Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Most Funding Firms are a Scam. I traded supposedly live for three of them after I made it through evaluation. I trade it Stocks and Forex. They paid me once 5k. Then when I was due to get 30k, they refused to pay and restricted my trading. This is most likely because they did not let me trade a live account. They even blocked me from being able to close a position and would not answer emails for days.
So recently I decided to try a futures evaluation account. What I discovered was the same scam, except done in a different way. I had rouge orders show up in my account at times when I tried to close positions because the company does not have trade desk you can call. No matter how many times I tried, a new order would show up. I had no way of closing it for about 30 seconds. Other traders in the same company had the same problem lasting minutes to hours.
So here are some suggestions on how to identify funding scams.
They promise high payout. (Real Firms at the very best give you 50%)
Quick Evaluation. (Real firms want a track record of at least 6 months to a year)
No trade desk to call. (Real firms give you a number to call if orders need to be canceled)
No live consumer support; phone or chat. (Real firms have a contact person you can talk too)
Claim they can't access your trading account to give you any information or cancel orders. (Real Firm have back-office access)
Rogue order. (Orders that show up in your account that were not placed by you)
Un-cancelable orders. (When you try to close orders a new one is placed, or you can not cancel them)
Blocked from trading the account without explanation.
Paid Simulation Trading. (They place you on simulation trading even after you pass evaluation, but claim they'll pay you anyway.)
They Blame everything on technology.(Constant software or network problems. They never want to fix anything for real)
Blaming every problem on your computer and/or your internet connection.
Holding you gains hostage. (they always have a reason to not pay you)
No payment or one payment.(they may pay you once, but no more after that, claiming you are not a good trader, and/or they just can't take the risk, etc...)
Blaming you for everything.
They never do anything wrong.
When caught doing these, they claim that they are testing your ability to react to emergencies.
I have traded for 24 years, and this is what I have learned in dealing with firms.
Video below, is not mine. It shows a trader that happened to record a similar experience to mine; i.e. rouge orders that he could not close. It lasted 45 minutes. (in the second video he explains what happened)
Skip to 11:07 and it goes on to the end
Update 5.23.2022
Hear the trader Himself explain what happened: Skip to minute 13:44 to 17:50
I have never traded with a pay for play prop firm. I have considered it but don't see that they offer anything I can't do for myself for less. I'm curious, you are obviously a successful trader having done it for 24 years and been funded on more than one occasion and having at made at least $35k in just one of those accounts, why on Earth would you be wasting your time with them in the first place?
I wanted to know by experience. I get asked about things like this and had no experience with Futures Funding Firms, only stocks and forex. I do not like to go on hearsay. But, I do have my own account that I trade.
Futures trading is hard. I have had success but you have to play by the rules. Trading is not an overnight thing. It is an every day, full-time job that has NO MERCY. Hone your craft. Work on yourself. See you on the other side.
Yet another person throwing around the word "scam". Visit my youtube channel if you'd like to see someone whose successfully passed several of them and done withdrawals. Yes there's rules to play by. Yes most people will fail. But usually as expected when someone cries "they are a scam!" they really mean to say they just couldn't cut it.
Who exactly is "they"? What funding companies are you referring to? Most of these firms are using Rithmic as the data source and execution platform. I don't see how they could
manipulate your trades to put you in a losing position. If that really was the case, you could sue the sh^&*(((t out of them if you have the evidence.
No need to get personal by calling names and essentially calling him a "cry baby". He brought up good points and many to why I would never use one of these companies. I do not see the point in sharing my profits with anybody even if its only 20%. Instead why don't you give him points why he should or disagree with what he posted in detail. Of course right here in this thread on futures.io and not some Vendor youtube channel? I will warn you that many of us that are successful on our own will give you very good reasons why these companies are not what they seem and nothing like traditional prop firms.
"Most likely"? Its easy enough to find out, surely? You can briefly enter an order far from the price, and see if it shows up in the DOM?
I agree with some (not all) of your suggestions for identifying potential scams, and there are certainly some scammy operators involved in this market, and maybe even some pretending to fund people with genuine accounts while not actually doing so.
There are some honest ones, too.
Well, I suspect the moderators will let you know quickly enough, if they feel your primary motive for posting is to draw traffic from the forum to your video, or to post with an agenda.
I think we can probably all agree that in these days of micros, the proportion of aspiring traders for whom "funding companies" (many/most of which, I agree, aren't really "prop firms" at all) are the most approriate way forward is much smaller than it used to be.
Still, judging by countless Journals and other threads in this forum, many here have certainly benefitted from using some of these firms' services.
It's certainly well worth while doing plenty of due dilgence, as well as reading all the small print very carefully, and talking with their previous customers, both successful and unsuccessful ones.
Let's not forget, too, that there are almost no entry barriers at all for these things, that many people don't have quite the trading abilities they'd like to, or imagine that they have, that there can sometimes be some benefits involved other than the funding itself, and that the fact that people sometimes drop dead from a heart attack while shopping in Marks & Spencer doesn't prove that M & S's premises are causing heart disease (which, by the way, they're not).
I do not just throw words around, But I can see you did not even read what I said. I did not post a YouTube link yet. The link that I was going to post is from a trader on YouTube that was having the same problems that I did (for 45 minutes), and it just so happened that he recorded it without realizing what He recorded.
So, whether you believe me or not it is irrelevant to me.
I'll ask again: who is "they"? What funding firm did this to you? Curious minds want to know. You might also help someone else by revealing their names so they don't get caught in a trap.
Who are "they"?
