Better Trades
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Honesty
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Verified Trades
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User Experience
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Summary
Better Trades is a weapon of mass financial destruction. Like locusts or plague infected rats, this carnival of charlatans moves from city to city, leaving a path of worthless training materials, SEC violations and fines, gutted IRA’s, busted trading accounts, broken hopes and dreams, maxed out customer credit cards, and literally hundreds of registered complaints on sites like RipOff Report.
User Review
( votes)Thanks for reading today’s review of Better Trades, a stocks, futures and options trading educational company.
This is one of the wildest and wackiest companies I have ever written about. The history of this company dates back to 1998, when Freddie Rick, a self described war hero, came home from the marines. He wanted financial freedom for him and his wife, Mitzi. And they found that easy millions could be made in the stock market. Money in the stock market was so easy that they began teaching others their ABC123 stock trading system to friends and acquaintances in local churches. They describe their teachings as a “love offering” to Christ, and to prove that learning how to trade the stock market and earning millions trading stocks could be acquired by anyone. Their teachings were so popular and obviously inspired by the lord, that they decided to up their devotion and founded Long Term-Short Term inc. Also known as Better Trades.
Better Trades uses an “old school” method of spreading their educational love offering. They use professionally produced infomercials to draw in local crowds of what some would describe as low information purchasers. These are typically people in their 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s that know little to nothing about the financial markets. These are middle america types, that have worked hard, saved a little for themselves, but not enough to retire on. They are probably getting closer to retirement and are feeling left behind by a financial system that is increasingly skewed to the super rich. They see that the hope of an upper class lifestyle is quickly becoming something that is probably no longer attainable. They feel that the opportunities that only youth can deliver are fleeting, they are bored, and they realize that being wealthy is a dream that slipped away. They now understand that their current professions, combined with the constraints of time, will not be delivering those hopes and dreams that once seemed attainable That is, of course until they flip to just the right channel and inadvertently bump into a Better Trades infomercial. Suddenly all of their hopes and dreams are right before their very eyes. I have to hand it Freddie, he is one heck on a showman…the following is the infomercial.
If you spent any time watching this video, then you can see just how appealing this would be to someone running on a deficit of hope. Imagine for a moment, you are a 55 year old married male, and laying in bed with your wife of 30 years. You both spent the day working hard, she as a teacher at a local elementary school and you as the manager of Tire Depot. The kids are grown and gone. The mortgage is manageable. The cars are older, well worn, but well maintained. You attend church on Sundays. You love your wife and have a sense of community, you realize that deception and dishonesty is something that does not work for you. But you also are feeling tired and bored. You are sitting in bed, flipping through channel 256 to channel 492, looking for something interesting…and then BLAM! The Financial Freedom Expo has miraculously come to your town and given you fresh hope of a better future! Just call now and reserve your free seat. And you do! You pick up the phone and call and get the details. And your wife is laying right next to you, she has a nervous look in her eyes, but its an exited look. You tell her that its going to be a date night. You will get some dinner at the diner, and go to the Financial Freedom Expo together. It will be fun! And she say’s, “OK, lets do it! Sounds fun.” You tell her re-assuredly that you are going to just listen, have no intention of buying anything, and this is just going to be a date night. But it might be something more! You secretly lay in bed, dreaming, hoping. For the first time in years, you are instilled with a sense of hope. You look at your wife, her tired eyes drifting slowly off to sleep. You wanted to always give her more. And perhaps you still can.
The Financial Freedom Expo
A couple of days later, the big day has arrived. Its a Thursday night and you head home from work. You call to remind your wife and she is happy about not having to make dinner, it will be fun to visit your favorite local diner. You enjoy the fried chicken, she has the salad and soup. There is a sense of excitement in the air. After dinner, you are heading over to the Holiday Inn. The ballroom is rented out for the event. You and your wife are wondering if you both are dressed well enough. And what will you say if you bump into any of your friends, neighbors, or co-workers? She reminds you that you are both just going to have a look and not spend any money.
