My wife and I, retired with a meager IRA account remaining after some severe stock market losses, attended a Teach me to Trade FREE seminar.
The couple of hours whetted our appetite and we FELL for the 198 dollar seminar.
At this seminar a lecturer (name long forgotten) asked if there was anyone who thought THEY were going to try to sell us something. Most hands went up, mine too! In short, the fast paced presentation was showing all sorts of interesting graphs showing HOW MUCH MONEY we could have made, not once, not twice but several times IF we had followed THEIR advice on this stock. Nevertheless they also said that they do NOT RECOMMEND any stocks.
After the seminar, with enthusiasm and excitement high, we approached "MARK" one of the "EXPERTS" who would lead us into great wealth by enrolling us.in fact "MARK" was a salesman, likely not very good in the stock market himself, why else would he be pushing this stuff?
He gave us the total package price which was in the mid 40K range. For us that was OUT OF THE QUESTION. So "MARK" asked us how much we COULD raise.
We told him that we had an excellent credit rating. He congratulated us (and likely himself as well). Then he asked us HOW MUCH we could raise. I told him about 16K. I also said that I was not willing to stick myself into hock for something unproven. "Mark" said something like, don't worry you will have that 16k out in less than two years. He quoted an income of 7 to 13% per month! PER MONTH!
Although we were somewhat sceptical we did get taken by the sense of greed inherent in man AND we signed on the dotted line. "MARK" quickly concluded the transaction and we now owed an additional 16K to the credit card company.
We were told that we would have a mentor.indeed we were set up with a pleasant Canadian who was surprised to find out we had no knowledge as we had not had the TRAINING. Our finances were such that we could not afford to travel to the distant cities where the training takes place and incur the hotel and other costs. THus we settled for the CD's. That is the entire courses we signed up for (two) came to us in CD's. Part of the 16K included the software, what appeared to be a reasonable tool.
Our experience: We lost and lost and lost money, even though we studied hard and went over the CD's over and over attempting to find out what we missed. Ultimately it dawned on us that the Market indeed will do what THEY told us (to cover themselves I think) it will do. Rule one, they said is: The Market is Always Right. Rule two: IF the market is WRONG, see Rule One! In other words, there is no magic unless your name is Buffett.Us little investers, lacking the real insights and tools to find out where the market LIKELY is going, really gamble that our trade will be profitable.
Once we had the thrill of ONE trade realizing in a fifteen hundred dollar gain within a day or two. It did not offset the losses. We stopped trading as we saw no possibility to make money, told Edutrades In January to stop charging our account for license to the software.
Just this month (July) our account again was charged by them resulting in an overdraft on that account.
In all fairness, BUYER BEWARE is applicable here. We were sucked in by the glorious reports of fantastic earnings. One could ask that if it is such a PROFITABLE venture, then why are these MENTORS so busy educating people instead of raking in the huge profits they profess they make?
I see them as a business that has a glitchy way of touching on people's weaknesses, such as that ever present sense of greed, or if one does not like that word, the sense of just having a bit more financial freedom, a bit more to eat out once in a while and perhaps even buy a car instead of driving a 17 year old Honda.
Final word: It is our own fault that we signed up. Did they rip us off? Indirectly YES! HOW? By painting an unrealistic picture of what their training would do for us. So now we are the proud owners who are sick when we realize we have the MOST EXPENSIVE set of CD's in our possession.
Henk
Belfast, New York
U.S.A.
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