdraws as losses. Is withdrawing $8k considered breaking your $500 daily loss limit or something, is that what you mean by considering it a loss? That sounds too dumb to be true (not calling you the dumb one here).
If I am up $2500, can I not withdraw $1500 and keep $1000 in the account as my remaining buffer against future losses? Or would they give me 100% of the $1000 and 50% of the 500? It seems like a good way to circumvent the scammy aspect by just withdrawing 100% of profits above $1500 and keeping the $1500 there for when you might break a rule or something. That way you at least don't give up 50% of the total profit. Correct me if I'm wrong here.