Some people have asked me about a review of Speedup Trader. They offer great discounts, and sound good on the surface when you look at their site. Once you dig a little deeper though things get shady quickly.
For me, there’s way too many red flags with Speedup Trader. 1 or 2, you could chalk up as just disgruntled traders who maybe didn’t pass. But when the founder has a history of scamming people, then jumping to the next business, and you see bad review after bad review, it just starts to add up.
There’s too many other reputable trader evaluation outfits available that I don’t see it being worth the risk of going with Speedup Trader. I did not find 1 positive review of someone actually funded with them.
Be sure to read my reviews of firms I actually do recommend who do pay out: Funded Futures Trader Evaluation Reviews
Marcello Arrambide – The Traveling Scammer
If this picture doesn’t scream scammer, nothing does. Anyone selling the lifestyle is an automatic red flag.
This is Marcello Arrambide, the founder of Speedup Trader. You won’t find it on the Speedup website, but it’s well known, and well, right on his LinkedIn Profile of Marcello Arrambide.
The Wandering Trader – Another Marcello Arrambide Venture
Let’s go back to one of Marcellos earlier ventures, the Wandering Trader. He is essentially selling the classic lifestyle dream. Travel, trade, make millions, live the lifestyle others are jealous of. Again, I refer you to exhibit A above. It does not get more cliche than this.
I don’t want to focus too much on this as I really want this to be more about Speedup Trader, you can visit that site though and see the red flags.
Okay maybe just a few that stand out to me:
This banner doesn’t say “featured on”. He literally just displayed the logo of classic “as featured on” types of media outlets. But they obviously weren’t featured on a damn thing. This is several places on their site. And honestly, why the hell would they be featured on House Hunters??? I’m pretty sure he stole this banner from some other site that actually was featured on these sites & shows.
His shirt says “the best job in the world”. I’d argue it should say “scammer inside”, just an idea.
Day Trading Academy – Selling The Dream
Day Trading Academy was his next endeavour. They sell high priced courses and indicator packages essentially. There are plenty of reviews out there about how horrible it is. Below I think though highlights the key points all from the Futures.io thread about the company.
BTW, the highlights of what their $3,000 course covers. All of this you can learn for free off YouTube, you definitely don’t need a $3,000 course.
- How to install NinjaTrader (you can learn this for free anywhere online)
- Installing workspace and trading indicators (basic of basic info)
- How to use NinjaTrader (NT has plenty of free training)
- Basics of Futures and Emini Trading
- NinjaTrader charts
- Basic market movements and understanding market momentum
- Reversal patterns
- Support and resistance
- Fibonacci retracements and extensions
- Keltner channel bands
- The funny yellow line
- MACD Bollinger Bands
Thread about Day Trading Academy where Marcello tried to pretend to be an independent reviewer and was found out.
Key Points From The Thread:
- DTA always has “1 spot left”
- Courses and training which costs thousands
- Marcello posted in the thread pretending to be a person who took the course and was successful, but was found out by the founder of Futures.io to be Marcello just basically giving a positive review. The fact the founder has to try and pull tricks tells you a lot about his character
- All the Trust Pilot reviews are by accounts with only 1 review for DTA saying how great it is
- One member was able to recreate the special $2,000 indicator package they sell – it’s just a combination of various indicators like a moving average and Keltner channels. You get these for free with any trading platform
- They refuse to provide verifiable proof of any success of their own trading or any students
- Relentless Upselling of courses and indicators
- Several unhappy customers in that thread
My general rule is any trader education is bogus, and the more expensive the more likely it’s junk. The people selling it are looking to capitalize on new traders who want to live the easy money dream. I’d be insulted personally.
Speedup Trader – The Latest Scam
Now to get to Speedup Trader which is where this all started. Several people have asked about it, and on the surface (website) it looked okay. Until I started digging and found everything you are reading.
- YouTube Video of John Franco detailing how Speedup Trader refused to pay out
- John Franco thread on Forex Peace Army where he provides screen shots as well – as well others have chimed in they were scammed with receipts
- Futures.io thread where someone was asking for information on Speedup. One user replied with: “Stay away from Speedup Trader they are incredibly dishonest crooks. I tried the combine, washed out and they shut down the account. They then charged me two months after that and I ended up having to cancel the card to stop it. even though there is a string of emails with me demanding a refund. Stay away!!!!”
Reasons I Wouldn’t Use Speedup Trader
- The funded traders I did find were all denied their funds and had accounts closed for one reason or another
- Founder has a history of scam and shady business practices
- There’s plenty of other options that are reputable. Why take the risk?
- Scam aside, they don’t provide NinjaTrader for free like most trading companies – you have to use their trading platform
Conclusion
As I said at the start, someone could argue that there’s just a few disgruntled people who took the courses or signed up with Speedup Trader that are painting a bad picture of them. I feel though there’s enough of them, along with a history of scammy business practices, and no actual proof of a funded Speedup Trader. Where there is smoke there’s fire. I suspect the business model is collect evaluation fees from people, if they pass and make profit in a funded account, come up with a reason to close their account, which is what they’ve done to the funded traders I found.
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Hypothetical performance results have many inherent limitations, some of which are described below. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown; in fact, there are frequently sharp differences between hypothetical performance results and the actual results subsequently achieved by any particular trading program. One of the limitations of hypothetical performance results is that they are generally prepared with the benefit of hindsight. In addition, hypothetical trading does not involve financial risk, and no hypothetical trading record can completely account for the impact of financial risk of actual trading. for example, the ability to withstand losses or to adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses are material points which can also adversely affect actual trading results. There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results and all which can adversely affect trading results.
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