K2A advertises for High Income Speakers

As pointed out by a guest comment,

KnowledgeToAction is advertising for positions of "High Income Speakers" with "No experience needed" "just sales experience".

Read for yourself, but this seems to contradict what every seminar speakers tells his audience, i.e. that he is a very successful trader and just doing the speaking to help you become a millionaire. Yeah, right! and the fast car he'll claim to own? ;-)

Oh.. and it's interesting to see how K2A calls themselves "a fast growing international seminar company". That would imply their profits are derived principally from seminars, and not from trading... but I think most on this blog had already figured that out!

from: http://knowledgetoaction.co.uk/about/careers/Graduate-Speaker-Advert-jul11.pdf

Trader's University Review

Here is the latest, complete review on Greg Secker's Trader's University KnowledgetoAction course. Thanks to the contributor of the review for sharing his full experience of the Forex trading course!

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Knowledge to Action (K2A) – Greg Secker

First impressions; was that this was a sales pitch and nothing else; the guys were dressed in poorly tailored suits which didn’t go to meet people’s expectations that we would meet successful traders earning a mint. Of course since realised you can be trading very well and not be earning fortunes, but the first impression in any case was what I or the other 20 or so people expected.

The K2A guy, did a relatively good job explaining the forex market and it was possible to make money from the market. He handled the usual questions on “this can’t be true”, “this is gambling”, if you are a successful trader why are you doing this” quite well. He did boast a little too much he made, but being a designer man myself, I noticed the cheap shirts and clothing they were wearing.

At the end of the seminar in which he gave no real idea as to what strategies one would follow to make money they came out with sell. For £2000 + vat (disc from £3000) you’d get a 2 day Forex Training course, 3 coaching sessions of 30mins each and a Greg Secker DVD set. I had money that I had to use for retraining (any nothing else) so I went for it.

2 Day Forex Seminar

The 2 day seminar at their place in Fulham was interesting. The course was packed with 30 other people and we were all given a manual which contained 3 of Greg Seckers strategies that he teaches on the course. 1 for end of day and 2 intra day.

The Good bits :

1. The instructor was laid back, fun, interesting and had a few of trading ideas over and above the ones in the manual
2. The course went from “this is a candle” level to brief mentions of Fibonacci
3. Relaxed and motivating atmosphere
4. Step by step guide as to how to implement each strategy
5. Good overviews of the forex market and how it works

The Could do better bits :

1. No food given !!! For £1000 /day per person you think they could stretch to a sandwich!
2. Because it starts from basic principles it can be slow for some people, but then moves very quite quickly during the day two leaving the slower ones behind.
3. There is nothing in the course that you cannot read in a few £20 books and read for free on the internet
4. It is overpriced. It is priced at this level, in my view as people must think “if its this much; it must be good”. I have since seen similar courses for a less than half what K2A charge.

The Good bits

1. Met some other people who seemed serious about trading full time forex

The Could Do Better :

1. Be prepared – the coaches didn’t really have much of an agenda or seemed organised to handle the event
This was a no brainer piece of advice for me – don’t waste your money. If you look hard enough around London area you can find the same thing for a lot less.

K2A kept hammering on that brokers won’t teach you how to trade, I found by attending FREE on-line seminars in the evening, that they teach the same stuff, which I paid 2.5k for. K2A are con-artists, they promise the world but deliver nothing. They also fail to mention you require a 10k trading account to make the kind of money they promote in their seminars. Plus during our course they introduced a person who was advertising real wealth programme for £35k, really inappropriate found out from people they then discount to 15k +VAT.

In summary I am more convinced that Greg Secker makes more money from training that he does from trading as do his coaches. Have not seen or heard anything since to make me think otherwise. I am sure these guys trade and maybe some of them trade successfully, they talk a good game, just something in me isn’t 100% convinced of them as I am of what they sell.

On leaving the course, I was not at all confident in placing a trade, attended 4/5 on-line seminars which had some decent presenters, placed my 1st trade after 2wks and by chance hit profit.

