Trading Advantage Capital TRUSTED Business REVIEW: Customer Satisfaction Commitment: Trading Advantage Capital is committed to 100% customer satisfaction. Trading Advantage Capital implemented strategic changes ensuring client satisfaction and success by developing new ways helping clients search for new education opportunities effectively even in the sort of challenging market we face today.
I had the bad fortune of being hired as an employee of Trading Advantage approximately 4 months ago. The operation is run by Larry Levin who is by all accounts a questional character and outright egomaniac. The company recently underwent an expansion and I was brought on as an appointment setter by their Director of Recruitment who was demoted less than a month later.
I was tasked with qualifying leads and setting appointments for the other consultants with whom I worked. After 1 month of this work, I was tasked with pitching and closing 5 deals in order to gain promoted into a Senior Consultant role. An appointment setter is paid a $1500 draw every month which averages out to less than $8.25 per hour (below minimum wage) when you factor in the mandatory later hours and weekends one is required to work to reach their productivity target.
Once an appointment setter is promoted, they are paid a commission of 15% on sales made during that month. The reason I am writing this report is because I met the expectations which were laid out for me and was still terminated right before I was to receive a promotion. During my tenure there, the Director of Sales (my direct boss) was sent to county jail for approximately 3 months due to reasons unbeknownst to me.
There was NO oversight with regards to compliance, training and development, continuing education or instruction as to how to do one's job effectively. Questions or requests for support went unanswered or were ignored entirely. Senior consultants have a complete disregard for professionalism towards one another in the workplace and verbally accost one another and their customers as a way to silence criticism or generate greater sales. They are expected to act this way as it is deeply ingrained in the Trading Advantage culture. IT IS AN ALPHA MALE ENVIRONMENT which lacks decorum and respectability on all fronts.
The company does not abide by a national do not call database as they repeatedly call leads which have requested to be placed on a DNC list. The cost of the education is grossly overpriced and it is intentionally priced this way because Larry Levin cannot even justify the value attributed to his proprietary education. The truth is (to all that are considering purchasing this education), consultants will strike just about any deal with customers to get them to buy TODAY. There is NO REFUND policy regardless of whether you are told otherwise. Once you provide an electronic signature, you are locked in for the full purchase price.
Outside of work, I am sure that the employees are very nice, respectable people. They are simply motivated by money and they should not be mischaracterized due to that motivation. I hold no ill will towards them as they treated me with some degree of respect. Unfortunately, their employer LARRY LEVIN is skirting Consumer Protection Laws, Illinois Fair Wage Compensation Law and ofcourse, Financial Regulatory Laws which if discovered (and I hope they are) would mean Larry is going to be in alot of trouble very soon.
The co-owner of Trading Advantage is Josh Lewis who also owns Kingsview Financial. During my employment there, I fielded a call from an irrate gentlemen who said after he had purchased his education package (10K), he was referred to Kingsview Financial to trade his funds for him. As per his unverified account, He deposit 50K in a brokerage account and within 6 months, lost 30K of his funds without any documentation reflecting what trades had been executed or how the funds were managed. This call led me to believe that something unmistakeably deceitful was happening at Trading Advantage.
When I brought it up to management, I was castigated, told to not field customer service calls and that a representative would follow up with the customer and handle the situation. Truth be told, I know that no one did call that poor guy back. I am also certain that this awareness and unwillingness to play by their rules is what lead to my termination.
In the end, I was deducted 300 dollars from my final paycheck which supposedly accounts for 3 days of work. In all actualilty, 3 days of work at my rate of 1500 per month is equal to about $204 dollars. This means that the company also cooks their books and should be investigated with the full force of the FCC, SEC, and the State of Illinois.