A little while later, you arrive at the Holiday Inn and see the sign that say’s THIS WAY TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM. Sure, its sort of corny and has the feel of network marketing, but you have a tight hold on your wallet. And your wife is the one that usually keeps you from making stupid decisions. Everything should be fine, and besides, this should be fun. You round the corner and next you see the crowd of people milling about. There is a registration table that is being manned by two well dressed and trusty looking white persons. You fill out the registration card and are handed a badge with your name printed in oversized letters. The size that can easily been seen from across the room.
Next, after you register, you look about the room and you see a series of well designed placards, stacks of shiny DVD’s, shiny boxes with exciting names like KeltnerKraze and Patterns In A Flash, and big promotional boards all around the room. The images below are what you see. Impressive. Exciting. You want to know more.
Let The Better Trades Road Show Begin
Ok, so now you are sitting in your seat. Positive music is pumping in the background, the vibe is exhilarating, there is a sense of excitement in the air! Suddenly, the big movie screen on the wall fires up and this exciting promotional video starts dancing across your eyes. The music is pumping, and people on the screen are preaching the good praises of Better Trades, a guy is suddenly telling a story of his mega success, pictures of a new Cadillac flash before your eyes, an attractive middle aged couple is laying by the pool holding their laptop and sipping a pina colada, a guy is swimming with dolphins, a grandma is dancing on a fancy cruise ship, a middle aged lady is standing in front of her McMansion, all of these wonderful images and exciting music have you pumped up and excited. Wealth has finally arrived. All of these people did it, and they look just like me. The ship has finally arrived. All because of Better Trades.
Next, out walks this handsome man wearing a clean pressed suit. He has a big Texas sized grin, a nice square jaw, and a perfect dimple on his chin. He looks so confident as he struts onto the stage. Next he shouts, “Who wants to get rich?”. The audience can barely contain themselves as he begins to call out names from the obscenely large name tags. “Billy, you want to get rich?, How about you Jane, you want to get rich?, come on people, who wants to get rich!”. Its high excitement as Bill starts into his pitch telling his story of being a former law enforcement officer. And how at one time, he was just like you, and average miserable dude, sitting out in that chair, with hopes and dreams. And then he weaves his story and tells the tale of how the financial markets made all of his dreams comes true and it was so easy and amazing. The whole time he is peppering in words like blessed, holy, helping people, simple, giving back, wounded warrior, financial freedom…all of the hot keywords.
After Bill does his exciting pitch with a little bit of dancing, there is more music and more testimonial videos from yet more middle aged people drinking champagne and telling stories of getting rich, and then out comes Markay Latimer. Wow, what a cute little bit of eye candy! You noticed her DVD a little while earlier titled: Squeeze The Markets. You shamefully are thinking about getting a little squeeze from Markay. She is cute! Comes out walking in pant suit, talking confidently and authoritatively. She is the grounded spokesperson, while Bill is the flashy entertainer. They make a great team and work well together.
For the next hour, the show continues. There are well worn stories of how you cannot trust your broker, how you can easily do this yourself, how they have taught thousands of investors and many have gotten rich, and on and on the show continues. A well choreographed dance routine that reminds a person of dancing with the stars.
The Sales Pitch
Everything leads to the end game, sales pitch. All of the perfectly drawn charts examples, buy here and sell here cause its so easy, all of the stories of stock market riches, the testimonials, the lights and music, its all entertainment and fun. And of course there is the sales pitch. And so what are they pitching? What are they selling? The bottom line is that Better Trades is going to attempt to get your credit card number, right then and there for an average amount of $4,000. Of course, a person can spend much more, and some do. So lets take a look at some of these amazing trading products.
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Who Are The People Of Better Trades?
