I have the WORST experience with Anton Kreli's Institute of Trading. I bought their video course, which teaches some very basic risk management tools and how to monitor stock performance. There's no magic formula. You won't learn how to trade and make money from him.
What really pisses me off is when I enrolled in his mentoring program. After I signed up for the mentoring program, I decided it was too expensive with doubtful values. So, I emailed Anton to request a refund. He said he would refund the unused mentoring fees.
This is when things started to get really bad:
1. After some partial refund, he refused to refund the rest. When I emailed to follow up, there was no responses. For a student who spent thousands of dollars on his video course, I believed this lack of respose is extremely disappointing and is definitely not the way to treat your customers!
2. Also, his whole brand was about him being successful as a multimillionaire trader. When I request for a refund, he said he had cash flow problems and can't refund the money. I found that very strange for someone who was supposed to be successful.
3. FYI, once you're on his mailing list, you'll get emails about speculative investments such as investing in his film project. These types of investments are not suitable for regular people. It reminded me of the saying that if you don't know who the suckers are in the room, it's probabaly you. I get the feeling that he's using his brand to prey upon less sophiscated students and people.
I've purchased his video course and saw how the business was run as former student. I will NEVER ever use them again! I will recommend anyone to STAY AWAY from this company. It also has the WORST customer service ever! It will take you money and couldn't care less about what happens to you!!
Ian
Alabama,#2Consumer Comment
Tue, March 31, 2015
Hi,
I wasn’t nervous about starting the course as I had seen million dollar traders initially and made investigations like any person would.
I completed the course and was very impressed with the content. I have completed diplomas, degrees, and post graduate studies in finance which I think had less practical application compared to the ITPM course. I was very happy with the content.
I only enrolled in the 30 day course though wish I had enrolled in lifetime membership as new videos have recently been uploaded which I wish I had access to.
The only reason I write this rebuttal is the fact that I have my own business and would loath the thought of someone like Wendy Huang writing such BS. I can only hope that this will cause more harm to her career when someone searches ‘Wendy Huang’ only to see how unprofessional and repulsive she has acted towards a legitimate business. Only through laziness and/or lack of commitment it seems she didn’t complete the course within the timeframes set out like any other training provider.
It is revulsive how someone like Wendy Huang blatantly lies online to try and cause commercial harm to a business like ITPM. I commend Anton for devoting such time in replying and easily putting this so called complaint into the BS pile where it belongs.
I wish you all the best Anton as well as everyone else who completes the course (within the clearing specified timeframe).
Ian
SR
Los Angeles ,#3Consumer Comment
Mon, January 05, 2015
I was a bit nervous about the Institute given this report but I've just completed the video course and found it to be of tremendous value. I've been tradng successfully for some time but I'm quite certain this will improve my results substantially. I expect to recoup the cost in a short amount of time. It was an extremely good value as far as I'm concerned.
I wish I'd had access to their teaching a long time ago.
I'm looking forward to the mentoring portion next.
In all my dealings with them have been straight forward.
There is no ripoff here.
Anton Kreil
London,#4REBUTTAL Owner of company
Tue, July 29, 2014
Firstly the fact that this website is called "RIP OFF Report" infers that someone was trying to Rip someone off. When in this instance NO-ONE was trying to rip ANYONE off AT ALL. What people have the power to write online these days in bending the truth and writing almost outright lies just so they can try to bribe coompanies is totally ridiculous. This is yet another online example of someone who believes because the internet exists that they can go and write anything they want, bend the truth, exagerrate and put companies in a bad light, even though the company did everything they wanted, then expect those businesses that offer unbelievably high levels of service and product (with less than 1% complaints & refunds) to sit back and let them get away with it.
The truth of the matter is this. Wendy Huang cotacted the Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management in September 2013 and paid for a three month Trader Mentoring Programme with Anton Kreil. It is company policy to do this for several reasons. Not least because people need to be committed to doing Trader Mentoring Programmes because we have a waiting list of 3 months to join the programme. Wendy's Mentoring Programme was supposed to start at the end of October 2013 and last until the end of January. Wendy then disappeared and was uncontactable after paying the Institute for the programme. Infact we did manage to contact her once and she scheduled a telephone to start the mentoring programme then cancelled it.
a 3 month mentoring programme is supposed to be 12 scheduled telphone calls over 12 weeks starting 4 weeks after the programme has been booked and paid for. Wendy disappeared and even cancelled one call, therefore as a company we had no way of completing the programme from our side until she wanted to start. Wendy was told everything on how the mentoring programme works prior to her paying for it. If she didnt want to do it, she wouldnt have paid for it. She did pay for it, then she diappeared. There was no more contact from that point until she got back to us in May 2014 asking us for a refund "because her father was sick" - Usually this is an excuse a child uses in school when the teacher is telling them off for doing something they shouldnt have done. How apt!
