Interesting to still be hearing the VS question still being asked. To some, he has robbed them of subscription funds and capital on lost trades, but I have several personal experiences to offer a more balanced view on the man.
There are several pictures of VS with £M cheques being presented by IG Index etc - he's successful at trading. Why do IG et al post the picture, because lazy traders think they can make that money too and then lose it all to IG. It's a great piece of marketing.
VS used to write a spread betting column in Growth Company Investor Magazine. I read it avidly and he called the mid-noughties indexes to the letter (Dow, FTSE 2/350), as well as other markets like oil and gold.
I attended a trading day with VS and subscribed to his infamous alert where he had secrets in Switzerland and other info to make a guaranteed return. I also lost money, BUT dig deeper: soem dreadful manufacturing data from China came out almost days after the system advised a load of new trades. Pretty much all got stopped out, but the market realised it had over-reacted and recovered within days. To be specific, Long HUNTING, long CATERPILLAR went on to be great trades VS advised but needed to come in after this trough. Later on he advised short US mortgage markets, financial sector and real estate. These too were stopped out, but OMG, did they all come good in a massive way later that year (2007).
So, the lesson learned is that VS appears to have some good intel, he does offer some good trades, BUT like anything it is as much about taking the view as timing of the view. He's made loads of cash and can ride the falls - most of his subscribers cannot.
Start small - soak up more info than a simple text saying trade now!
R