Lets start with Freddy Rick, our self described war hero and multi million dollar trader. Well it turns out that ol’ Freddie isnt much a trader after all. In fact, he has never made a nickel at trading and the SEC fined him $1,000,000, which he actually paid and agreed to change the language of the sales pitches. I was glad to read that the SEC forced Freddie into changing “Everyone At Better Trades Is Going To Be A Millionaire, Praise Jesus!”. To the following, “Everyone At Better Trades Is Going To Trade Like A Millionaire, Guaranteed, Praise Jesus!”.
Now lets move on to Bill Corcoran and Markay Latimer. Good ol’ Bill and pretty Markay dont have much of track record either. In fact, I spent nearly a month harassing and haranguing in a failed attempt at getting them to talk about their own lack of experience, zero documented trading success and no published track record. Both of these “trading coaches” appear to nothing but professional speakers. I also contacted Better Trades using multiple names, email addresses, phone calls, all in an attempt to get some sort of background history on Bill and Markay, none ever provided by the company. During the live presentation, they present themselves as millionaire traders. However, nothing would ever be published on a website and admitted that neither trades a lick. Of course, Bill and Markay are not the first coaches at Better Trades. Prior to Bill and Markay, you had Bob and Darlene.
Robert Eldridge and Darlene Nelson are the millionaire trading coaches that preceded Bill and Markay. And it turns out that neither of these clowns could trade a lick either. The SEC shut these clowns down and fined them $130,000. Amazing stuff folks.
The Show Must Go On
I rather expect that the SEC will once again step in at some point and nail Bill and Markay and rest of the coaches. But in the meantime, the show must go on! Like a traveling carnival the Better Trades road show travels from city to city, and town to town. The same pitch, over and over, perfected for the low information purchaser. Just have a peak below of the nearest group of events…
What Surprises Me Most
What drives me crazy about this company is how they dupe so many suckers into purchasing these worthless trading materials. Since I began writing these reviews, over 6 months ago, I have gotten over 30 complaints from people that spent thousands of dollars on worthless Better Trades trading DVDs, classes, trading events, the list is long and depressing. How could anyone fall for these carnival barkers? Heck, anyone that is sitting in one of these hyped up seminars can simply Google “Better Trades Complaints” on their smart phone and find everything. The internet is probably committing 2% of all traffic towards people writing complaints about Better Trades. Dont believe me? Go to RipOffReport, there must be 200 pages of complaints. Go to ComplaintsBoard…another 50 pages of complaints.
The complaints are amazing. I had one guy write to me telling me that he had spent over $26,000 with Better Trades, and he was currently spending $2,000 a month for charts, coaching and advisories. Over the past year, he has lost over $75,000 of his retirement IRA taking trades from these morning trading talks with Bill and Markay. I asked him why he is continuing to hurt himself? He say’s that he just cannot stop. Better Trades say’s that he needs to just keep trying and that riches are just around the corner. All the while, Better Trades is willing to sell him more and more products.
Another lady wrote to me describing how she had spent $5k on DVD’s and signed up for daily talks with her trading coach and a special charting service. The only problem is that she never had more than $2k in her investment account. She purchased her Better Trades products on her credit card. She attempted to cancel her trading coach and charting service, but Better Trades said that she had to pay for the entire quarter. She cancelled her credit card to end the pain. Unfortunately, Better Trades sold her information to a collection agency that now harrassess her at home. Leaving messages and making her life miserable. Seriously Better Trades? Couldn’t you just leave this woman in peace? You had to sell her name and information to the loving hand of a collection agency?
I could literally spend the next three days filling page after page of Better Trades email complaints that I have received. Its mind boggling to me. People, please stop emailing me about Better Trades. I know that many of you are pissed and want to be heard. But its time to move on and get on with life. You got taken advantage of. It sucks. It hurts. Its time to move one.
No More Requests For Review
I hate to be a jerk. But as this Better Trades road show moves like a swarm of locust from town to town, I keep getting emails asking me to review Better Trades. Readers, please just do a simple google search and everything you have ever wanted to know about these clowns is open and public. And if you still spend your money on their products and services, then shame on you. You get what you deserve.