I have booked coaching sessions with my coach – I’ll give a final review on these sessions when I have finished them. (Not flexible timing to suit your working life as promised)

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If you need help getting a refund from the course if you've just signed up, check out http://knowledgetoaction.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html

KnowledgetoAction Reviews & Testimonies

Here are some of the more interesting comments, reviews and testimonies we have received on this blog about KnowledgeToAction:

I did the course in November and traded for 4 months before realising it wasn't worth continuing. I gave it a fair shot and to begin with did make about £800 profit but then i had 6 weeks of carnage. You have to pay about £90 per month for e signal as well. All in all i paid £2300 for the course and 3 free coaching sessions with a NOT VERY GOOD coach. Paid e signal around £440 and lost about £2500 trading. Over 5 grand written off. I bet on a semi pro basis on horses and sport and it is a lot easier to make money this way. I've been doing this for 20 years and this is what i'll stick to. Take notice of this DO NOT WASTE your money on 1 of these courses YOU WILL REGRET IT. Anybody wanting to e mail me fell free to do so at euan150@yahoo.co.uk if you would like advice on how to make money from betting. It isn't that difficult. The only problem is actually getting bets on with the so called bookmakers. After a while if you win consistently they will close your account or restrict your bets.

I have filed for a court case against Knowledge to Action Ltd at my local county court, YES, I am suing the company at the moment. Their presenters misled me and tricked me to sign up with their course. They told me that I would be able to make £2,000 a month with trading capital of £2,000 by only trading 20-30 minutes a day. I was told this is achievable after 6 months of attending their two-day training and using their methodology.

It was a big lie, I was a newbie and did not know that it is absolutely impossible to achieve 100% return on my trading capital each month. Later, I discovered that you need £30,000 – £40,000 or more trading capital with very good trading experience and excellent discipline to possibly make £2,000 per month. I was conned, I lost money on trading and had to pay £32 per month for using ShareScope software.

The FSA has just issued an alert against Knowledge to Action.

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/pdf/knowledge.pdf

Additionally I saw they were advertising in the jobs section of the Guardian, please complain to the Guardian about this fraud, the more people complain the better.

I wish I had read the comments above 3 months ago. I have attended a 2 day course at a cost of in excess of £2,000 and although the course content looked plausible and aspirational, I have not seen any rewards nor has most of my peers who attended the same course.

What Traders University conveniently leave out of their promotional seminars and literature is this: they're selling a strategy for gambling. It's not investing; it's betting whether the price will go up or down, nothing more. If, like me, you're not a gambler and have no wish to gamble, finding out on the course is a little too late.

Hi Guys,

I attended the trader’s secret seminar this weekend after receiving an invitation through a trader’s website. The information they presented certainly was convincing, working in sales I knew that all the bull about turning £2000 into £1,000,000 in 9 years and only risking 1% was a load of rubbish. Ultimately the whole thing was about getting easy money out of you.

Although I’m a total amateur when it comes to investing, I know how hard it is to raise the £3000 they were asking for and I’m damn sure I need a lot more hard evidence than what they showed me to part with it. If you are attending the free seminar please ask yourself these questions when you are there:

1) If you had a sure fire way of making money on the stock market would you be standing up there presenting to the average punter and sharing the strategy?

2) Can you really afford to lose £3000 to these guys if it doesn’t work?

3) Out of the 50,000 people they say they have trained why do they only show one or two people in the video who say it’s worked for them? What about all the people it hasn’t worked for?

Although the 3 hour presentation was an interesting in site to spread betting I won’t be booking my place on they course, I think I would rather spend the time talking to my bank or doing more research.

If you believe Knowledge to Action is a scam and you have been conned by the company please report them to Consumer Direct 08454 040506, http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/scamnesty and the Office of Fair Trading by sending an e-mail to sc@mnesty.net

I went on their basic course back in October. I have only recently been able to start making a decent profit. I'm now up by £700 on an account of £10,000 over the past couple of months. Before then I kept floating around my starting level. I achieved this by paying attention to trend lines (as my coach told me to) but I haven't used any of their specific tactics for a long time. In fact if you were to follow their rules strictly there's probably very few trades you could place on a daily basis!

I thought the course was a good introduction to trading, albeit overpriced. However, as some people have no doubt found out it is much more difficult than advertised by K2A. The stategies they teach you are used by professional traders (I come across some of them in a book on candlestick patterns) but such people will obviously have a lot more information and experience to assist them. It also helps if the market is constantly heading in one direction - the profits I've made recently coincide with the FTSE shooting up after a few months of oscillation (which was when I wasn't making any money).

For those who are entirely new to spread betting K2A don't tell you about how spreads work and the mechanics of bid/offer prices. They also give the impression that you can enter a trade at exactly the level you want - not true.

What I found most interesting while there was the trading floor - which didn't seem to be particularly full. Are the people who use the trading floor full-time traders? Are they loaded from trading? I didn't see any Aston Martins nearby...

In summary I think K2A give a fairly good introduction to trading but they're definitely overpriced and make it seem much much easier than it is to make good money.

