BonTrade

Today’s review is BonTrade, a live day trading chat room.

What is BonTrade? BonTrade offers a live day trading room that specializes in teaching students how to day trade the crude oil futures. The cost of the day trading room is $399 per month.

In addition to the live day trading room, BonTrade also offers an Advanced Course at a price of $5,949, a price action course at a price of $3,449, and a mini course at $1,349.

Who owns BonTrade.Org? There is no listed ownership anywhere on the website. However, we were able to confirm that a person named “Scott” is responsible for the company. We sent three requests to the company asking for some sort of summary of ownership, however they were only willing to reveal the name “Scott”.

How long has BonTrade.Org been in business? Once again, the company refused to answer the question. However, through a quick perusal of Archive.Org we can see that the company has been offering a live day trading room and educational products since 2009.

Funded Trader Opportunity?

One of the things that I found interesting about BonTrade is that they are offering a “Funded Trader” trading opportunity to anyone that purchases the $5,949 advanced educational course. In a nutshell, a person pays a fee of $5,949 for the Advanced Course, and once a person has proven that they have learned the course material, then they will be given a trading account funded with $50,000. BonTrade describes this opportunity as “No Risk Trading”.

I had some serious questions about this funded account opportunity. Specifically, what exactly does a person need to accomplish to be rewarded the $50,000 trading account? How many other people have also been awarded a $50,000 trading account? Whom is providing the $50,000 for me to trade “risk free”? Am I allowed to lose the entire $50,000? All of these questions are serious questions, and so I emailed the company and asked for specifics regarding the $50,000 trading account.

Thus far, the company has not responded to my inquiries. I have given the company two weeks to respond and made multiple requests via email…they have simply decided to ignore me.

Recently I wrote a review of TopStepTrader, which offers a similar opportunity. However, the people at TopStepTrader were more than forthcoming in verifying the opportunity. At TopStepTrader, I was able to actually speak with the funded traders, as well confirm the size of the trading fund. BonTrade is simply unwilling to even answer the most basic questions regarding the opportunity. Very suspicious.

The Day Trading Room

From July 28 through July 30, as well as August 6 through August 10  I recorded the live day trading room in its entirety. For the six days of attendance, the only thing that I was able to witness was a chart of crude oil. There is no speaking or sound whatsoever. Rather, there is a chat box where the moderator would occasionally type something like, “this could be a good spot” or “I might take this” along with chat, the moderator would type in abbreviations that apparently mean something. Not once was I able to ever record the moderator giving a specific trading recommendation. However, if the market moved in the predicted direction as the prior suggestion, then the moderator was quick to congratulate himself for yet another winning trade.

The following is a typical chart that a person will see once inside of the trading room:

One thing that you will never see inside of the BonTrade trading room is a trading DOM. Nor will you ever see any trading from the charts. This appears to be a trading room that only provides the occasional suggestion via chat box. But no concrete trading that can be tracked and recorded.

One more pressing issue regarding the chat box…there is a cacophony of other people frantically typing in suggestions and chatter, so whenever the moderator typed a message, I had to fish out the message. Very, very confusing, annoying, and unprofessional. In particular, one anonymous person kept typing in “BOOYAH!!!” with way too many exclamation points. Apparently he had placed a trade in some sort of market and was doing a happy dance. I find him really irritating because I was trying my best to figure out what Scott was doing.

Searching For Performance

At the end of each trading session, I sent an email to “Scott” and asked for a record of trades called within the prior trading room session. “Scott” responded that he no longer kept a record of trades because it was too easy to simply create a fake record of trades, and since it was too easy, that he would not send me something that could be easily faked. This sort of ridiculous logic I found annoying. I emailed back to Scott an assured to him that I believed that he would not send me a fake record of trades, however Scott replied that I should go back and reread his original message.

Finally, I sent an email asking “Scott” if he was actually trading with a live trading account, and that the only way I could place a value on his educational products and methodology was to look at his own individual trading performance. I very kindly requested a copy of trades that comes from the month end statement. This month end statement gives the profit and loss and the exact trades entry and exit for the month. Once again, Scott explained that this could easily be faked with photoshop and that I could not ever believe if anyone ever sent me account statements. I explained that I would not question his integrity, and that I would believe whatever he sent me. He once again refused and once again gave me the explanation that anyone could simply create fake account statements and that this was the worst possible way to verify his trading performance.

However, Scott did invite me to read his testimonials and that the testimonials were proof that students were happy and profitable.

Using Multiple Identities

Perhaps “Scott” had a problem with my personality. And so I created a couple of different aliases and random email addresses. And then I sent “Scott” variations of my prior line of questioning. Once again, Scott responded with same line of broken logic.

Getting Scott’s Attention

In one last attempt to get Scott to speak with me, I sent an email that said that I was now ready to spend $5,949 for the advanced trading course. This certainly got his attention quickly and my email was promptly answered. However, I said that before I send my $5,949 fee, that I would need to verify that “Scott” actually trades. Once again, “Scott” referenced me to his prior reasoning and that he would not disclose any trading performance. However, he once again offered testimonials.

Wrapping Things Up

The BonTrade trading room is a complete waste of time. There is absolutely no record of trades for the trading room. The person that owns the company refuses to verify if he even has a live trading account. No live trading on the screen whatsoever. No DOM, no trading on the charts, no release of account statements. The trading suggestions from the chat box are just suggestions, there are no specifics like “I am entering at X price, with a stop at Y price, and a target at Z price. However, if the price moves in the suggested direction, then the moderator was quick to congratulate himself.

The $50,000 fully funded trading account also appears to be complete and total nonsense meant to lure the newbie into purchasing the $5,949 dollar course in the shadowy and remote hope that he would be able to secure an additional $50,000.

The only way I was able to get even the most minuscule amount of attention from BonTrade was when I said that I was ready to spend my money on the educational course.

This guy Scott is a complete BOZO. Avoid.