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Preliminary discussion - please participate - Certified Trustworthy Vendor program
I have to echo the sentiments of others, this seems like a monumental task.
Four years ago I stumbled upon this site searching for the “holy grail” of trading systems. This was shortly after I had just purchased some snake oil which didn’t bring me the easy riches I was promised.
Even in the early days of futures.io (formerly BMT) the knowledge pool was so deep I couldn’t even see the bottom. I spent countless hours on futures.io (formerly BMT) trying figure out the short road to the pot of gold. 4 years later, the road I have traveled was full of speed bumps, potholes, and littered with countless failed ideas all of which made the road much longer then I had hoped.
The first part of the trip I would stop and look at most the road side attractions pitching the latest snake oil. The snake oil just seemed like it would offer me a short cut to the pot of gold. However in hindsight, they where the equivalent of long a detour which lead me back to the starting point.
After many of warnings from futures.io (formerly BMT) members and personal experience, I finally wised up, the roadside attractions would only delay my trip and cost me money. The pot of gold will always be there and the trip is the most important part.
My point: There are countless people on futures.io (formerly BMT) and other sites which will still continue purchase the snake oil regardless of the poor ratings and/or warnings they receive from creditable sources. Just look at smoking, its printed on the side of the package. Either they “get it” and start putting in the work or they don’t and they fade way.
If I was new to trading and to futures.io (formerly BMT), the current vendor review section would certainly have help me saved some money and time.
You and others are going to spend a gigantic amount of time and resources on this project. I don’t want to be discouraging, to such a noble task, but I have to ask: Would you, current futures.io (formerly BMT) users and futures futures.io (formerly BMT) be better served if these efforts where spent on a different project?
Quite honestly, I don’t know how you do it. I couldn’t find enough time in a week to do what you do in a day. Have you cloned yourself?
In the initial post on this thread, you included the following criteria.
"- futures.io (formerly BMT) will have an arbitration process where several private/unnamed futures.io (formerly BMT) members
will be involved in deciding any cases/complaints brought to us, and as needed, pay restitution out of the deposit."
I believe if you let it be known that anyone who wants to file a complaint against
a vender and possibly get a check because of the complaint, that complaint process could be compromised.
Since only the vender gets hurt, there is the potential for abuse.
Venders that know they are going to get slammed are not going to register. Why put up resources to register when they know they
will loose those resources. Also, will venders not registering at futures.io (formerly BMT) not get rated??? If that is true, what's the point?
Are venders with reputations to uphold going to be forced to pay futures.io (formerly BMT) a "Deposit" to maintain a "good" rating?
While I applaud this idea around trying to help others make good fiscal decisions in regards to the financial
markets, I also find this idea of futures.io (formerly BMT) setting itself up as judge, jury, and leveling financial fines against venders frightening.
Also, I find this disturbing...
"Several private/unnamed futures.io (formerly BMT) members", these unnamed members will now have the power to potentially destroy lives of those venders they choose to rule against.
Please reconsider this whole arbitration thing. There are already courts of law to prosecute criminals.
You do have control of a vender's reputation on your site. Use a rating system to help anyone with questions about
venders such as myself. All I have is my reputation. If you wanted to destroy that, you already have that power.
Have members who have had direct dealing with venders, fill out questionnaires to compile a consensus
I understand your criticism, but I think a few things could be put in place to make this less scary (all just my personal oppinion)
1. It must be clear that on all cases both sides must be heared.
2. If it is evident that a complaint has no merit and was brought forward solely to get a check, such a member must be banned.
3. I don't think the deposit has anything to do with the rating, I'm sure @Big Mike can clarify this.
4. I could not think of too many cases where there would be a need for restitution, and most cases I could think of would be good vendors turning evil. I guess as long as a vendor does as he said all is fine, if not, fraud is not far away anymore, so I guess that whole process is just for the really bad cases, not for the average complaint.
5. The deposit should be high enough for a vendor to feel a little pain if he looses it, but not even close to a sum where he would have to go out of business over that loss.
Yep. Exactly correct. Trading is a business and it doesn't matter what vendor you purchase from - I don't care if it's NinjaTrader or a course from a guy on tv that is guaranteed to make you rich by next Tuesday - you'll eventually discover that trading is work and most people can't do it, no matter what they buy. I don't understand why futures.io (formerly BMT) would want to serve as a "judge and jury" for the trading industry. Pick any trading product that is marketed and sold. Can you find dozens and dozens of disgruntled customers? Sure. Again, Ninjatrader comes to mind. On the other hand, is Ninjatrader a scam? I don't think so.