I agree with the above, the course is certainly not for the complete beginner the two day course i was on had an OAP female on who did not understand even the simple things! who on earth
took the money from this lady, disgraceful!!!
personally i am glad i done the course as i am now trading and losing money! only started with a small account £500. which is really to small to earn any significant amount of money. i have since opened a demo account of £10000 and have made a £1200 profit in 9 days,not by using K2A stategies which are rubbish .There are plenty of very good free websites on spread betting make good use of these before paying for anything.I do think its a way of making extra income but probably not replacing your whole income .

You can do the 1 day Technical Analysis and/or Forex course at CMC Markets for just £100 and be taught by REAL professionals. And they don't spend half the day trying to sell you anything else.

Alternatively, you can buy and read "Trading for dummies". Cost £16.99 (not £2300) and you'll learn more than you will from those lying dummies at K2A.

K2A is a scam. They are not professional traders and don't have a real trading floor. They make money coning people into taking their grossly over priced rubbish courses.

When you talk to those people it's like talking to a Time Share tout who is also a member of a cult! Unbelievable.

If people here feel so strongly about them why don't you get their venues list off their website, turn up and hand out leaflets to attendees warning them that they are about to be scammed and also giving this web address. Now that would really get the shisters back!!!!

Hi there. Well, I've just returned from the two-hour introductory session.

I'm a bit of an old hand at these things and have been on other investment company intros as well (out of idle curiosity) such as property developing ones. So today I went under my pen name and did not register my address or mobile number; the first thing that happens is that you get a phone call asking you to sign-up. At the registration desk, the guy said he needed my phone number as someone would call me to ask me for feedback. I just told him that I prefer to keep my address and phone number private, but included an email address which I use for such purposes.

Anyway, it was more informative than what I am used to, even enjoyable, but, yes, totally useless unless you go on the full two-day course. I would say I picked up a couple of useful pointers for where to start doing my own research/training - so thanks very much for that!

The other important thing to note is that there seems to be no way of signing up for the full course unless you go to the free seminar - so the "discount" you are offered is a fantasy-saving. As with all these intros, the whopping price tag comes right at the end after you've been buttered up with phrases like "change your life" and "never work again", etc. These huge numbers rarely stay on the screen for very long and are quickly replaced by a "Here's what I'm going to do for you today" deal. The trick they use is one by which you are convinced that the price of the course is insignificant when compared with the kind of money you could make using their "strategies" in the mid-to-long term.

Anyway, that's my two pennyworth. I won't be forking out £2.5K for a weekend course. I have an ex-trader friend and she said I'd be better off learning from a book or the internet.

KnowledgetoAction Reviews

This knowledgetoaction blog has received many reviews about the knowledgetoaction seminars, equity trading course and FX trading course. These user reviews are great because most are impartial, and from people who really attended the course. Occasionally there is the odd review which is far too positive towards knowledgetoaction, which makes you wonder whether that review is genuine or if it was written by a knowledgetoaction employee

so reviews and comments should sometimes be taken with a pinch of salt!

Over the next few weeks we will be compiling the reviews together to create a "KnowledgetoAction Reviews" post.

Check back soon for impartial users comments & reviews on knowledgetoaction

Real Testimony from KnowledgetoAction course. Does it work?

Here is a comment that was left on one of our postings... From someone who has attended both of the KnowledgetoAction Trader's University Courses:

I would like to advise anyone considering doing the Tradersuniversity Course, to immediately cancel, and get your money back.

I have attended the 2 hour free seminar, the weekend resindential and indeed a further course called "MasterTrader". I have followed the rules, as given by Greg Secker himself.

Perhaps the TradersUniversity trading rules work in long term trending markets, (2002-2007) but for now, with markets all over the place and one piece of bad news sending the market crashing, its not the time.

You can learn what I was tight from a book also. It much cheaper than the 5000 pounds I spent in total. I have lost about 2000 pounds in addition to this 5000 in current market conditions.

I also had a colleague who lost 10000 pounds following the TradersUniversity rules. He decided to question the testimonials on thier web site and also the ones given one we eventually signed up.

He received no reply from anyone at TraderUniversity. He still hasn't to this day. Decide yourself, but you have been warned!!

Thank you to anonymous for this unedited testimonial about Gerg Secker's traders university course!

What is your experience in Stock Trading Courses line Wininvesting?

Click here for our main article about knowledgetoaction - especially if you need help getting a refund.

We would like to here from people who have been to share trading courses. There are plenty around, a simple Google search brings out the following:

KnowledgetoAction

Ac-markets

Tacmarkets

PaddyPowerTrader

DTITrader

SMBTraining

Wininvesting

Wealthwithin

... and the list goes on.

