The Seiden Strategies
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Honesty
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Quality
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Cost
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Support
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Verified Trades
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User Experience
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Summary
Sam Seiden is back.
Fresh off his latest “get rich scam” known as The Online Trading Academy, where Sam Seiden and his cohorts admitted to a $360 million dollar fraudulent “investment school” scam, he now wants you to fork over thousands of dollars for yet another “investment school” scam.
Apparently, running investment school scams is Sam Seiden’s specialty. This latest “investment school” appears to be a hastily regurgitated version of his last scam, but with the added touches of ancient Rome.
Just when you think that things couldn’t get any nuttier in this industry…Sam Seiden arrives to prove us all wrong. Back with yet another “investment school” named The Seiden Strategies.
Avoid this whack-a-doodle.
Pros
Absolutely nothing to recommend.
Cons
Admitted fraudster
Founder of Online Trading Acadamy — a known fraudulent “investment school”
The owner recently had all of his assets seized by the FTC
The owner is currently embroiled in no less than 3 class-action lawsuits alleging fraud
Thanks for reading today’s review of The Seiden Strategies.
What is The Seiden Strategies and what are they selling?
According to the website, the company is offering three levels of “investment education” that supposedly teach you how to become of full time professional trader.
The company promises to teach “low risk, high reward, and high probability trades in stocks, ETF’s, Futures, Forex, Bonds, and Options.”
The pricing comes in two tiers:
Tier One costs $6,995 for the first year and an additional $3,995 for each successive year. Tier One product is titled: “The Strategy.”
Tier Two costs $8,995 for the first year and an additional $4,995 for each successive year. Tier Two product is titled: “The Strategy Plus.”
Additionally, there is an add-on product titled: The Emperors Club which can be purchased with either of the Tier One or Tier Two products. The cost of “The Emperors Club” is $1,995 per year.
Tier One: “The Strategy”
The Strategy Membership, includes the following modules:
- The Forum
- The Exchange
- The Gallery
- The Arena
- The Options Colosseum
- The Investor Empire
- High Impacts News Sessions
- Member Council
The first module is The Forum which is a live trading room hosted mainly by Sam Seiden. During this one-hour live training session, Sam Seiden purports to offer “supply and demand analysis” and live trading recommendations.
The next module is The Exchange which begins 15 minutes prior to the stock market opening bell and purports to offer trading recommendations for “short-term and mid-term” active traders. This session usually lasts 90 minutes.
The next module is The Gallery which is a “proprietary algorithm” which supposedly offers recommendations for 25 markets.
The next module is The Arena which is described as a live trading room where traders can talk to each other and share ideas.
The next module is The Options Colosseum which is described as a “secretive strategy” that reveals supply and demand imbalances where investors can profit. The Options Colosseum occurs twice a week, and last one hour in duration.
The next module is The Investor Empire which supposedly helps people meet their lifetime retirement needs through personalized recommendations. This includes the Life Strategy Assessment, Strategic Return Portfolio, and the Bond Forecast.
The next module is Impact News Sessions which gives access to a private Twitter account where Mr. Sam Seiden opines on world events so that you can adjust your investments accordingly.
The final module is the Member Council where members can live chat, email, or talk to a friendly investment counselor about their investment problems.
According to FINRA, the SEC, and the CFTC….none of the individuals running this company are registered to counsel investors in any capacity.
Tier Two: The Strategy Plus
The difference between Tier One and Tier Two is only a single module.
The missing module is something titled: The Strategy Plus.
The Strategy Plus expands the live market coverage from 25 markets to 50 markets.
For this small expansion in market coverage, the cost dramatically increases, yet there is no clear reason why.
The Emperors Club
If you purchase either of the Tier One or Tier Two memberships, then you are also eligible to purchase The Emperors Club.
What do you receive to become part of the so-called club for Emperors? The website is not very clear. It claims you receive “priority enrollment and seating for live events” and “break out sessions” and something called “the brain trust.”
Additionally, there is some other mumbo-jumbo about “crossing cultural barriers” and new-age fancy-sounding terms with little actual meaning.