Wrapping Things Up
This has been a particularly perplexing and frustrating review for me write. I cannot help but think that in a few days, a Better Trades Financial Freedom Expo will be hitting Cleveland, Ohio. For the next several days, in the local Cleveland television market, a Better Trade informercial will be looping through late night TV, drawing in yet more suckers. And then on June 18, its Better Trades in Las Vegas. And then June 22nd, Philadelphia. June 25, Kansas City…and then on to the next city and the next city.
Well that’s that it for today. Love me or hate me, please dont forget to let your voice be heard below. Even the haters will my embrace warm and welcoming.
This article is a hatchet job
In 2005, I did a few Better Trades workshops. I watched all the DVDs and read through all the written materials. I hadn’t heard ANY of this backstory of Freddie Rick until reading this synopsis.
I have to say that this is grossly unfair. In later seminars, they talk about asset protection. This includes how to set up corporations so you are NOT trading in your own name. Of course the professional traders have no personal records of their own trades in their own name. That would be an indication they have no grasp of asset protection.
During the seminars, they reiterate the importance of disclosures and finding someone who will show you their trades. They then proceed to open their own accounts and do live trades. These are multiple day seminars so many of the trades are opened and closed during the seminar. A couple online seminars the instructor showed how a trade went against him and he quickly changed directions selling his calls and buying puts because they trade had changed in dynamics and he had to act based on new dynamics. He advised against crying about your losses and learning how to turn situations to your favor.
Furthermore, they harped on the need to get a history so you can analyze your win/loss ratio. They talk about analyzing your trade to make sure you understand why it went the way it went: win, lose or draw. They discussed doing simulated trades. Once you have a strong history in simulated trades, move onto small dollar trades. They even discussed that the market makers are looking at trades of varying sizes. Small trades they’ll let through easier than bigger trades. So if you’re trading 1 contract of options vs 20 contracts, there might be a difference in when your trade gets routed, and minutes matter!
The whole premise was analyze, start simulated, go small, go big gradually, then go hide with asset protection.
Now if people are not patient enough to do this and want to turn $2,000 into $2 million is 2 weeks then that might be why they’re losing money.
But this article is not remotely representative of anyone I met or talked to in 2005-2008 when I was actively learning with the company.
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What’s up friends, how is all, and what you would like to say concerning this paragraph, in my view its truly remarkable designed for me.
Real, firsthand account from Indiana
Years ago, I went to a multiple-day (don’t remember which) training session with BetterTrades. (Someone else paid for me to go.) I was unusual, perhaps, in that I had already traded extensively before going to such an event. I sat there for days listening to the instructor & nodding my head. You see, almost every (or maybe even every) thing he said not to do, I had already done — & lost money by doing ! I did not necessarily agree with everything he said, but based on my real trading experience, I found *every* technical detail of his instructions to be accurate. (He taught to completely avoid “penny stocks,” which I had repeatedly & delightfully made money by trading. I found it fun.)
During those days of training sessions, I learned many technical reasons *why* I had lost money, or had traded foolishly. I was introduced to a world of information that I had been ignorant about. The options stuff was particularly poignant to me. It was a bit of a revelation to me when I learned how to make money off of a stock that was sitting still (going neither up nor down). My all-time favorite is the “iron condor,” but that strategy requires skilled timing & execution of a plan, discipline, and the use of conditional orders. Such “credit spread” based options strategies are not for everyone, and should never be attempted by an inexperienced trader (or with a 60-year-old’s retirement account).
I have lost real money by trading stocks & options unsuccessfully, but I have also made real money by both.
I cannot speak as to the issues with BetterTrades as it is now, or even as it was as a whole when I took those classes. I can only credibly tell my story. The specific instructor we had was knowledgeable and, I believe, genuine. (I wish I remembered his name.) He criticized fake trading teachers, demanding that they show their trade confirmations — to prove that they really *use* the techniques they teach, & make real money doing it. During class, he used the techniques taught that week to do a live screen, find a stock to trade, and placed a live trade right then.