One thing that they seem to all have in common when visiting their websites, is the great testimonials for their share trading courses / fx trading courses. However as we all know, there are a lot of losers in thes spread-betting strategies. (in fact, after you add in the transactions costs, and the cost of the course, it would be fair to guess there might be more losers than winners).

We want to hear from real people. People who have made money, and people who have lost money. And people who have done both. What is the truth about the courses? Many of them promise to be able to provide you with a stable second income. The opinion of many of those who have left comments on this blog is that you are more likely to lose money, and if you do make a gain it is more likely to be a lucky gamble than a "stable second income".

If you have been on a share trading course, please let us know your honest opinion!

this is just a link to a blog about construcciones Mallorca

Sample letter to claim a refund from KnowledgetoAction's Trader's University

Make sure that you visit our main posting on the KnowledgetoAction share trading course

We have received some email asking us about a sample letter that can be sent to Greg Secker's Knowledgetoaction Trader's University to cancel your stock trading course and claim a refund. It is important that you cancel your trader's university stock trading course within 1 week of signing up (usually at the knowledgetoaction seminar). Below is letter that you could send:

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To: Knowledgetoaction (their address is on your invoice)

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

            On the day/month/year I attended one of your free 2-hour seminars at a hotel in TOWN. After a rather hyped presentation from a good speaker, I was persuaded to sign up for your 2-day course and to pay £2,348.46 by one of your salesmen. I filled in my credit card details and signed in the box where it said “Payment Method”. I was not informed of my rights to cancel my trader's university course, nor was I informed there would be a penalty for doing so.

            I have changed my mind and decided I would like to cancel the course. I telephoned the salesperson on day/month/year to tell him I would like to cancel. He told me that he would take care of it. I found out that the salesperson had in fact ignored my request for cancellation, and enrolled me anyway. I then sent you an email to cancel, and you acknowledged receipt of my cancellation on the day/month/year but you claimed that you would be keeping a non-refundable £500.  

            As the sale was concluded away from your business premises, I am entitled to a cooling off period of 7 working days. You acknowledged receipt of my cancellation notice within this time, and as such you must comply and refund the full amount of £2,348.46 to my credit card within 7 days. You are not entitled to keeping any part of my payment.

 Yours faithfully,

Bob the share trader

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Make sure that you send this to knowledgetoaction by RECORDED DELIVERY this will ensure that you get a refund and are not scammed.

If you do leave it more than 1 week before cancelling your stock trading course, you could still give this letter a try. By not informing you of your rights to cancel your trading course, "Knowledge to action" are clearly in the wrong - this is something they MUST do. I would think that this is a reasonable argument for a late cancellation to be accepted.

What a shame that trader's university should operate such an operation.

Make sure that you visit our main posting on the KnowledgetoAction share trading course

Get your refund from KnowledgetoAction's Trader's University

Make sure that you visit our main posting on the KnowledgetoAction share trading course

If you have signed up to Greg Secker's Trader's University (KnowledgetoAction organise "free seminars" to entice you to join the course), then you might not have noticed the small print on the back of your invoice that says you will lose £500 if you cancel.

This smallprint is illegal. KnowledgetoAction are not allowed to keep your money if you cancel within 7 days, as their sale was done "away from their usual premises" and as such qualifies as distance-selling, giving you the right to cancel within 7 days.

From our experience, and the comments left on this blog, KnowledgetoAction will ignore the law unless you send them a letter by RECORDED DELIVERY asking for an immediate full refund. Those who sent a letter by recorded delivery received a refund for the trader's university course THE VERY NEXT DAY!

Please let us know your experience in a comment, to help others in the same situation!

Make sure that you visit our main posting on the KnowledgetoAction share trading course

Please complete our survey to the right of this Blog!

We would like to receive some feedback from people who have attended knowledge to action (knowledgetoaction) Trader University spreadbetting Course. If you have attended the course, it would be great to know what you results are so far with trading.

For those who have only attended the free seminar, please leave your comments on this blog - what were your feelings about the company knowledgetoaction? Did you notice the £500 non-refundable deposit in their terms and conditions? Have you had problems in dealing with Greg Secker's company? Please let us know, so we can try to help more people!

Knowledge to Action Trader's University - is there a scam?

I recently became aware of Knowledge to Action's (www.knowledgetoaction.com), Greg Secker's company which offers the apparently award winning "Trader's University" Course. This is an equity trading course that promises just 1% downside risk (per trade... but over a few days you could lose all of your money by trading equity or forex, so be careful) The award is by the Business Britain Magazine for the #1 Trader Coaching Company. Mmhhh. Who is this famous, "Business Britain Magazine and what are their awards worth??

