Advanced Trading Workshop, Sniper Scalping, FTS Financial
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Summary
Yet another highly touted, highly promoted NinjaTrader Brokerage/Ecosystem educational provider is charged with orchestrating a $2.97 million dollar fraud. The educational provider proclaimed to the world that he was a full-time professional day trader earning massive sums with a live, real money trading account. It turns out that the live trading room was a complete and total fraud. None of the trades were live trades, instead were executed on the notorious NinjaTrader simulator. Subscribers of the live trading room could never replicate the trades, which triggered the CFTC complaints. CFTC investigators discovered that the educational provider did not have a trading account, nor had ever traded profitably. Trading educational provider was highly promoted by Futures Truth Magazine and Dr. Dean Handley.
User Review
( votes)Another Highly Touted Trading Room Bites The Dust
On September 26, 2016, the CFTC simultaneously charged, co-conspirators Advanced Trading Workshop, Sniper Scalping School and FTS Financial with a massive fraud. The allegations of fraud are deep and ugly. Apparently, since 2012 these guys have been scamming people for an “Advanced Trading Education” that was sold for prices ranging from $4,995 to $7,500. Complaint A, Complaint B.
These guys were great at selling the dream of day trading glory. In fact, since 2012 they were able to rip off consumers for over $2.97 million dollars.
Jerry Simmons
The scam was pretty simple. They had a live day trading room where the Ass-Hat in chief, a guy named Jerry Simmons would sit in front of an audience and trade on a simulator. The simulator was provided by none other than NinjaTrader Brokerage. And anyone that has been around the trading software and trading brokerage business knows that the NinjaTrader simulator is easy to game. In fact, the NinjaTrader simulator is a complete joke that allows a person to casually enter and exit limit orders, therefore projecting the illusion that trading is very, very easy. On the contrary, it is not easy. Anyone that believes the results from trading on a NinjaTrader simulator is doomed for failure. Why? Because the moment that a person begins trading with a live, real money account will quickly realize that limit orders are hard to actually file. But of course, NinjaTrader will never tell you this, they are in the business of selling brokerage services and trading software.
The NinjaTrader Simulator Scam
The NinjaTrader Simulator, in many ways, resembles a scam. And it has been used by hundreds of so-called professional trading educators to hustle the newbie trader out of untold amounts of money. But most newbie traders have a hard time understanding how the scam actually works. So let me give an example that the day trader newbie can understand…
Suppose that you are looking to open an account with an offshore, online casino. We will name this casino, “NinjaTrader Casino And Ecosystem for Suckers”. NinjaTrader Casino is very friendly. And they offer their casino software for FREE. Simply download NinjaTrader Casino software, and begin playing the free SlotMachine simulator. NinjaTrader Casino even starts the consumer off with a hypothetical bankroll in which to test out the SlotMachine Simulator. After playing for awhile, the balance begins to increase steadily, and the impression is that gambling is easy profits. The consumer then deposits real money and begins trading, oops I mean playing the online slot machine. However, once the game begins using real money, then easy winning stops and the real money account is drained.
Perhaps the NinjaTrader Simulated SlotMachine is not your taste. Then why not try out the NinjaTrader BlackJack Simulator. With amazement, you never seem to bust and the dealer loses with regularity. Wow, NinjaTrader BlackJack simulator is so easy. And so you open your live, real money trading account with NinjaTrader Brokerage and quickly discover that real money playing is much more difficult.
Of course, this is a simplified description of how NinjaTrader creates the illusion that trading is easy. But those of us that have been around for awhile already know, that real money trading is difficult. And that getting filled on limit orders, from a gamified NinjaTrader platform is meant to only deceive the unwashed masses.
NinjaTrader Ecosystem Scam
Since the inception and founding of NinjaTrader, this company has played a large role in many of the trading scams in today’s online trading world. In fact, they have dedicated an entire website to promoting an online circus of hustlers and con artists. It’s called the NinjaTrader Ecosystem. And it’s a cesspool of trading fraud, fakes, and phonies.
