We knew we could rely upon members such as your good self to shout 'foul play' the minute this happens and, in consequence, we decided it wasn't a problem at all!
Thank you, and a happy and prosperous new year to you too.
I agree entirely with most of your post, apart from the sentance I've included above. Whilst its true that there are members who may well shout "foul play", that does not necessarily mean that a problem does not exist.
There a couple of problems. The first is that there is reality, and there is perception. The reality is that forum guides are not endorsed by T2W, and that T2W makes efforts to eliminate conflicts of interest, and probably even goes so far as to make this quite clear to anyone who cares to read the sites terms and conditions, and the various other bumf thats published from time to time. However the
perception is that the guides have an elevated status, so their opinions carry more weight. I would argue if you had 2 vendors, selling similar products, and vendor A was flagged as "BANNED", and vendor B was flagged as a "T2W Advisor", or "T2W Forum Guide", or "T2W Moderator" then the latter would be
percieved as having greater credabiity than the former.
From the materials that you've provided, and the posts that you've made, its apparent to me at least that you've committed a significant amount of effort in studying the markets, and that you've approached the task from a logical perspective, and with realistic expectations. I appologise if I've misread the situation, but you dont strike me as the sort of guy who'd endorse claims of returns in excess of 100% per week, or even 100% per month. However, the site does have forum guides who are openly making such claims. In one case, not only can they make 100% a month, they can simultaneously sit in the sun relaxing
I lose track of how long I've been in this game, its been about 6-7 years full time and I'll quite happily admit that I cant achieve 100% per week, or a 100% per month (not without an unacceptably high risk of losing a similar amount). However at least two of the sites forum guides claim to be able to do so, and by using EA's.
I acknowledge that just because I cant make a risk free, tax free 100% a month whilst relaxing in the sun doesnt mean that it cant be done, but I'd suggest from experience its quite rare, although I did once meet someone who claimed to have made good money day trading during the dot com boom, and as he was sailing around in 60 million dollars worth of boat, I had no cause to doubt he'd made money doing something, and quite possibly trading.
So the first problem is that these advisors are perpetuating a perception that risk free 100% returns per month are commonplace. I'm unclear as to how this fits in with the sites objectives of providing objective guidance to new traders, I'd argue that its a quite misleading impression. If the advisor also claims to have a commercial product that produces these returns, well... lets just say its a bit iffy.
The second problem, is that although certain members may cry "foul play", by and large those concerns will go unheeded. I'll provide just two example. The first was Mr Spreadbetting, he quite cleverly used T2W members of staff and ledgendary members to endorse his product. It was clear to anyone with a modicum of experience that the guy was a fraud, or indeed to anyone with the ability to type a few words into Google that his content had been plagerised. Still that didnt stop him from using and abusing T2W to generate the best part of a third of a million in sales. The threads are still there if you care to look, and they illustrate the ineffectiveness of members shouting "foul play"
The second example, and I really cant resist bringing it up, is of course the Wasp fiasco. In the case of Mr Spreadbetting, a moderator at least had the decency to try and put an end to his games by locking the thread, and although it was akin to locking the stable door after the horse had bolted, he at least tried, and at least had the integrity to comment on Mr Spreadbettings multi user shinnanagins. In this case T2W moved heaven and earth to supress information when someone shouted "fould play"
Having said all this, I would suggest to you that there is a problem.