Perhaps the most amazing or significant thing I witnessed that week, regarding genuineness versus fakery, was when one repeat student (you could re-take the same course as many times as you wanted by paying just $99 per re-take, & there were multiple of those people in the group that I talked to) asked a question. The instructor had opened up the class to questions & a repeat student asked about a trade that they had done that they were not successful with. (They were “stopped out” of it, which means they had a conditional order entered to exit the trade & minimize loss if it went against them.) The instructor pulled up a graph of that stock (which I remember was Caterpillar, which I made money off of last week with put options). He covered the graph after the time interval when the student had initiated the trade (a call option buy). The instructor went through a technical checklist (some of which I did not yet well grasp) & found no fault, based on the techniques he teaches, with that student’s decision. He then simply said, “That’s why we have stop orders.” That actually got an eyebrow raise out of me. Nothing spells integrity like admitting that your way is not perfect. I liken this to martial arts training. Any martial arts instructor that claims they can teach you a technique that will always overcome any situation is absolutely lying.
I don’t know if that instructor is even with the company any more, but I will vouch for that guy. Not sure about the company as a whole (especially after its founder evidently sold it).
I have lost at trading, and I have won. In my experience, the number one enemy to overcome is *yourself* — your greed, your fear, your pride, your laziness, your ignorance, etc. — whatever messes you up & keeps you from making wise, disciplined decisions.
A few parting pieces of advice / statements of fact:
1) NO ONE should risk a large portion of their portfolio / trading account on *any* one stock, sector, or options position — ever.
2) Doing “paper trading” is advisable for most people to start learning to trade.
3) Investing is not trading. They are different. (I do both, but anyway …)
4) Not everyone should expect to be successful at either investing or trading. (For example, if you suck @ math, look elsewhere for a hobby.) Any person or organization who claims “anybody can do this” is being perhaps over-optimistic, at best.
5) Technical knowledge/understanding is useful, but it is not a guarantee things will go your way. Crap happens. Don’t “put all your eggs in one basket” then toss it over a cliff, hoping you were right. Sometimes, you are wrong. Sometimes, your analysis is right & the stock *still* moves in the other direction !
6) ANY person new to investing who borrows thousands of dollars to start learning to invest is making horrible money decisions. Dave Ramsey can help. Before anyone does anything like that, look up “Financial Peace University” (I think it’s called).
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A 55-year-old husband with a 30-year-old wife … with grown children? How unrealistic can that story get? Omg! I think this was written by a very egotistical man with huge distortions of reality. What? … did this wife start having babies when she was 12? Disturbing … and Very degrading for women. Shocked. I thought I knew/loved this man better than I obviously did.
That is not unrealistic. I’m 54 with a 32 year old daughter and been married for 34 years.
DO THE WORK ! QUIT COMPLAINING, IT TAKES YEARS !
As you may know Better Trades is an educational company for Trading stocks and Options. They do not promise you anything but great education in already known information in the public theater. They show you a path to succeed if you put in the practice and time to learn the way to trade for a living or extra income. Many people complain about their experience with this company but mine has been awesome. The difference I believe is that I have put in the time to learn and master the principles required to be successful with the information they sell. You have to be real honest with yourself to determine if you are ready for the journey to learn a new set of skills that can change your life. After 28 years of investing in stocks and mutual funds with minimal success I was determined to do my own thing in managing my financial future and Better Trades helped me do just this. I left my corporate engineering job at 46 years old with the ability to earn more money than my job was paying me. Our retirement is secure and will produce in excess of $10,000/mo. to live on. I do not think any company will provide you an income for retirement to equal this. THE BOTTOM LINE IS YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK TO SUCCEED! AND CONTINUE TO DO THE WORK TO MAINTAIN YOUR SUCCESS! Most people are lazy and give up before they see the good times. Most Americans today expect to get rich without much work, this just will not happen! America is the greatest country in the world but we as American people must believe in ourselves and then be determined to succeed on our own. Few can do this and want to place blame somewhere else when failure occurs. No one walks into a job instantly successful and making big money. After many years you will begin to grow and increase your income as you strive to climb the ladder. Following the Better Trades information is nothing different. Review the DVDs dozens and dozens of times and you will begin to learn the process. I have been on my own for 15 years now earning great money and doing better than any job would ever provide me. I control my schedule, my life and my finances; Its great to be financially free. I DID THE WORK AND CONTINUE TO DO THE WORK AND LIFE IS GREAT! THANK YOU BETTER TRADES !