Though NinjaTrader not mentioned in the CFTC complaint, in my opinion, NinjaTrader played an outsized role in the Advanced Trading Workshop, Sniper Scalping School, and FTS Financial trading scam. How? By promoting the scam through a series of free webinars and website promotion that opens their massive list of customers up to fraud and financial misery. Of course, NinjaTrader could have easily vetted these charlatans, and quickly discovered the truth. But they truly do not care about their customers. Have a look at just a few of the sponsored NinjaTrader webinars that NinjaTrader promoted with great vigor:
NinjaTrader Partner Presentation: Sniper Scalping School
NinjaTrader Partner Presentation: Advanced Trading Workshop
NinjaTrader Official Partner Page: Sniper Scalping School
No Vetting of Trading Educators
NinjaTrader will cry foul, and claim that there is no possible way to know if a trading educator is a fraud or a phony. That is complete nonsense. A simple Google search of Advanced Trading Workshop, Sniper Scalping School, or FTS Financial reveals that one of the companies are a couple of brothers by the name Kevin and Stephen Symons. A couple of real gems to society. Apparently, these guys have been running trading education scams for a combined 20+ years. Stephen went to prison in the early 2000’s for securities fraud and theft, served a 43-month sentence. Promptly gets out and goes right back into selling yet more trading educational scams.
Steven is a real gem of a trading educator as well, in 2012, he got nailed by the CFTC for running yet another trading scam named CTI Trading Group. The CFTC thought enough of his trading educational courses and systems that they nailed him with a $11 million dollar fraud judgment.
The following picture is a lovely picture of Kevin Symons, working out of his boiler room in Orange County, California. Take note of the picture, “SELL THE DREAM”.
Look at this guy. Complete douchebag. All of the information on these ass clowns are public and highly visible. Yet, NinjaTrader Brokerage continues to push and promote these types of charlatans.
In fact, how could NinjaTrader not know? A major portion of the internet is filled with online complaints regarding the individuals running the Advanced Trading Workshop, Sniper Scalping School, and FTS Financial. RipOff Report has entire sections dedicated to these bozo’s.
The heart of the CFTC complaint
The CFTC complaints are quite long at 10 pages and 31 pages. I read both. Interested readers can read the finer details of the complaints through the following links: Complaint A and Complaint B. Really, its not much different than the vast majority of reviews that I write about. In fact, the complaints are pretty much uniform, and follow a common narrative:
- Victim finds fraudulent trading educator through NinjaTrader Brokerage/Ecosystem.
- Victim attends live trading room where educator professes to trade with a live trading account. Educator makes easy money trading the NinjaTrader simulator.
- Victim, is then heavily marketed and sold worthless trading indicators for $4,995 to $7,500.
- Victim opens live trading account with NinjaTrader Brokerage, and then proceed to lose real money.
The cycle repeats itself over again by NinjaTrader emailing the victim with yet another trading educator that is supposedly verified and legitimate, or listing the NinjaTrader listing the company as a “Preferred Educational Provider” on the NinjaTrader Ecosystem. The loop of misery, pain and frustration continues until the victim is broke and disgusted with the notion of investing in anything. Ninja Trader and their promotional tactics have become a black-eye, a pariah on the trading community.
Other bad actors
Of course, NinjaTrader Brokerage/Ecosystem are not the only bad actors in this oft repeated drama of fraud, deceit, and deception. Some of the credit needs to be laid-upon the doorstep of Dr. Dean Handley and Futures Truth Magazine that certified these guys as one of the “Global Trade Titans.” The following is a clip from Futures Truth Magazine in which Dr. Dean Handley gave this guy his special “Trade Titan Award” to hang upon his wall and show to prospective customers. Folks, it’s the best award that you can buy for only $699 down payment and $399 a month. Complete nonsense. In the past several years, Dr. Dean has heaped praise upon dozens of these scammy trading rooms. Everyone has an angle to make a buck, Dr. Dean Handley included.
Wrapping things up
Andy Carlsen
I have spent a great deal of time talking about NinjaTrader Ecosystem/Brokerage. Truthfully, I could have spent more time talking about how the CFTC complainants have already created new websites, selling more useless trading junk. Andy Carlsen is already pitching his latest offering titled, Trading Done Right. And partnering with BackToTheFutureTrading.com/partners, another guy I reviewed selling magic trading indicators.
The knuckleheaded brothers, Keven and Steven Symons are probably off selling some new crap using alias names (CFTC reported the following alias names: Burt Monroe, Jack Logan, Mark Bishop, Mike Turner, Corey Graham). Probably whipping out a new website today, have to get it completed for NinjaTrader by tomorrow.
And the cockroach Jerry Simmons, he is probably putting the finishing touches on his newest website as well, have to get that over to NinjaTrader by next week so he can be listed as yet another certified trading educator.