I highly reccomend that consumers and employees educate themselves prior to beginning a relationship with this organization and its owner Larry Levin. I am not a jilted employee nor do I intend to file suit against them for their numerous violations of the law during my employment there. I just simply cannot sit idly by while people are TAKEN ADVANTAGE of unnecesarily. Any rebuttal to this factual and unbiased report by Trading Advantage or its cohorts will be met with a swift response on ripoffreport.com.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
AnonFire
Chicago,Illinois,
Rebuttal to Trading Advantage Response
#3Author of original report
Wed, July 17, 2013
To expend additional time on Trading Advantage would serve no useful purpose. I dissagree with their well polished rebuttal as it does not reflect the true nature of their culture or work environment. The information laid out occured as previously stated. The owner of this company is a public figure who makes regular appearances on financial news networks. As a public figure, he is subject to criticism, both written and oral. As is the mission statement for this site, so to is my intent: to ensure consumers have an opportunity to make up their own minds and remain prudent in their business affairs. I wish Trading Advantage, its owners and its employees the best in this and all their future endeavors. So long as there is naivette and gray areas in business, their will be companies like Trading Advantage.
Trading Advantage
Chicago,Illinois,
Trading Advantage's response to AnonFire
#3REBUTTAL Owner of company
Tue, July 16, 2013
As with any company, the overall culture and work environment will not be a fit for every person. While this complaint was written by someone who says they are not a jilted employee, the tone and content of their post leads us to believe otherwise. Currently, we have over 30 employees, many of whom have been with the company for years. With master’s degrees, military honors, corporate experience and more, our pedigrees and backgrounds are diverse and varied. While we all strive for excellence, we are inclusive, accepting, and value every employee’s opinion. Yes, we are passionate, competitive, even loud and boastful at times, but with roots on the trading floor, we believe our culture reflects that of the entire industry.
As a respected media commentator on the major financial networks, Larry Levin serves as the face of Trading Advantage. Often described as “humble” and “self-effacing,” Larry’s personal trading struggles are well documented in the Trading Advantage educational materials. He credits a large part of his trading success to his mentor on the trading floor and founded the company to “pay it forward.” Our founders are hands on managers who are willing to roll-up their sleeves.
The Trading Advantage management team cares about every employee, including the Director of Sales mentioned in the complaint. Out of respect for his privacy, they chose not to share his personal issues with company at the time of his absence. This issue had nothing to do with Trading Advantage, and they felt it was not pertinent to share this information. He has now finished his 45 day sentence for a suspended drivers license issue that happened over 20 year ago.
While Trading Advantage is not required to be a registered entity with regulators because we fall under an educator’s exemption pertaining to the industry, we still adhere to the strictest regulatory standards. We have an internal Do Not Call List of over 46,000 numbers which is revised and updated daily. Our marketing materials, course materials, and sales presentations are all reviewed by our external legal counsel. We employ a structured compliance system modeled on those of regulated entities whereby all communications with the public are reviewed and signed off on by the legal team. Our legal counsel has the ability to listen to any live phone correspondence to monitor outside communications for the purposes of critiquing staff. We are always watching cases brought by regulators including the FCC, CFTC, SEC, FINRA, and NFA to stay abreast of the regulatory climate so we can adapt our internal policies accordingly.
Regarding Kingsview Financial, they are one of the many brokerage houses (including E*Trade, Charles Schwab, Think or Swim, Fidelity and others) our students use to execute their trades. Kingsview Financial is a registered entity that is required to be a member of the NFA. Trading Advantage is an education firm. While we strive to give our students information pertaining to all facets of their trading, they sometimes fail to distinguish the roles and functions each company serves. We are not sure how the ex-employee “knew” that the client was not called back, nor do we comprehend how he intuited something deceitful was happening, but we believe these claims to be baseless and false.
Finally, we’d like to address the quality of the Trading Advantage education. We have thousands of students from across the globe. From stay-at-home mothers to pilots to doctors to truck drivers, the success of our students is the best testament to the superior nature of our product. You can read some of them here. http://tradingadvantage.com/how-to-trade/index.php/testimonials.These testimonials were not solicited or paid, just genuine feedback from our student.
Compared to the rest of the industry, our pricing is very competitive, and considering the comprehensive nature of our education, we believe there is no better value. Our multi-pronged comprehensive learning approach combines written materials, a virtual signal classroom, an interactive on demand learning center, user friendly technology and one-on-one mentoring.
We are sorry that this employee was not successful at Trading Advantage. This employee had asked for a promotion and was in fact turned down by management. However, we take the reputation of our company very seriously –from the integrity of its owners, to the character of the employees, and most of all the quality of our education. This post is defamatory and we would hope that this person would exercise prudence and write factual material about Trading Advantage in the future.