My, my, my, how word gets around. I just cancelled my premium room subscription so I am out of the closet. Happy DA? Here’s the story.
My first couple of weeks with Oscar were pretty good. I was totally thrilled to find somebody to do the heavy lifting for awhile. I didn’t have a futures trading account and much of my trading capital was custodied in such a manner that it could not be moved, nor could I use it for futures trading. I followed along with Oscar’s recommendations using ETFs tied to the S&P 500. I began the process of opening a small account just to trade one lot and see how I felt about it. I went thru all the paperwork, asked everybody in the room how much the trade commissions were -’ ask Oscar’ was the reply. Talked to the staff — ‘ask Oscar’. When Oscar finally showed up in the trading room, I private-messaged him several times and asked — what’s the cost. He never answered me. So I’m a schmuck. Figuring it would ten bucks or so at most, I placed my first trade. The trade confirmation arrived and I nearly fell off my chair. The charge for 1 lot round-trip was $50. When Oscar showed up again in the room (mind you, you could wait around all day before the great man made an appearance), I sent him a private message saying that $50 wasn’t going to fly. He replied ‘k’ and closed the chat window. I kept opening the window back up, telling him we needed to have a conversation before I placed any more trades. He kept giving noncommittal answers and closing the chat window. I wrote that I was willing to pay $10 each leg. He wrote no prob. It’s all good. But you can’t discuss it with other room members. Don’t want a mutiny here. Most of the others pay $50. I didn’t put that in quotes, but it’s pretty close to word for word. I said I wanted an agreement it in writing. He said he had ‘guests in town’. I wrote that I wanted it by the end of the day. It took a boycott on my part of one week (not participating in the trading room) before Oscar contacted me. He was full of excuses as to why it had taken so long to reply. Friends in town, birthday party, etc., etc. He wanted me to let him know when I was ready to ‘rock and roll’. The thing that was missing was a written disclosure of trading charges but – I ‘had his word’ on it.
The mechanic who takes care of my car gives me a written estimate before any work is done. The company that takes care of my lawn sends me a written contract. Would you not think that a broker, someone who can charge your trading account on a whim, should provide you with a written agreement disclosing costs associated with trading?
Here’s another matter of ethics that I find disturbing. Why should Oscar give me a better deal than someone who has been there longer?
Why did so many of the other members pay more only because I was willing to make an issue out of it. Is that fair to his other subscribers? Granted, $50 per trade is robbery plain and simple, but the charge should be the same for everyone especially for 1-lot traders. Perhaps a little higher for multiple lots, but a standard fee schedule, nonetheless, should apply.
As I was in the process of opening my account (which now sits dormant at Dorman) my bullshit detector started screaming at me. It doesn’t work quite right, doesn’t always go off when it should, but when it
does, I know I am in an area of highly concentrated bullshit. I
really did have a few excellent first couple of weeks and was cheer leading just like the rest of the drones. I thought Oscar was the genuine article, but then it seemed like everything abruptly started to run off the rails. When he had ‘friends’ in town, he neglected the trading rooms altogether. I was concerned about placing a trade with a huge stop on it and then going to bed and hope for the best. What is that? I was concerned about people being chastised for making small talk — what are you supposed to do when there is no trade, no Oscar, and no making trades on your own, no talking about your own trades — trust in the ‘Omni’. When the ‘Omni’ was wrong or the trade was bad, it was always someone’s fault, like the dollar didn’t do what it was supposed to or you were stupid and didn’t follow directions. Manage
your own trade!!!!! How do you manage a dumb-ass trade? As for
making your own decisions regarding the trade, you are only encouraged to do that when a trade has gone wrong. Otherwise the message is ‘do what I say and do not question me.’ As for the spreadsheet on the net, I would say that’s a pretty accurate record of following directions to the letter. The quality of that record keeping also indicates that it was prepared by an intelligent person capable of following directions.
I was tired of hearing how stupid the open room people were. One day when the ‘Omni’ was green Oscar was laughing because the ‘morons’ in the open room were short. Those ‘morons’ made about 20+ points that day while we in the superspecialVIPpremium room sat on our hands.
People being banned from the room really threw up red flags for me too. No dissenting opinions were allowed. You could not talk about trading ETFs, most likely because then Oscar couldn’t dip his fingers into your till. I was personally called out on the carpet for trading ETFs instead of futures. Frankly, my business is none of his business. I was his boss, not the other way around.
Oscar seemed to undergo a change in behavior over a small period of time. At first he was positive, I thought he was so cool — but things changed in a hurry. He would be absent from the rooms most of the day, then showing up late in the afternoon looking like he was ill (or had a hangover). One day he didn’t come in at all, had slept all day.
Claimed to work all hours of the night analyzing the markets for us but didn’t often come up with a trade, and when he did, it usually did not go well. I must say, though, the premium room people were absolutely the best, nicest ever. I will miss them all. In a nutshell, I can echo all the negative remarks that everyone else has made. Chris is just a good guy, loyal to a fault. I hope he eventually joins us here.
I waited to reveal my identity because I was waiting to see how things would play out. After submitting my first trade, I emailed Oscar’s office a couple of times to make sure the recurring charge was removed from my account. No action of was taken, of course, so I just sent a message to cancel my subscription. A few days later a charge for
$395 appeared on my Paypal account for another months’ service. I disputed the charge and Paypal issued a refund.
Now, here is what i said about the infamous and supersecret ‘Omni’ — i think it is a Twister spinner. Remember the old game of Twister? Red and Green are obvious, Yellow means maintain ‘neutral stance’ and Blue means up all night doing homework.
Now translation — ‘neutral’ and ’stalking’ means ‘I slept all day’ or ‘didn’t feel like bothering with you morons today’, blue means no signal at all ‘wtf, I was up with my buddies all night’ drinking or gambling or whatever it is he does that makes him look like warmed-over death.
Anyway, best of luck to all of you. I have never met a single one of you, yet I feel I have made many good friends and I hope we will stay in touch. I have also learned yet once again that nice guys (and
girls) are pretty good at getting their pockets picked. Be careful and be skeptical.
- Linda Sue