It appears to be the classic upsell.
The Seiden Strategies Performance Results
The Seiden Strategies does have a publicly viewable performance page.
This performance page includes only the prior four months of trading recommendations and supposed performance.
The performance page for October 2020 is included below…
However, I have found the performance pages to be of little to no value.
The performance pages include little to no specificity as to what was actually being traded. What were the actual wins and losses? How about the drawdown? And what about the margin requirement?
Are they trading South Korean rice bowl futures? Or perhaps Peruvian alpaca fir futures? No mention whatsoever.
This appears to be little more than a convoluted mish-mash of “happy talk” where retail newbies can allow their naive imaginations to drift towards a 10:1 risk to profit happening with 50% of the trades.
Folks, if you think that 10:1 risk to profit with 50% winning trades is possible over the long term…then I have a tower in Paris that you can buy on the cheap.
Additionally, for all of the four months of listed performance pages, there is no talk about drawdowns or account size, or even position sizing.
Sure, it’s wonderful to claim a win percentage of 85%, but what if the average win is $1 and the average loss is $200? In short, a win/loss percentage is the stuff of newbies, wannabes, and daydreamers.
Professional traders need actual performance metrics, which includes time stamps of trades, the securities being traded, a way to audit the actual results, and of course the commission paid. None of this is included.
In short, these performance summaries are pig excrement.
Is this performance even real?
According to the mountain of disclosures, which is a 9266 word legal tome, you are basically acknowledging that The Seiden Strategies cannot be held liable for anything. And I mean everything. It’s one of the most airtight legal disclaimers that I have ever had the displeasure of reading.
It appears to be written by a team of expensive lawyers with only one intent…to waylay all liability to the sucker foolish enough to actually sign such a document.
And hidden like a needle in this proverbial legal haystack…the company is quite clear in describing that “performance is hypothetical.”
In fact, the company goes to great lengths in their disclaimer documents referencing hypothetical performance in an incredible 13 instances. A new world record.
I have never seen such a disclaimer in my 6 years of reviewing these so-called investment educators to witness the lengths this company has gone to describe performance as “hypothetical.”
This worries the fuck out of me. But these hypothetical performance summaries are the least of the things you should be worried about. Why?
Keep reading.
Does the name Sam Seiden sound familiar?
If not, well you must not read many of the articles on TradingSchools.Org. In fact, we have written two articles regarding Sam Seiden and his prior company — The Online Trading Academy.
Its all so painful to read.
You can read article one here.
You can read article two here.
This is the same Sam Seiden that is currently embroiled in no less than three class-action lawsuits alleging fraud related to his last “investment school.” (Online Trading Academy)
Additionally, Sam Seiden just signed (September 15, 2020) a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission agreeing that Online Trading Academy was a fraud.
How big of a fraud? Not your garden variety. More like the Farmer’s Market variety where there were thousands of consumers across the United States were scammed out of $362 million dollars.
In fact, Sam and his cohorts had their personal assets frozen and had to surrender $8.3 million, a Cessna 400 airplane, a 2006 Bentley Mulsanne, a luxury motor home, a Cadillac Escalade, and six minivans.
Six minivans? Who in the fuck has six minivans? That’s just weird. That’s a minivan fetish.
Everything is currently waiting to be sold at auction and the proceeds will be refunded to the students. Though I doubt they will be able to recover anywhere close to the $362 million that was swindled from the students.
Federal Trade Commission Smackdown
Its not very often where the Federal Trade Commission will come right out and call something an outrageous fraud. Yet, this is exactly what they called Sam Seiden and his cohorts…
“OTA pitched a get-rich-quick investment strategy using fake or unrepresentative testimonials, depictions of wealth, and implied promises of profits,” and “Online Trading Academy had no support for its lavish earnings claims, and that’s illegal.”
Andrew Smith, the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Ouch.
Well, with Online Trading Academy in the rear view mirror, it appears that Sam Seiden has quickly thrown together what appears to be Online Trading Academy 2.0.
