Headway Trading / James Woodhead

This is a completely random stab in the dark but maybe someone could shed come light on this subject. The main reason I am asking is simply because over the weekend I have been at a family wedding and saw my cousin (explained below) who showed me all the emails regarding this and it has seriously pissed me off. Possibly someone here was at Headway and got some answers. Even if no body as any info, it could be useful to warn you about James Woodhead just incase any of you have an encounter with him in your trading career.

Back in October 2009, my cousin joined Headway Trading. Run by James Woodhead (Previous TCA Markets mentor). Headway Trading was based in the City (not sure of exact location) and was set-up to provide aspiring traders to 'learn' how to trade over a 4 month period and the prospect of trading company funds for a fee of £3,500. After 3 months and the promise of going live that day, the company closed. He received a short email from James Woodhead saying Goodbye, the company is closing after 6 months of trading. You will not get a refund. From what I gather some of the newer trainee's had been asked to pay their fee for the month then closed the company the next day! James Woodhead had promised he 'set-up' an alternative for the trainee's at Amplify Trading although after visiting Amplify, they were told nothing had been agreed and they would have to pay for another full programme (which is understandable from Amplify Trading's POV).

All the trainee's that paid in full were entitled to a full refund which was set-out in their contract. It stated that if you leave the programme within 3 months without going live (which my cousin didn't and I understand that no one else did on his intake) you are entitled to a £1,500 refund. Although no one got this and James Woodhead told everyone that the company was insolvent and the company account had been frozen. (If this was true I don't know, anyone able to shed some light on this?). The worst thing was that no body had any contact with James Woodhead after the first couple of emails. He was apparently avoiding everyone's emails and telephone calls. They never heard anything more.

After reading the initial good bye email from James Woodhead that he sent, this all seems extremely fishy and maybe I am being stupid but it feels like a scam and he was planning this all along - get lots of trainee's at £3,500 a pop, don't put anyone live and after 6 months close the company. Hence why I am extremely pissed off and wish for him to be exposed.

As you can understand a lot of the trainee's were probably left very soured after this experience. I know my cousin was but luckily having me working within the industry I was able to put him on the right path although I am sure many of them didn't have this help (just for the record, he is now trading from home self financed). Before anyone asks why I let him go to Headway, I was unaware of this. As far I knew he was going to Futex which is a reputable company.

If I am honest, I am not sure where I am going with this thread but the main aim is to hopefully get more information about the closure and to expose him. There have been threads about him before but got closed down which just proves how guilty he was. If he was innocent, why not defend yourself in front of everyone? James Woodhead - if you are reading this, don't go crying to T2W about it, if you wasn't pulling a scam tell everyone here your reasons why you closed the company after 6 months and left a group of aspiring traders in the dark. It will look at lot better even if the truth isn't great, its better than everyone thinking your a con artist. You should man the **** up and actually start answering peoples questions. If this thread disappears because of James Woodhead, we can all safely assume he was pulling a fast one and done everyone out of a lot of money.

Again if anybody has any details of what actually happened at Headway that would be great. One of my ex-colleagues used to work with him but he doesn't know any details more than me about this whole situation.

I look forward to hearing from some of you.

Emails from James Woodhead to follow

Email from James Woodhead - one of the only emails he received from James. He said he has been consulting with Amplify over the past few weeks, although my cousin meet with Amplify and he got the impression James had called them last minute in a rush.


HEADWAY TRADING - CLOSURE

I am sorry to inform you that for a number of reasons Headway Trading will be closing as of immediate affect. Whilst I'm sure this will come as a shock to you provisions have been made to ensure that you can continue your trading career with a relatively seamless transition.

I have been consulting over the past weeks with Amplify Trading (contact details to follow) who offer a very similar scheme and they are happy to take you on. They offer Bund trading through Visual Charting and S&P trading through a system called CQG. They also use Hotcomm so it is simply a case of contacting Piers Curran, running through the finer details and getting your new Hotcomm log-in details. Hopefully it should be a painless transition.

Amplify Trading are a highly reputable firm run by Piers Curran and William de Lucy, both of whom appear on CNBC regularly. I trust them to provide you with a fine service and help you become a successful trader.

On a personal note I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused and hope that you have enjoyed the time you spent with Headway. I have tried my hardest to do everything I can to keep the company running, provide a good service and always do the right thing. I hope you can continue to move forward with Amplify and start to make some money!

Should you have any questions or need help making the move over please contact me on this e-mail address.

Kind Regards

James

--
James Woodhead
Head of Trading
www.headwaytrading.com

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/tra...-anyone-taken-position-tca-thread-gone-3.html

This is another post from another user which explains how they got ripped off at Headway.

I'm sorry your cousin lost money, but out of interest, did he learn anything useful on the course?

Morning meanreversion,

He said the training was actually quite good. They were trading the Bund using mainly the Market Profile and he said they taught them all the main fundamental aspects. Although I am sure the course isn't as extensive as a 'real' prop firm or IB.

After this all happened, I tried to put him back on the straight path trading from home (gave him help setting everything upm, bit of mentoring, finding him the best broker etc) and after about a month on the sim, I said it was fine for him to go live and he is still going strongly now.

is the gripe that they paid for 4 months, but only got 3 months training, or did lots of folk join on day one and on day 2 the company went bust..?