99.99% of the trading educational industry are nothing but cockroaches. But cockroaches need someplace to hide, somewhere to breed, someplace to sleep. A place to call home. Unequivocally, the home of nearly all of the trading cockroaches in the trading community can be found inside of the protected sanctuary known as NinjaTrader Brokerage/Ecosystem. Isn’t it time that the trading community stop rewarding a company that continues to wreak such financial devastation on so many honest people?
Surely, many readers are comfortable using the NinjaTrader trading platform, and they have become comfortable to the ever decreasing confines of their brokerage operation. But isn’t it time that the trading community stop rewarding bad behavior and bad actors? There are plenty of futures brokerages out there that do not promote scams and frauds. Brokers like Matt at Optimus Futures. Or trading platform providers like TradeNavigator, Multicharts, TradeStation, all avoid these scammy educators.
Thanks for reading. Sorry if this update is less humorous than usual. Tune in next week when I write about a new and interesting futures brokerage named Tradovate.com, a new trading brokerage that offers unlimited trading at a fixed monthly price. Interesting.
Thanks again and dont forget to leave a comment.
This is exactly the same con that TFIA was employing until NinjaTrader was tipped off that Robert J. Amico, the head trader, was a convicted felon for a massive mortgage fraud scheme he ran with his dad, brother and a few other undesirables who did a lot of hard time. Ninja, reluctantly, forced Robert J. Amico to take down the ecosysystem links from his website and decided not to continue the arrangement to probably avoid the taint. How much due diligence di Ninja conduct on Amico before getting in bed with him? My guess is zero as since a cursory Internet search would have brought up scads of articles on Robert J. Amico’s arrest and subsequent conviction. Not a huge loss for Ninja since they have hundreds of others to “partner” with.
Now, Dr. Dean (small prick) Handley has latched on to TFIA like a leach to a bloated pig’s underbelly and is constantly promoting the room with videos on YouTube. Handley is the loudmouth spokesman gimp of TFIA like Rudy Guiliani and Newt Gingrich are to Donald Trump. One dirty hand washes the other in this dirtbag business.
Andy Carlson is promoting something called- One Good Idea – Not sure what it is.
These comments really hit home. I was a trade caller in a large room online and did it for no compensation just enjoyed doing it. The room was signing up on average 10-12 members a month at $4K a pop. I did the math and asked myself how come you don’t just do this. I wasn’t employed by the room and had no ties so off I went and started my own trading room with educational material.
I’m no salesman and I couldn’t recruit members to save my life. Every day I would post screenshots of my account on my platform with wins and losses. Not going to lie I would trade live and paper but my DOM was present at all times in which you could see.
My room at first started with the big boy pricing but I have a conscience and it grew on me so my fees dwindled to a small monthly fee per month with everything included but it required you have to participate and put in the effort.
Even with being brutally honest I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t attract or get an online presence. I was being out done by strategic marketers that have absolutely no trading experience.
So after two years of re-creating myself with new websites and trying to compete in this marketing shit show. I threw in the towel with futures trading rooms.
I now run a FX trading room where my live account is tracked online automatically with present and historical trades. It’s only been thirty days and I just closed my first month and feel great. I feel that as long as I turn a profit in a live account each month I have something worth selling.
I recently found this website and find it to be a breath of fresh air not only to make me feel better but it’s the blunt truth of what is going on.
Again after reading these comments I felt compelled to leave one myself.
Thank you Emmett.
Tulipomania,
Emmett begs these Trading Rooms to provide just one month of proof they actually traded profitable. I remember when he asked for 3, but I guess as time passes and none could do it, he is down to asking for just 1 month. So why not call Emmett and have your room evaluated. If you can provide proof of consistent profitable trading over time you would be one of the highest rated rooms.
And BTW, what is your TR because if you can truly prove you can turn a profit every single month and never have even a month of draw downs, I will join. I am a profitable trader and I can not do that.
Rob,
Thanks for you reply. I can definitely supply one month as my FX TR started Aug 28th. Yes it is new but I’ve been trading futures, forex and ETF’s for a long time and I will be the first to tell you not all of it is pretty.
I really don’t have to supply proof or anything as I have my live account being tracked at a website syncing all the information of that account activity.
Tell me if I’m wrong but I didn’t want to come on here as way of recruitment. Plus with the room only 30 days old some would argue that its way to soon to evaluate.
Just a suggestion. You had stated you had a hard time getting students in the past and if you got a high star rating from Emmett I doubt that would be a problem
As far as, “I have my live account being tracked at a website syncing all the information of that account activity.” That has zero credibility to me. We have seen how these white label Forex Brokers scam people with their MyFxBooks results. Only thing that matter is showing live brokerage statements.