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I love it. Is is OK if I use these exact words for my shill post when I open up my con artist day trading room. I gathering it all together for the day when I scam people out of millions. Brilliant, nether show any proof and just have shills like you make wonderful post again with no proof.
@ John Ginn Are you shills getting in your posts early so that you can have an uninterrupted long weekend? Hundreds of complaints against Better Trades, SEC violations and fines and these are the people you’re suggesting traders should learn from.
well said. it is just amazing the same type of swill is said over and over again by these shills. i.e. keep “working” at it and you’ll get there when it’s more like the big stone of sisyphus going nowhere until the student churns out and realizes they wasted time and money on a complete con malarky sham.
This is a great review including a generic story of being sold the trading dream by a scam. Every newb should heed the scenario depicted. Somehow missed it as it doesn’t show up on the main pages anymore.
some old dirt on bettertrades. Like OTA , onlinetradingacademy they are one of the legacy organizations with pushy sales in “training” seminars.
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T052-C000-S002-our-man-goes-undercover-and-tells-all.html
As the more internet savvy middle agers with tablets and smartphones have grown savvy to those scams, the current fad this decade seems to be webinar rooms such as GTR, JasonBond, WarriorTrading , etc. where many are still fooled because of the new sham tricks they come up with.
When a cousin took me to their “first-pitch” session (the ONLY thing you can get free from Better Trades), what caught my eye was the fact that they wanted you to sign a waver against your 3-day right-to-cancel. Tells you something about a company, when they want you to act against your own interest right from the get-go. Quality of DVDs was absolutely sub-par, and any attempt to trade them out for “recently-updated” ones was met with a “cross our palm with an obscene cash amount” — meaning, “No: you’re stuck with what you paid for.” Gotta hand it to them on this front: they were way ahead in the race of getting folks attention. In the years subsequent, I learned that everything they had to offer can be learned or obtained GRATIS from any number of venues. They had ONE instructor whose advise was typically dead-on and helpful, Jimmy Jones from Texas, I believe. Any great surprise that he’s not been with this company for a good many years?
I first met Freddie Rick in the late 1990s when he was a spokesman for the now defunct Wade Cook’s Stock Market Institute. Their basic package was around $5,000 which I paid but never fully received because the company went out of business during the stock market crash of 2000. Apparently neither Wade nor his staff of “expert traders” and instructors to avoid trying to catch that proverbial falling knife. Freddie and “Better Trades” evolved from those ashes but they still use the same techniques that spelled doom for Wade Cook’s gang.
I bought into the Better Trades options “mess” ten years ago. we had a nice group in their chat room where I learned more from other traders than from the Better trades instructors. No one at that time traded real money, we were too afraid and unprepared to get ‘killed’ in the markets. Some of us that finally did jump into trading real money, a couple of years after the “initiation” lost a lot of money. I lost $20,000, two others lost $10,000 each. But insisted that if we bought another of their special classes we would improve our trading. So far, I have spent $40,000, I am ashamed to admit, and I still can not trade profitably. I can not figure out what the missing link is with Better Trades. No one else can either. I have met of their students in different classes that I’ve attended and did not meet a single person that is making money. I think Markay Latimer is genuine, although she never showed us the outcome of the trades she took. Rob Roy seems to be decent enough. Again, no proof that he trades. The same is true for all of the instructors. Darlene Nelson was a total “flake” and a phony.
My advice to any one thinking about Better Trades is: “Stay away” . They are very “pushy” vultures!!!!!