Not Worth Your Money!

<p>I joined the college earlier in 2016 with very high expectations. I knew nothing of the stock market or about any financial markets for that matter, but it soon became clear to me that the classes ran dry very quickly. I signed up on the R999-00 package with a R7000-00 deposit (of which R5000-00 was to fund my trading account) and it’s on a contact for 36 months. Naturally you would expect service for the full three years you are paying for in the form of – predominantly – classes and lectures, followed by useful information.</p> <p>True they argue they give you support for the full time period with any questions that you may have, but hold on till you get there and see for yourself what that really means. Every time I have had a question, query or problem and I ask the staff that do the classes (via email), they would tell me that I should come over to the college to run classes (which is ONLY to be found in Woodmead at this moment). So now it costs me to drive all the way from Rustenburg in the North West to Woodmead for a class that would last for anything from 30 to 150 minutes depending, and then if my question is still not answered they would say, “Just come again to this other class they’ll explain it to you there”.</p> <p>The problem I have with these classes is what they offer are all one and the same thing. There’s a schedule that they follow and every week the very same classes run over and over and over. So why are we supposed to pay for a “service” that “educates” us with the same information every single week, never moving up a step to improve our knowledge or bring in more advanced versions of what is being taught in these classes; as would any real college?</p> <p>Since I stopped going to SMC I joined another Brokerage located in Sandton (whose service by the way doesn’t cost me a cent until I start live trading) and used educational material I obtained for free online to teach myself literally a hundred times more than this college ever taught me. In this self-taught period I realised the classes run by SMC basically simply taught everyone to be one TYPE of trader (as they would call it: a Day- or Intra Day Trader). If you know more about this and believe in it, then you would know that there is actually more to this including Scalpers, Swing, Position and Long-term Traders, and all of these have their own personalities and ways to trade. They were also trying to teach everyone how to use the indicators specific for this trading personality.</p> <p>Personally I have moved away from “trading personalities” and “strategies” that actually puts you in the 90/90/90 category and instead started studying the way that Hedge Funds would trade. If you are new to trading or considering entering this highly competitive market, this might sound like Greek to you, so I urge you to please make sure of your facts before you make a decision on where to go next.</p> <p>My complaint: I was promised unlimited classes (which is true up to a point) and to be taught properly how to trade and make money from the markets. But rather have I found classes to be only repetitions of themselves with no new information entering the cycle of education. “Trade ideas” have only made me losses even after following them as was taught in class, and overall my account made a loss.</p> <p>I withdrew my money and got what was left of it but I feel that it is unfair to talk innocent people into three-year-long contracts for supposed education of which clients only ever receive less than a 10th of their money’s worth. I would like to agree on termination of my monthly payments.</p> <p>My advice for new traders: educate yourself properly and be very sure of yourself before risking your money on the markets, and most of all choose your broker well.</p>