Lastly, you stated, “Yes it is new but I’ve been trading futures, forex and ETF’s for a long time and I will be the first to tell you not all of it is pretty.” If that is the case why would you expect to be profitable each month.
Good point about myfxbook. I remember zulutrade as well. It was always amazing how the “top 10” system which folks has invested into would always lose their amazing profit curves just after people signed up and reading the comments that followed.. Tradingschools has barely touched the world of Metrader4 vendors and EAs. which has had their own scammy decades of history and mt4 broker shenanigans. If futures trading is the 25c slots, stocks, the dollar slots, then forex are the penny and nickel slots. You had the forex centered forums such as babypips, FPA, oldtreepublishing etc.
I will have to look into the rating system with Emmett just didn’t know if I had enough history. My account is public yes but it main purpose is to track the trade calls I take and send out to my members so that would be the reinforcement I suppose.
Tulipomania, give us your room link and myfxbook or third party tracking site so we can get more information on your trades and room.
Hey Emmett. i’m a little confused regarding the criticisms towards limit orders. Are you suggesting that scalpers or day traders should use market orders instead? Surely that can’t be right
Hi Sam,
My argument is that you should never believe the hypothetical results of a trading vendor, using limit orders, on the NinjaTrader simulator. The Ninjatrader simulator has been specifically programmed to output unrealistic expectations.
Imagine if someone promised that they could turn you into a professional race car driver. All you need to do is pay them $4,995 and watch them play on an Xbox video game. After you watch them play on a video game for a few days, they then congratulate you, and encourage you to get into your 1985 Toyota Corolla and race in the Monaco Gran Prix.
This is the fundamental problem with 99.9% of trading systems and trading vendors, they are playing a video game on the novice settings. They cannot win in real markets, yet they are trying to convince you that if you watch them play on a video game, that you can will be able to transfer this skill into real world success.
It is important to verify that the trading vendor is trading in a real market.
NinjaTrader has a Jekyll and Hyde business model.
On one hand they have their Trading Platform business model. All eyes are now moving on to NT8. Although NT8 seriously needs some work, their support is second to none. As a home coder I always get a response (not necessarily a fix) in 15 minutes. They bend over backwards to help you. Some of you might not realize this if you are not involved in that side of things.
Eventually NT8 will become as stable as NT7. Once the coders realize the pitfalls you will start seeing some amazing 3rd party stuff released. I reckon we are 2 years away from seeing the fruits of this effort.
However….
We then get to their NinjaTrader Ecosystem business model. Emmett is correct in that NinjaTrader know EXACTLY what is going on.
They hide behind plausible deniability, the CFTC disclaimer and down right ignorance.
They should shut this side of the business down, but they can’t because it is too profitable. They get perpetual advertising with every Tom, Dick and Harry that is part of this cesspool.
Raymond should be ashamed of himself, but he is a businessman and I can assure you he sleeps very soundly at night.
So what can we do? Well you can vote with your feet and not use NinjaTrader as a trading platform. You can also avoid any vendor that is part of this Ecosystem and don’t NT as a broker.
The best thing to do is to keep being as vocal as we can and expand on Emmett’s work. The more we expose NinjaTrader the more people will be able to make a better decision about using them.
I will be honest though and tell you that NinjaTrader don’t give a flying fuck about the bad press, because they will always have the newbie trader waiting in the wings to purchase software from one of their crime syndicate vendors.
We just have to be repetitive in getting the message out there.
Nice work Emmett. The only thing you ask for — and never get — is “Proof” of actual live trading and consistent profits. New traders Must, Must, Musk ask for proof through actual brokerage statements. The other part to this is drawdown. If you are only starting with $5,000 or so, then make sure to see quite a few months of brokerage statements, cause the scammer may have a few good weeks only to see 15 bad weeks where you lose the entire $5,000 plus. I recently was watching someone who had a pretty good feel for the market, but when she showed me her overall picture, the drawdown was more than $12,000. If you have deep pockets that might be okay, but if you are daytrading for $200 a day, then why would you want to suffer through that and blow up your account.
Real mentors who teach how to trade are rare. Usually they don’t want to share their method. They may teach 10-20 people privately (I know someone who did that) And almost always it’s not in a trading room where the so-called educator is showing his stuff to a room full (sometimes more than 100) newbies whom he’s convinced can make thousands in a short time if only they do what he says.
