Dear Friend:
I am not sure how many of you are traders or have been for long enough to know how some people and companies in this industry really work. I have been a trader now for many years and have learned some very scary things out there about some companies that are taking many of you for your money.
First off the forex is an investment. Please take a look at this site and read what a broker has to say about forex trading.
The following is a quote directly from the broker you can check the source out by going to fxcm.com (scroll to the bottom where it says �Investment Myths�)
Investment Myths
Investment Protection
The foreign exchange market is one of the most popular markets for speculation, due to its enormous size, liquidity and tendency for currencies to move in strong trends. Presumably, these characteristics would enable traders to have tremendous success. However, success has been limited mainly for the reasons described below.
Many traders come with false expectations of the profit potential and lack the discipline required for trading. Short-term trading is not an amateur’s game and is usually not the path for quick riches. Though currencies may seem exotic or less familiar than traditional markets (i.e. equities, futures, etc.), the rules of finance and simple logic are not suspended. One cannot hope to make extraordinary gains without taking extraordinary risks. A trading strategy that involves taking a high degree of risk means suffering inconsistent trading performance and often suffering large losses. Trading currencies is not easy (if it was, everyone would already be a millionaire), and many traders with years of experience still incur periodic losses. One must realize that trading takes time to master and there are absolutely no short cuts to this process.
The most enticing aspect of trading currencies is the high degree of leverage used. Leverage seems very attractive to those who are expecting to turn small amounts of money into large amounts in a short period of time. However, leverage is a double-edged sword. Just because one lot ($100,000) of currency only requires $1,000 as a minimum margin deposit, it does not mean that a trader with $10,000 in his account should easily be able to trade 10 lots or even 5 lots. One lot is $100,000 and should be treated as a $100,000 investment and not the $1,000 put up as margin. Most traders analyze the charts correctly and place sensible trades, yet they tend to over leverage themselves (take a position that is too big for their portfolio), and as a consequence, often end up forced to exit a position at the wrong time.
If an account value is $10,000 and the trader places a trade for 1 lot, he is in effect, leveraging himself 10 to 1, which is a very significant level of leverage. Most professional money managers are not allowed to leverage even this high. Trading in small increments on the account will allow the trader to endure many losing trades without experiencing large monetary losses.�
Many companies out there sell this type of investment as a disguised get rich quick scam. What they will tell you is that you have been selected from a pool and one of the lucky ones that gets to work one -on-one with a coach or professional mentor. (Like you won some sort of prize) Be very careful some of these salespeople are very very good.
This is how it works, they will have a two part sale; meaning you will be talking to two people, one guy is a finder who finds out if you have money by telling you he is going to help you get out of debt or some sort of reason for him calling. This may be done in many ways, you bought into some deal on the internet and they are screening calls or they are just checking to see how you liked the product. This part of the sale has one purpose, to see if you have money. They will tell you things when you ask them questions like, �I don�t know I am only a junior associate� or �I haven�t worked here very long� or my favorite, �this company doesn�t allow me to get into this industry unless I have worked here at least 5 years�
Let�s go back to the basics, IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT IS!!
The goal of this stage is to see if you have money so that you can go on to the next step. This second step is the grabber, the closer, the senior director, or some sly name for a closing salesman. These people don�t take no for an answer unless you hang up on them. They will tell you they are looking for a few people, hit your pain just like a normal sale would go. They will tell you in some cases how much money they make or that they are �hooking you up with traders that have made millions on the markets and you are lucky� they might even tell you in some cases that they themselves have made a ton of money. They will tell you that you are going to be a testimonial for them and the company and that they need you to be a part of their success team in order for them to sell more products. They will be sly and very convincing.
Their goal is to convince you very cunningly that�s it�s ok to invest THOUSANDS of dollars from your credit card to work with a �professional trader� Many of whom really haven�t been in the markets for more than a few months.
Here is how to beat them. If you have invested your money in them CALL YOUR BANK AND GET IT BACK!!
Here is how you can win with the bank. The sales rep will run circles telling you that you signed a contract and that you can�t get it back. They will tell you that they always win these disputes and that you wanted it once and there is no point in fighting it.
What they won�t tell you is this, even if you signed a contract, you are being scammed. The consumer will win the chargeback if you do a few things.
- First and foremost, show the bank this letter of warning.
- Keep names of the people you chatted with and pull up their info on the internet and take those documents to the bank.
- Don�t be bullied by the company. They will try to draw fear in you.
- In some cases an attorney will be necessary. You will have to have them write a letter to the company (it might cost you a few hundred) but they will be more than willing to give your money back at that point. If they pursue it enough to go to court and they lose, it would ruin them.
This is how the companies are set up. Let�s say you pay $6,500.00 to company X. Right off the start 20% gets paid out in commissions. (you really think the sales reps aren�t going to say whatever they want for the $1,300 in commissions each gets roughly $650). They will sell as many of these people as they can in one week. They will tell you how busy the �closer� is simply because he is booked with other people like you that he is closing. The first person will tell you that he needs to go check the senior director�s schedule, and in reality he is just finding someone on the floor that can close you down.
Ok, next there is a merchant fee, that normally depends on the merchant some I have seen as low as 1% but most of these floors are fly by night and change their names so often they are a risk to the merchants so they run about 3-5%. Let�s say for this example we run at 2% that is $130 taken off the sale. Now we are down to $5,070 left over. There is what is called a lead fee, which can range again from 15% - 40% of the sale. Industry average is about 35%. That is $2,275 of the initial sale.
The lead generator is the place or company that sold you the initial program. Their marketing looks great and they will tell you all of these great stories of how much money you can make to get you to buy their program. But they are also making money on the back end by selling the name phone number and address to these Call Centers. Most of these things don�t work, they are just lead generators.
Ok, now we are down to $2,795 of your money left. We haven�t even talked about the millionaire that will be coaching you. Let�s say that the package you signed up for bought you into 20 coaching sessions. You would think that simple math would be $325 per session. Even if the coach made � of that $162 per session and did 10 per week, that would be $1,620 per week that this coach would be making off the coaching. HMMMM�…why is a multi millionaire working 10 hours a week to make $1,620??? Out of the kindness of his heart?? I don�t think so. Not for that little of money. Now, imagine if the coaches were to only make $30.00 of that per session at 10 sessions per week. That would only be $300 per week.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that�s all they make and they don�t do 10 sessions, many of them are doing 40+ sessions to make ends meet.
Many of these Call Centers sell in the ranges of $50,000 - $150,000 per week in sales volume. These owners are the only ones in the company that are making money. When you see testimonials they are generally of demo accounts. One way to know a real live account from a Demo is look at the time frames, if you see some withdrawals (money taken out and paid to the trader) than it is more likely to be real, the testimonials that you are seeing are normally demo accounts, talk to any real trader or investor and they will be the first to tell you that real trading is %100 different. Of course it�s easy to open a trade on fake money. That would be like me telling you I bought 3 properties today, (I really did, Boardwalk, Park Place and Connecticut Ave) I played Monopoly and made enough money to buy them. You might laugh but that�s the same concept. Wouldn�t it be nice to really buy real estate that easily?
Just be careful, I myself have gotten several calls from these types of companies Stellar Forex Consulting / Precision Fx / The Forex Wire / BDS services / Shanklin Group , and many more are all in this together, it should be illegal. Take a look at their materials you can find ALL of it online. Don’t get taken.
I am only posting this to protect the investors, Babypips.com has everything that you need for your training, books are good to read too, get all of that before you try to find a coach though, save your money and don’t get ripped off. These are not good people.