So, is there a scam in this equity trading course?

Well it didn't take me long to find out that a competing course, Win Investing (www.wininvesting.com) run by Darren Winter, is ALSO an award winning course.. but this time for "Best Investment Training Course", still by the same Business Britain Magazine.

So - how can both competing courses be Award-winning? If I created an investment, forex or equity trading, or spread betting course tomorrow, and made the necessary arrangements with Business Britain (maybe a payment?), would my course also be award winning?

Maybe. So is their a scam running on these investment and equity trading courses, or are they perfectly legal and fair? Is their advertising overly aggressive?

Both of these companies use "free seminars" that promised to teach you some untold secrets about trading equity to wealth in just 2 hours, with no hard sell. I have spoken to someone who went on the KnowledgetoAction seminar and it seems that this is far from the truth. Whilst the seminars are at best, informative, they do not really have much of substance. The "secrets" are only partially revealed - enough to get you salivating for more but certainly not enough to get you share trading. And certainly, there is no concrete evidence that trading equity with these methods will make you more money that it will lose you.
Plenty of testimonials were given of people who had been on the traders university course at knowledgetoaction, and they had all, conveniently, made money. Those who had lost their money would not have been asked for their testimonial I presume.

If you sign up for a course, you won't notice this, but you will be signing not just a payment slip for the payment of the course but also a CONTRACT with 10 clauses to it. This contract is the small print which is on the back of the form that you are signing. Because your form is attached to a clipboard, you probably won't even know that it has this smallprint contract on it! And clause 3 states that you agree to a £500 non-refundable fee being applied if you cancel - even if you change your mind just a few hours later!!

Is this illegal? Can knowledgetoaction and Greg Secker's trader's university hold back my refund or is this a con?

Well, there are a number of regulations in place that would suggest that this is not legal. For instance,

The "Unfair terms in consumer contract regulations" state that unfair terms cannot be entered in a contract if this would put the consumer at a disadvantage. Knowledgetoaction are claiming that £500 is not unfair, but to me, a 25% penalty for cancelling just a few hours later seems very unfair. I wouldn't go as far as saying it is a scam, but I would certainly be questioning the legality of it.

Are there any other laws that might prohibit knowledge2action from doing this to people who sign up to their traders university course?

There are.

As with distance selling, there is a law that gives the consumer a cooling off period when purchasing a good or service in a place that is not the trader's usual place of business. The regulation is "The Cancellation of contracts made in a consumer's home or place of work, etc..". This regulation gives the consumer 7 days to cancel their purchase if they change their mind for whatever reason. -irrespective of what it says in the contract.

Does Greg Secker know this? What happens when you contact knowledgetoaction to complain about your refund?

Apparently, knowledgetoaction will plainly refuse to issue a full refund, stating that their terms and conditions plainly state that you have agreed to the £500 penalty. If you push them a little more, they will just keep saying this over and over again like a broken record. Good old fashioned British customer service has gone out of the window and has been replaced by what really feels like a money-making operation that considers fairness to have no value.

Are there other laws that might protect me from knowledgetoaction's "scam", "con", or "terms and conditions" ?

There are. The company could be accused of taking part in Aggressive Commercial Practice when they pressured you into signing up for the course by telling you that you would never get that special price again. But this is not true, in fact, you could get that price again just by attending another seminar.


So what can you do if Knowledge to Action, Greg Secker, The Trader's University, have treated you unfairly, if you feel you fell for a con, a scam?

Well, you could phone them up first and try to settle it directly with KnowledgetoAction, but this might be difficult.
Next, you could contact your credit card company to ask for a chargeback of the amount that you paid, stating your reason.
Then you could contact the Office of Fair Trade and Consumer Direct. They will be able to advice you with the steps to take.

It seems that Knowledgetoaction are not afraid of legal action, they have probably had this kind of problem before and they possibly have a whole team of lawyers ready to scare you if you try to get your money back. But if you feel that they don't deserve your money, you should definitely give it a go. There are plenty of regulations that back you up. And the only way of knowing if this is indeed a scam, would be to go all the way.



Please let us know your opinion and experience with knowledgetoaction, the trader's university, and Greg Secker's course. This blog is open to all and we are trying to get a balanced discussion on the subject. No posts will be deleted as long as they are deemed genuine and truthful.
You are welcome to copy this article in its entirety and post it on your own blog.



Iñaki Frias, ROUSAUD COSTAS DURAN SLP, Secured Assets SL