Did amplify take trainees on free of charge?

minimal said:

Morning meanreversion,

He said the training was actually quite good. They were trading the Bund using mainly the Market Profile and he said they taught them all the main fundamental aspects. Although I am sure the course isn't as extensive as a 'real' prop firm or IB.

After this all happened, I tried to put him back on the straight path trading from home (gave him help setting everything upm, bit of mentoring, finding him the best broker etc) and after about a month on the sim, I said it was fine for him to go live and he is still going strongly now.

Click to expand...

Hmmm, based on that, it doesn't sound like such a scam? He received most of the training he paid for, and learnt useful stuff?

meanreversion said:

Hmmm, based on that, it doesn't sound like such a scam? He received most of the training he paid for, and learnt useful stuff?

Click to expand...

Question is why was the company wound up so quickly how many trainees lost out in the winding up.

Could still have scammed other people.

In his contract it stated that if your contract is terminated within 4 months without going live, you will receive a £1,500 refund. Even though this was in their contract, James Woodhead denied all of this and never refunded anything. Along with that, from what I understand some of the trainee's paid for the month and he took their money then closed the next day. Even worse some paid upfront and he closed straight away. Why take everyones money, after only 6 months of the company trading, then close it? He sounds like he has learnt all of his tricks from working at TCA Markets. Apparently no body has had any contact with him since including one of the mentors employed their. This mentor was the one who gave most of the training and from the emails I have read, he was extremely shocked at the close of Headway. The mentor has taken James Woodhead to court because he hadn't been paid. Unsure of the outcome.

Scose-no-doubt Amplify did not take on the trainee's free of charge and in my opinion quite rightly so, they shouldn't have to.

Scose-no-doubt: Sorry I didn't see your latest reply. Not sure of exact numbers but I think he said around 10 / 15 trainee's.

Just that it seems the Headway and JW must have some sort of connection, especially if he's going out of his way to give them business. Not like he cares about the trainees if he's ripping them off by taking cash and closing the next day. Can't see it being selfless act. I smell a finders/consultants fee somewhere

looks around home office for something...I knew I left it here somewhere...damn now where did I put it? ...Ah-ha! Here it is...

Thanks for posting those comments about the training Minimal. Though the whole thing fell on its ****, it does mean something to me, and I did try to push the remote traders as much as was possible in the short time we had together, and regret the only reason it stopped is because the plug was pulled by Woodhead.

On the Amplify angle, having worked and drunk with Will and Piers for 5 years previously, I have no doubt that in the situation they found themselves with Woodhead, they acted nothing other than honorably, and that far from getting a finders fee, Woodhead was just happy to be seen to be doing the right thing before going on to ignore the remote traders and myself included and doing the dirty.

In my own situation, I took Woodhead to a tribunal after he failed to pay me for January as well as the months notice as per my contract. Trouble is I could only take him to the tribunal as a director, and as you can guess, though I won the tribunal, the company had zero funds in it so I got squat. There were avenues I could take to bankrupt the company personally then claim something off of the national insurance fund, it would have been far too convoluted and drawn out to bother about the final sum I would have recieved, as well as the fact I wasnt going to spend a penny without the guarantee of getting something back.

Anyway, as far as finding out more about him, I know nothing more other than what I have posted on the other thread. Should I find out more, I will post, but in the mean time it will be interesting to see any updates.

Well I take back what I said about Amplify then. As all these people seem to know each other its tres easy to tar these firms with the same brush

Although this was nearly over a year ago, I brought it up because it annoyed me so much the fact that he was ignoring everyone and didn't seem to care.

I am guessing Jel187, you were the other mentor at Headway? I have heard only good things about you and your approach to training them (I am not just saying that because your here). The training obviously was up to stratch as he is trading fine and after 3 months training at Headway he was doing pretty well anyway. Just a shame James ran the company so badly.

J said that he recently emailed everyone that was at Headway just to see how they are getting on and I think only 1 was still trading.

I babbled on a bit this morning on my first post.. Must have woken up pissed off and went into one.

I can assure you it annoyed me more!!!
I was the only mentor at Headway. Woodhead was just the public face of it.

Interesting stuff.

It's impossible to not know a company will go bankrupt the following day if you are running it.

So - to take money on one day and then liquidate the next day is absolutely, 100% intentional. In fact, I am amazed he managed it.

If the company genuinely did owe a lot of money, he should have just told the guys to pay him in a few days and then liquidated before they did that. The money they paid will just get eaten up anyway, unless James found a way to move that money out of the company before it was wound down. This is no mean feat if he did.

In fact doing that would be illegal, full stop. You're not allowed to trade when insolvent.

Well - trading the day before you go up the wall is not illegal. Everyone does it. Larger companies will be taking in payments up to the day they go into liquidation and beyoned. They do it the days before liquidation because most of the accounting staff and AR staff won't know the company is going under. They do it the days after because if anyone is daft enough to send them a cheque, then it goes into the pot which the liquidators distribute - plus if you owe a company money, you still have to pay regardless of whether they went under or not.

What is illegal is taking money out of the company in anticipation of the liquidation. For a small company like this, it is inexcusable to take advance payments by the owner when he knows it's going under.