And it also appears that The Seiden Strategies is being staffed by the same hucksters that were running Online Trading Academy.
For instance, on the About Us webpage at The Seiden Strategies, you can see the happy faces of Sam Seiden and Jasmine Wang.
Of course, we all know Sam Seiden, but most do not know Jasmine Wang.
However, if you read the Federal Trade Commissions lawsuit against Sam Seiden and Online Trading Academy, then you would have also seen the name of Jasmine Wang.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Jasmine Wang was used as a student prop to sell the expensive educational program. Apparently, Mr. Seiden and his sales staff claimed that “Jasmine is a successful student who turned $12k into $128k in only 9 months!”
However, according to the FTC, this was not verified. Nor were prospective consumers aware that Jasmine Wang was actually an employee of the company. (Page 3, paragraph 3 of the FTC lawsuit)
Additionally, The Seiden Strategies also lists additional instructor names of Steve Moses, Bill Nelson, and Brandon Tristan.
If you simply Google search each of these instructor names and append Online Trading Academy, this will quickly reveal that each were sales counselors with Online Trading Academy.
Not a good look. Especially considering that the FTC found no proof that any of the instructors had ever traded successfully. Or owned the yachts, fancy sports cars, or owned mansions, or kids went to private academies or any of the other bullshit they told consumers during the course of the sales presentations.
Student success at The Seiden Strategies?
Are the students successful at The Seiden Strategies so-called investment university? Once again, I would be very suspicious of any claims made by Mr. Sam Sieden.
According to the FTC, the trading accounts of Sam Seiden and his 4,799 students accounts were audited and examined for performance. The results were pathetic.
Of these accounts, which were primarily with TradeStation Securities, it was discovered that 75% of the trading accounts lost an average of 94%. Let that sink in.
Some folks lost everything. And I mean everything. Which included multiple bankruptcies.
Wrapping things up
I find it really incredible that just a few short months ago, Mr. Seiden agrees to the settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and yet…here we are again.
On the other hand, I totally get it. Scamming folks with “get rich glory” is all Sam Seiden appears to know. The dude has been pulling this BS since the late 1990s — What else is he going to do?
Its truly pathetic. Thanks for reading.
I dont know anything about the lawsuits, but as far as using the strategy he teaches, it does work. I never bought any of his expensive courses. all free on you tube.
Emmet, this huckster now has his new trick going: The Pinnacle Institute ! doesnt take him long. he runs a twitter a/c too promoting his institute – luckily low engagement ! https://pinnacleinstitute.com/ thought the FTC disbarred him from making such bullshit claims of returns !
Looks like we are playing another game of “whack a mole.”
I am already drafting an update now.
Alarm!!!!
Sam Seiden venture is mutating very fast. There is no more The Seiden Strategies. Now we have:
Pinnacle Institute (pinnacleinstitute.com)
Why Sam don’t want to advertise company with his name anymore?
@dtchum:
respectfully – you are wrong
dtchurn has been posting in this community for years, he has been a part of our epic battle against Global Trade Room in 2015 and 2016 which we have won like many other battles Emmett has led
I wish there was a traderoom dtchurn would recommend as I am sure it would be the one that is actualy honest – sadly he is recommending no one as he knows all too well they are all fraud, selling not trading – and that is all he is saying – he cannot be a shill for the industry he despises
I know how long he has been here, after all I was here first – that is why he made similar name to me. That is all water under bridge.
But way back he was outed as a vendor shill and that cannot be denied.
OK
We are all here to fight fraud and he has proven himself a great fighter so maybe you can let bygones be bygones.
We have scammers to do battle with, let’s not fight amongst ourselves.
dtchum and dtchurn
I admit I am actually confused which of you two is which. But on my radar you are both on the same side.
Thanks, I appreciate the compliment! You do good work here too!!!
