MES Capital *Update*

Thanks for reading today’s updated review on MES Capital Group

On January 1, 2016 I published a review of MES Capital Group. The original review was a pretty good thrashing of the company. If you read the original review, you probably walked away thinking that the company was a scam. The basis of my negative review was based upon the following assumptions: I could not verify whom actually owned the company, I could not verify the existence of trading funds used to fund traders, the company stonewalled even the most basic questions, the female administrator of the company was rude and secretive in multiple email exchanges, and finally, the company was linking out to several websites that I had prior negative experiences.

In addition to having a difficult time with the company representative at MES Capital, I also carried into the review a very negative bias. Why would I have a negative bias? Quite simply, in the past year, I have written about several companies that were outright frauds. The common theme was that a person could possibly receive company funding to trade, but they must first purchase a suite of $6,000 indicators or purchase a “training” program for anywhere from $3,000 to $20,000. If you have spent any amount of time on the TradingSchools.Org blog, there are plenty of negative reviews that you can find that highlight and expose this scam. The commonality of the scammers are that they refuse to verify if any traders have ever been funded, and if an actual trading account exists that could support more than a single funded trader.

The funded trader scam rubs me raw. Really raw. The people most effected are usually the most desperate. Many fell into the scam believing that they were getting an actual job. Others spent thousands of dollars and were convinced that they would be able to soon quit there current job and begin trading fulltime.

One scammer in particular actually paid someone to fulltime post Help Wanted ads in craigslist.org. The target had to first spend a $49 fee to download a free copy of Ninja Trader. After the target downloaded and installed Ninja Trader, they then traversed a nightmare of upselling and creative storytelling by the owner. All meant to lure the victim down the primrose path, every step used to drain their personal credit cards even further. For many, this nightmare scenario ended only when the victim finally had exhausted themselves trading on nothing but a simulator. Some even passed these “trading tests” and had jumped through all of the prerequisite hoops and fully expected to receive a funded trading account. They only wanted the opportunity that was promised to them. However, what they later discovered was that entire series of educational events and trading simulators were just a series of barbed wire fences that mercifully ended at a crocodile moat.

So Many Scams

Admittedly, I went into the MES Capital review with the attitude and preconception that THIS MUST BE TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Like a old dog that had known only a life of abuse, deception, and the ugliness of mankind…perhaps my eye was too yellow and cloudy. After seeing so much fraud, perhaps I prematurely jumped to an aggressively negative conclusion.

When I drafted the original review, it was so provocative and accusatory, that I was hoping to “smoke out” the truth. Surely, once the review was posted, the truth would be easy to capture. I expected that a flood of emails would come into my inbox, and there would be messages that people had failed the combine and were then instructed to purchase an educational package from one of the selected trading educators. If a person purchased the education, then they would be given some sort of priority to receive a funded trading account. Surely, it had to be a scam. Right?

Another thing I wanted to see was whether any funded accounts would contact me directly, and come to the defense of the company.

It was sort of a perverted experiment. Time would tell.

Discovery

In the last two months, I have been contacted by dozens of people that had taken the free trial. Not a single person that failed the trial was marketed even a single trading product, educational course, indicator package, or nutty mentorship. I expected the exact opposite. And I got it dead wrong. Instead, a literal army of people came to defend the company. And these were not the usual shills that troll the comments section of the blog. These were unique IP address’s from all over the globe.

Some of the comments that I receive included,

This review is whack.

I got funded and your an idiot.

You are just a shill for Top Step Trader

And so, I have to be honest that during the year 2015, I earned $2,100 from Top Step Trader. Oh, and I got two frozen pizza’s sent to me as a thank you. Maybe it did influence my perspective a bit. Maybe it influenced my perspective a lot. It did influence my perspective.

Real Traders

During the last two months, I have been contacted by three traders that have been funded by MES Capital. Two of the traders received a funded account and promptly blew it up. The third is still with the company and is really happy. In fact, he made me promise to not mention his name as it might hurt his status with the company. Apparently MES Capital was really pissed off about the unfair review. And truthfully, I feel terrible about making some pretty wild accusations and connecting dots that were spaced between far reaching planets. In retrospect, the fuel for the negative review was fueled by an ugly combination of dealing with so many scammers, being paid by Top Step Trader, and being initially stone walled by MES Capital.

Obviously, I got it wrong. The company funds traders, and is probably the most deserving company of a positive review that I have written about. Whom else in the trading arena is willing to give a retail trader a free shot at anything? Most trading vendors just see retail traders as suckers and idiots, but this company decided to get down into the mud and try and find a few gems.

Conversation with an MES founder

Finally, during the final week of February 2016, I received an email from one of the founders of MES Capital. He had some issues regarding privacy and asked to speak with me directly. We exchanged phone numbers are procceded to have a very pleasant telephone conversation.

One of the things that we talked about was the early stage of MES Capital. Apparently, with a hilariously laughable naiveté, the guys as MES Capital decided to run an advertisement and simply hire some good traders. They went about finding full time professional traders in pretty much the same way a convenience store would hire a clerk to sell candy bars and soda pop. Predictably, the initial attempts at hiring professional traders was an absolute nightmare and they essentially gave away 6 figures on a bunch of people that had convinced them that they were the second coming of George Soros.

After hearing about all of the failure, lost money and frustration, it dawned on me with a real sense of dread that these guys got a really bad deal from me. The last thing they needed was a moron writing negatively and causing even more problems.

So the real question that readers probably want to know is whether the MES Capital model of funding what are traditionally the weakest market participant’s, is it profitable? In speaking with one of the founders, it is profitable. But it is not the easy money cash cow that they had envisioned. They are in fact taking on a massive amount of risk and the funded traders assume none of the liability. Juxtapose the position of MES Capital vs Top Step Trader, and you cannot help but cheer for the company that is not placing participants onto a perpetual hamster wheel.

What you should immediately do

If you are interested in becoming a funded trader with Top Step Trader, you should put it on hold. The first step should be to attempt to become a funder trader with MES Capital. It costs nothing, and you will not be sold anything. Why spend $200 dollars a month for the opportunity to run on the Top Step hamster wheel, where nearly everyone eventually fails? Why not first thoroughly exhaust all available free options before going out of pocket? I recommend it. I should of recommended it earlier. And for that I can only apologize and try to make things right.

Wrapping things up

If the owners of MES Capital read this update. Hopefully, they are gracious enough to accept my apology. I truly mean it. And for all of my haters out there on the internet, this would be a great time to get out your Billy clubs and write something nasty about me in the comments section. I certainly deserve it. But I am also human, and like everyone else on this planet, irrevocable bound to constant stream of mistakes.

One final note, if I had to come up with a critique of MES Capital it is that the company does not have a “set in stone” series of steps that guarantee funding. Even if your simulated or real results are sterling, for whatever reason, they still might not like your style of trading. At the end of the day, its their money, and they can and should allocate it to only the best and brightest.