TradeMasters USA Update

Emmett Moore Emmett Moore June 28, 2018 8 Comments

Thanks for reading today’s update of TradeMasters USA

During the month of November 2015, TradingSchools.Org wrote a highly negative review about a company named TradeMasters USA, located in Henderson, Nevada.

The owner of the company, Mick Schacke as well as TradeMasters USA were highly touted and promoted through the NinjaTrader Ecosystem. In particular, NinjaTrader rewarded Mick with several live promotional events and lent a great deal of legitimacy to his product offering.

Essentially, Mick was offering a ‘magical’ trading system that required the purchase of the NinjaTrader platform, the opening of a brokerage account at NinjaTrader, and a purchase of Mick’s ‘magical’ trading system. The system had an upfront fee of $3,995 and an additional monthly fee of $499.

Using a pseudonym, TradingSchools.Org contacted Mick and requested proof of his actual Futures brokerage statements that verified his stated monthly performance of $5k – $30k.

Through an interactive screen sharing session, Mick presented a series of brokerage account statements that he claimed belonged to him. TradingSchools.Org recorded the entire screen sharing session as evidence.

Essentially, he was supplying ‘cherry picked’ Futures account statements from third parties. These were not his account statements. He was attempting to portray himself as a successful Futures investor in hopes that we would purchase the ‘magical’ trading system. The classic strawman argument.

TradingSchools.Org was not impressed

We felt this was a fraudulent misrepresentation and forwarded this information to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

On August 15, 2016, the CFTC executed an injunctive action to freeze all of the assets of Mick Schacke and TradeMasters USA.

TradingSchools.Org published an updated review of the emergency action taken by the CFTC. You can read the updated review here.

The CFTC lowers the BOOM

On June 28, 2018, the CFTC lowered the BOOM on Mick Schacke and fined him $674,000 for solicitation fraud.

The CFTC also provided the following narrative:

The Court’s Order finds that Schacke and TradeMasters fraudulently solicited and accepted $168,626 from 39 customers who purchased TradeMasters’ automated futures trading software licenses for as little as $1,500 and as much as $20,000. The Order further finds that Schacke and TradeMasters made false statements regarding the trading performance of TradeMasters and its software to the public via the TradeMasters’ website and other means, such as: a 300% return was earned in just three months by a “real customer,” and TradeMasters software users generate a monthly income of $5,000 to $10,000, when, in fact, the TradeMasters’ software did not work, and users lost money. According to the Order, Schacke and TradeMasters also misrepresented that TradeMasters’ “coaches” have more than two decades of trading experience, when Schacke was the only coach and he had no prior trading experience; trading results presented as actual trading profits, in fact, were only hypothetical; and video testimonials were from “real customer[s],” when they were instead from paid actors.

Wrapping things up

There is nothing wrong with purchasing a Futures trading system or vendor software. However, you should attempt to verify the actual trading results of the person selling the product or service. If they are willing to trade their own system, then they are also willing to eat their own cooking. That’s a good sign.

However, if the person or company proffers a Futures or Stocks trading account statement that is not in their own name…you are probably in the process of being defrauded.

More than likely, you are being presented a ‘cherry picked’ version of the truth. Don’t take the bait. Ask for proof. If no proof, then move on.

Thanks for reading.

-Emmett