I’ll make the corrections Nadina. I’m not a shill as you already know of course. Only gollumpeet and his chums, or alters, dtchum, dtchurnNo, et al tried to make me look like a shill (note he tried to sneak in that I was “exposed” as a shill, another lie, even in reply to your comments) , because peet was a lazy ignoramus who kept losing in arguments about daytrading and the scams to me, as well as Stray Dog and Rob B, and a pis poor sore loser who never took responsibility with his trading and harping on Al B_ooks (whose book he didn’t even read through which I exposed), and should have sued him nor did a cftc complaint, didn’t even bother to show up at the B_ooks guest appearance on BigMike’s guest webinar back then, and just went cowering back into his cave. “dtchum” only came about because of siding with or being an alter of gollum-peet , as my name came from my putting “(D)ay (T)rading Churn” as in daytrading (monthly subscription) churn hamster-wheel like, of newbs by the scams. But apparently dtchum didn’t even know what the “dt” in my tradingschool moniker stood for, lol.
Yeah I know he puts the lie he came before me, thinking newcomers to these most recent comments these days won’t know the difference just with words (and who has time to look back in all the old comments) but I have to correct it as I’m sure you can see the truth Nadina as well as other veteran readers of the ts comments, and they can also see I’ve contributed substantially, helpfully, and with experience of recognizing these scams’ shamshow tricks, some bits Emmett the meister exposer of the scams acknowledges sometimes about me, an example such as my exposing for him that Maverick was still scamming newbs through craigslist fakery “job” ads even though they had initially fooled him as supposedly as education-legit only. chum can keep saying what he wants but I think most will eventually see these posts and realize he never contributed much except to pathetically tag team with peet on my comments. And I appreciate you acknowledging my past contribution here in the mutual fight against the false and shill narrative of the scams and which you also had made your very respectful contributions as well, as I of course recall your calling out Amico, where despite all that past bs he tried to spin in the old and latter gtr comments, and like some other actored shills trying to say you weren’t even a real past student person, nor a doctor. And then in the end, he still went back to his scammy ways even now selling a useless retail account damaging bot and trading room to hapless newbs who have still not wised up.
As for Seiden, his actored shills, or (even himself) have stopped posting the shilling comments in the other OTA review. Which now helps show how evident those attacking comments on the OTR review were just shills of either Sieden himself, his cronies, or his corrupt franchisers who obviously knew they were getting into a faux business with Seiden upselling crap hiring shifty salespeople as to pose as “trading experts” where no one really ever traded live for a living. The toppling of OTA, which is a major legacy shamshow “academy” trading education fakery business with a long history even mentioned in the earliest archives of elitetrader, is an immense victory for those scammed and those wised up to the scams after so much time and effort in frustration and suspicions when ts didn’t even exist and the shills could always fake the narrative on past compromised forum discussions and corrupted review sites. As mentioned, ripoffreport had long sold out to OTA’s bribery and took down all the bad reviews posted by victims in years past.
I’ve seen CL ads that some educators pay by the word for shills to comment, so with your long posts you just confirmed your motivation for being here. The question remains “which scam educator are you working for?”
golummpeety rubbish. There are others of the veteran readers and comments who have posted far more word count than I did but who were bigger on their witchhunt drive, such as RobB. If you want to say what all my words on tradingschools “work” for, they work for tradingschools’ mission on exposing these shamshows and support Emmett. now off you go back to the gollumpeety cave.
Notice that RobB does not post here anymore? His shenanigans were exposed, and he was verified on a popular trading forum as a shill. You like to write, so why not create your own site? Sure it would be stealing someone elses idea, just like you did years ago with my name, but you like to write. And you have plenty of paper trading rage to let go of. dtchurn.com
I don’t recall Rob B ever shilling for any trade educator. Please name the “popular trading forum” and provide a link to it?
Hey Dog good to see you around again! Good times we had a few years back when Rob was around. That was a few years ago and I do not recall the site although I remember it was in a pay area if that helps. If I find a link I will let you know. No worries though I understand you want to unmask dtchurn too – soon enough that shill will be exposed.
For God’s sake. They are supposed to refrain from false promises regarding potential earnings according to legal documents above. They are supposed to be “prohibited from making claims about potential earnings unless the claims are truthful and the defendants have written documentation to support them. “
But they are doing JUST THAT again! Making false promises with no evidence.