Here's the point: Right now, futures.io (formerly BMT) is a place where people can come learn about trading. I like it that way, rather than a place where people come to learn about various trading vendors.
Our normal site rules will apply, which is no rude behavior towards other members. If someone has personal experience with a vendor and writes a negative post, that is fine because it was their experience. So long as the post is civil, there will be no problem. If someone has personal experience with a vendor and writes about that positive experience, again that is fine. Repeating the same message over and over will not be allowed in either case.
In the last 3.5 years I've developed a very good system for detecting and eliminating fake user accounts. I feel confident the new review system will reflect that and will be the most accurate review system for trading vendors found anywhere on any site because it will be based on actual users, and not vendors writing reviews about themselves or users creating 10 accounts to write the same review, etc.
The delays so far have been mainly on the legal side. I am proceeding carefully. I have experience with the forum already being bullied by these "big vendors", and I think I can handle them - otherwise I wouldn't proceed. Still, details of such a discussion are best left to lawyers.
In my talks with vendors, I have found most are excited about the program because it gives them the opportunity to differentiate themselves and stand out in the crowd. Like I mentioned before, to an inexperienced trader it is very often difficult to determine the reputation of a vendor.
The complaint process will be fair. When you use futures.io (formerly BMT), I assume you do so because you think the site is fair. If you did not think the site was fair, then hopefully you would not be here (as you don't want to be here, and I don't want you here -- best for everyone). Similar principle applies to the new program: both vendors and members are placing trust in futures.io (formerly BMT). If a vendor does not think the process is fair, then they don't join the program.
If a vendor views the program as a negative, then they should not apply to be part of it. I have not found any vendor that feels this way so far, but obviously they will exist. The program speaks for itself, vendors will either be excited about it and want to participate and should apply to be part of it, or they won't and can move on.
Yes, the deposit is a requirement of the program and is not optional. The deposit is not for-profit. The deposit is refunded if/when the vendor leaves the program. The deposit exists so that if necessary, futures.io (formerly BMT) can use the funds towards a user who filed a complaint. Again, full legal details of this are forthcoming. It is not a guarantee but an incentive. I do not anticipate problems with the deposit funds for any of the vendors I accept into the program.
I'm not calling anyone a criminal. The members on the panel will simply hear the complaints and hear the response from the vendor, and make a decision. It will be very clear. The vendors are required to have either a free trial or a money back guarantee, both of which are to be clearly listed and explained to the customer. If the customer requests a refund outside of the money back period, then the burden is on them to demonstrate they were promised an extended refund time period. Otherwise it would be clear they are outside the return window and case is closed. This is an example.
It seems you are viewing this entire thing very negatively. For those vendors who do not want to be part of the Certified Trustworthy program, there is no action for them to take. The program is only for those vendors who want to differentiate themselves from others and know they can meet the requirements of the program that hold them to the highest standard.
Trading vendors are part of the business. Platform vendors, data providers, brokers, those are all necessary components to being a trader. From there of course you have indicators, systems, trading rooms and other tools. Those tools are in high demand by traders, no matter what you or I use personally.
The program is being created in order to help those traders that are seeking those high demand products have a way to differentiate them. The vendors that have gone through our certification process will be highlighted so that they stand out. Users can make their own decision from there.
The arbitration process is optional and will be decided on a case-by-case basis when vendors are invited to join the program. There are many reasons where arbitration is not practical for certain types of vendors (ie: brokerages). There are other where it is quite practical and vendors have been very excited to participate in it.
Sounds good to me. If vendors have a seperate area, I have the choice to review that section or not. This is fine by me as I am sure there may be certain vendors I may have interested in checking out and/or asking questions. Certainly one of these would be NinjaTrader. I know we talk with NT informally through some of the threads, this would make a clear place to have this type of discussion.
What you are attempting is daunting to be sure but if you are able to create a comprehensive vendor standard, that major and multiple vendors buy into, in the long run certainly one advantage to the vendors would be the ability to also advertise their "certified vendor status on futures.io (formerly BMT)".