We have all the emails in the links provided here;-
http://issuu.com/instituteoftrading/docs/wendy_huang_rebuttle
http://issuu.com/instituteoftrading/docs/wendy_rebuttle_2
Several things need to be highlighted here so people without the understanding of how things work at the institute and understanding of how things work in business should understand.
1. Services refunds - in the UK if you pay for a product you have by law to leave a 7 day cooling off period so if the customer asks for a refund and the product is in the same condition as they bought it then they are entitled to a full refund. after 7 days they are not. in services (such as education, mentoring, consulting) the law is 21 days. NOT 8 months WENDY !!! We were not entitled to give you a refund AND we still gave you one because we are good to our customers. You would not get one from 99% of companies out there. We did it because we felt sorry for you and because we dont have faceless processes that require several levels of management to sign refunds off. it goes straight to the MD and he processed it within 6 weeks of the request.
Conclusion - wendy Huang clearly has no idea how consumer rights work AND how good we have actually beed ot her.
2. Cash Flow - There are no problems AT ALL in terms of cash flow at the Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management. You can see in the links provided the original email conversation between Anton Kreil and Wendy Huang in which Anton kreil refers to "refunding Wendy out of cash flow" - this means instead of refunding it all at once, to refund it in 2 payments. this does no way mean that there are cash flow problems in a business. it simply means that the business owner is streamlining the payments (refund) so that the busness doesnt look "lumpy" from an accounting perspective. Anyone in business who has half a brain knows that this is a preferable situation to taking "the hit" in one go. Especially when "the hit" is totally unexpected and out of the blue from someone who sends an email asking for a refund on something 8 months fater she has paid for it. Again we are back to people writing and nending the truth online in an attempt to make companies look bad for no reason except bitterness.
3. Exageration and bending the truth
Wendy has been unfair in her assesment of how we handled her situation, not least because of the post on a website called "Rip Off Report" but also in the fact that in her emails to us she is literally saying the opposite of what she has posted here. you will see in the email trail that she literally states that our video series - which is our professional trading eduaction is "the best" - people that run successful businesses both online and offline need to really pay attention to stuff like this because its very symptamatic of our time. Businesses like ours that have less than 1% of customer complaints can still be victimised online by customers even though they actually like their product and their service. Even worse is peoplke that have never interacted with the company or bought their product write negative comments online. unfortunately idiotic people that go online and believe these reviews never get to experience products that are actually going to make their lives better because some "troll" has written negative spin online. In many instances with the Institute this is usually because the customer is wanting to generate publicity for themselves. I do not know what the agenda was here from Wendy except to get her refund back, which she was given within 6 weeks of her wanting to be paid and after 8 months of no contact.
4. Wendy Huang and her Profession
Wendy Huang is actually a junior trader on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and she is literally saying our Video series (education) is "the best," however online she talks nonesense and tries to say that the Institute's education is bad. This is pure and simple trolling because we didnt refund her exactly when she wanted... the fact that a professional trader believes our education to be the bets should tell you everything you need to know about the standard of our trading education. the email is the truth and the "Rip Off Report" posting is her panicking and "throwing her toys out the crib" because we didnt pay her refund (which we had no obligation to pay) exaclty when she wanted.
I apologise to Wendy if she genuiely believes she has had a bad experience with the Institute, however I genuinely believe that she DID NOT have a bad experience with the Institute and she has made it very clear in her emails that she actually is a fan of our education.
Quite frankly I am disgusted that she would write this nonesense online and try to hurt our business when all we tried to do is follow procedures, follow logic and business sensibility AND went above and beyond in refunding her payment. It never ceases to amaze me how disgustingly cynical people can be in trying to bring down others with malicious online falsehoods and exagerations.
No-one was trying to rip anyone off. I think this is pretty obvious....
Regards
Anton Kreil
Wendy
Chicago,#5Author of original report
Thu, July 17, 2014
I want to add the context of my cash flow comment in the original post. When I requested the refund, I was told that they could only refund half because of cash flow reason. The cash flow comment I made in my original post is my personal opinion based on the reason they gave me. It may or may not represent the true financial situation of the business.
Wendy
Chicago,#6Author of original report
Wed, July 16, 2014
The company refunded my money yesterday. I'm still waiting to get the last part of the refund for a lifetime access that was purchased as part of the mentoring program and was never used.
Overall, the company finally did process the refund after a month of delay, so I don't have additional complaints about them. I also want to add some colors to my original report. For the cash flow problem, it could be specifically for the business and not a reflection of the success of the owner as a trader. For the film project investment, I didn't experience any high pressure sales or misleading statements. It's an email blast for people to participate in raising funds for the film project.