What’s the point? Is the idea that by allowing them to commit more fraud they would be able to repay former victims?
Crazy, right?
I feel like I am playing whack-a-mole with these sordid characters.
Nothing is going to truly change until more of these cases are referred to the US Attorney. Hopefully, the new administration will take a tougher stance.
I know for me, when I was running amok with my boiler rooms…they would refer my activities to the civil authorities and I would get hit minor fines and C and D letters. But none of this worked. It wasn’t until Clinton directed the US Attorney to clean up the mess did they start really coming after me. Of course, I didn’t know this, or I would have stopped my scams.
The US Attorney, on directions from Biden, can put a stop to the worst abuses of this industry with just a few select prosecutions. Put a few people through the meat grinder and really make a mess of them…this will solve it.
However, human nature being as it is…you cannot rid the system of fraud. It’s like drug dealing, as long as there is a market, some will always be willing to take the chance of being a supplier.
For the time being, I will just keep doing what I do, and hopefully bend the arc of justice towards what is right.
Sadly, Nadina, this OTA guy is just a worst example of the more egregious snakeoilers, legacy too, as OTA’s shenanigans had been discussed and complained about on forums such as elitetrader as far back as the early 00’s. Seiden of OTA is just one of those who got away with it longer and parlayed some of their victims’ siphoned funds in all manner of ad and review narrative control bribing compromised sites such as “ripoffreport” to take down old exposing reviews and testimonials and funding however many shills to counter or shut up more coming forward about the scam of OTA on trading related forums and comments such as the previous OTA review here on tradingschools, where too many shill and actor comments smoked up the postings pathetically trying to change visiting noobs’ impressions. Notice how all the shilling stopped since Seiden moved on to another shamshow venture and site remake? coinciding with the FTC latest actions and the many lawsuits and class actions now in process? The old OTA is ditched now like a rotted dead termite infested log, as the sham moves on to a slicker website trying to emulate the success of today’s other glossier sites showing faux tables of “proof” in successful trading. Looking at many past cases of ponzis and charlatans documented on shows like CNBC’s “American Greed”, who cost their hapless victims up to several millions, almost every one of them don’t really think about how to repay and restitute their former victims even under court order, and many cases are depicted where the perps start another scam and fraud often changing locations and sometimes under new identities. A habitual fraudster doesn’t seem to usually change unless they have a real revelation of faith, a realized crisis of conscience and guilt of the injustice they perpetuated on others, or a decent purpose rare change in life. OTA had long abandoned any semblance of (failed) real trading literally decades ago, typically like so many scam vendor gurus who embraced the temptation to rationalize their shamshow as somehow a legit “business”, so I’d have little doubt that any new venture such as this Seiden strategies will be anything more than a lazy rehash of failed or untested “strategies” that are going to cause more financial damages to hapless retail newbs. (trading noobs are always the target of these shamshows as there are endless new aspirants to trading every month, soon to be monthly churned by these scams, unless they wise up earlier to the traducation snakeoil industry (with the help of the tradingschools exposing movement) and the extent of the fraudery, or learn the hard way eventually . )
Who are you working for, dtchurn? No one writes such a long and flowery comment on an Internet board unless he is a shill for some competitor. What say you?
I compete in the markets as a retailer by myself. Unlike you and other trolls, I share my experience about, and despite these shamshows to contribute to the tradingschools mission of which I’m grateful and which helped me confirm the long held snakeoil suspicions, to hopefully help wise up newbs quick to these scams. “dtchum”, a gollumpeet skin-bud, (yawn)
It is obvious you are posting like crazy because your boss is a vendor. Why not come clean?
@dtchum:
respectfully – you are wrong
dtchurn has been posting in this community for years, he has been a part of our epic battle against Global Trade Room in 2015 and 2016 which we have won like many other battles Emmett has led
I wish there was a traderoom dtchurn would recommend as I am sure it would be the one that is actualy honest – sadly he is recommending no one as he knows all too well they are all fraud, selling not trading – and that is all he is saying – he cannot be a shill for the industry he despises