In addition to putting together a technical system that works, learning to trade takes (1) time (2) focus (3) discipline (4) thousands of hours of screen time and (5) perseverance. Don’t be fooled by the easy way to riches. If you want someone to simply show you where to enter and exit, then be extra careful that this person really can trade. Do the simple homework of asking for proof, as Emmett constantly is seeking.
Just my 2 cents.
Good job on exposing the scumbags of sniperscalping. There are also a few other ‘sniper/viper’ sites out there like sniperdaytrading.com and vipertradingsystems.com ; topgunoptions.com, topgunstrading.com, lolz, hope Reina gets to review them too someday.
The ecosystem needs a dose of pesticide and herbicide.
Just to defend Ninja Trader simulator, the box “Enforce immediate fills” is unchecked by default therefore anyone starting playing with the market will experience realistic behavior as the price needs to go through the limit order to get the fill. It’s not tools fault that scammers “adjust” it a little :-), otherwise agree on ecosystem.
Over two years of writing reviews and uncovering frauds…the connecting link, nearly always leads back NinjaTrader Demo, NinjaTrader Brokerage/Ecosystem. NinjaTrader knows exactly what they are doing…
Step 1: download the free version of NinjaTrader
Step 2: create a website and list the website on NinjaTrader Brokerage/Ecosystem, get a free marketing webinar from NinjaTrader
Step 3: screen share NinjaTrader Demo version and execute fake trades
Step 4: rip off as many people as possible
Step 5: get a bad review from TradingSchools.Org
Step 6: take down website
Step 7: put up a new website using fake names, relist the website at NinjaTrader Brokerage/Ecosystem, get a new free webinar from NinjaTrader
…repeat
NinjaTrader knows exactly what is going on. They enable it. They foster it. It is their marketing model.
Not a week goes by that I dont get a phone call from a futures broker or platform provider begging me to expose these guys. NinjaTrader has made more enemies than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump combined.
Wow! this might be the post I agree with most. You finally got it!!!!!!
http://screencast.com/t/dn65VtTNy
This is what is taught in Con Artist U, “How to Run a Scam Day Trading Room”
In fairness I think there were honest Trading Rooms at one time, but they were all run out of business by the con artist coming in and promising ridiculously underfunded individuals how they will make a fortune by getting fantasy returns. You too can trade CL with a $5,000 account and in 6 months turn it into a million dollars by using 500 to 1 leverage. Piece of cake.
At trading forums most new traders usually think they understand the market with price action (fraud theory) and have reasonable goals of say $200 a day trading futures wih 1 conract and $5-10K. They think they’re sophisticated but most end up marching like lemmings off a cliff. I’s the price acion fraudsters and their ideas in trading culture suggesting this is a viable method whom must be debunked.
Yep with a $5K account you too can trade a highly leverage, highly volatile instrument such as CL and take home a paycheck of $200 every single day rain or shine, by taking several 5 tick scalps. And do all this virtually no drawdowns. You will make $50K a year on that $5K investment for a nice 900% return a year.
With promises like this no wonder no honest vendor can stay in business. Man I am doing cartwheels if I can make a 25% return.
I am still waiting for Emmett to find anyone that can actually show proof of such amazing day trading results.
Interesting to hear you get calls from futures brokers or platform providers. What’s their goal, to expose the harmful cross-marketing practices of Ninjatrader or to shut down the NT platform completely? There are too many people, myself included, that use and own NT to trade. Sure I have access to other platforms, but I have my own modded indicators and set visuals on NT. NT can display feeds from IB and TDameritrade for example. That said, I would agree Ninjatrader co has stayed stale since NT7 for about 7+ years now and most changes seem to be just bug fixes on an otherwise decent and visual platform where NT8 mainly looks different cosmetically. And the eco-cycle of so many new customers getting caught up with sham vendors of the ecosystem list because of the “black box” mystique and dream selling tactics of these marketers. And everyone knows NT has ads on two of the most popular trading forums for a long time but understandably this review didn’t touch on that.
And NinjaTrader is pretty bad from a technical standpoint too :).
What you describe is accurate in my opinion and a vendor’s affiliation with NinjaTrader is as much a red flag for me as if they were affiliated with Dr. Handley.
We all agree that 99% of vendors are scams, so its reasonable to assume that they are also using other platforms like multicharts, tradestation, esignal, etc. So if they complain about Ninja, well they all are in the same boat.
Very good point … They give them the platform and promotion that provides the illusion of truth … So much bad to sort for the good.