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I was just told by the Online Trading Academy in Toronto that I was not allowed to attend their class because I asked too many questions!!!! Want to hear the story? Here it goes. My husband signed up for the course years ago with the option to have unlimited lifetime access to the courses taken. Years later, I showed interest in the course and took the free introductory seminar in July, which then led to the three day paid market timing class last month. My husband also took the course with me as the curriculum had changed after the franchise was acquired by the corporate office and restructured. If you saw my post a month ago, you probably recall that I had a rough run with the instructor in that class as he was not able to accommodate different learning styles. That was fine. Life went on. My husband and I then signed up for the next course which would run from yesterday to next weekend. The people working at the academy tried very hard to sign me up as a new account as opposed to a guest of my husband’s for this course, but based on my prior experience, I wanted to be sure that I would like the course and instructor first before giving them thousands of dollars as a new student. The instructor for this course was excellent, very knowledgeable, informative, dynamic and encouraging. He made it very clear from the beginning that he welcomed all questions and said that asking questions is an important part of learning. That’s great! Because that’s exactly how I learn after I pre-study the materials for any class I attend. We really enjoyed the class and learned a lot and I was looking forward to going back today and for the week ahead. One little episode prior to the class yesterday which came totally unexpected was the fact that we were pulled out of the class when it first started in the morning to the office. The director of the academy along with our so-called “education counsellors” greeted us by saying that my guest pass needed approval from the director as he was the sole authority to grant such pass. What? Why on earth then did you not inform us of this when we signed up for the course weeks ago? Why couldn’t you wait until the break to tell us this so that we would not waste precious class time? Why then did you have my name tag made in the classroom and have a seat reserved for me if this pass had not been granted otherwise? Apparently there was an internal discordance with their administrative process, but why did we have to be involved and suffer the consequence of their problems? They had weeks to resolve this and nothing was done! So I walked out the office by telling them that I did not own the problem and didn’t want to waste class time so I went back! My husband spent more time in the office and the director signed an agreement for my guest pass, which was already agreed upon between our “education counsellor” and us when we signed up for this course weeks ago. Anyhow, with the agreement, I was “officially” a guest in the course. The day went by very well and we thought we all got along just fine until a phone call from the director came in to my husband while dining out last night. According to him, he received numerous complaints from students of the class that “I” asked too many questions and he could not allow me to go back today and risk losing other “paying” students! That to me is totally ABSURD!!!! First of all, I wasn’t the only one asking questions. Secondly, I was not the one who asked the most questions. Thirdly, why was I the only one not allowed to go back to the class? Is it because I was the only “non-paying” student? If there was an issue, which I honestly didn’t sense and perceive, how come it wasn’t communicated to me directly? How come there was no attempt to resolve it before the decision for the dismissal was made? How come the instructor, from the very beginning throughout the course of the day, encouraged questions all along? How come they would only hear from one side of the story before a sound and fair decision could be made, rather than being biased against me? After I called and left a message with these questions on the director’s voicemail, he then wrote an email to my husband (again, not me!) that his wife (meaning me) didn’t have the proper pre-requisites (i.e.. the market timing class) to attend this class. So the premises for dismissal changed?! What happened to consistency and coherence? They were the ones telling me not to bother with the market timing class when I asked to retake it after the fallout with that instructor. They were the ones telling me that it wasn’t necessary for me to take that course based on my existing knowledge level after their conversation with me. They were the ones that told me not to worry about the content I missed in the market timing class as everything would be taught and elaborated on in this course I’m supposed to be in right now! Geez! So much about honouring your own words, eh? So this morning when we went to the class, we were barred by the security guard on the ground floor! When we asked for an explanation, the director came down with two big guys and spent 15 minutes on the phone before talking to us. He basically said that they are a private institution and can do whatever as they see fit! So we left. My husband then called the director again and was told that he could go back alone without me! I’m totally ok with him taking the course alone without me; my problem is with the institution and how they make their decisions! I would definitely like a justified explanation in a professional manner to convince me that the dismissal was based on solid grounds!

Thoughts and advice? I have a fairly good hypothesis about all these preemptive gestures imposed on me, but I would refrain from making it public until it’s proven.

OTA IS A RIPOFF HIGH SALES PRESSURE COMPANY!

I DON’T RECOMMEND IT FOR FOREX TRADERS.

Reasons:
1. What they teach is available for free on the web.
2. To get to FOREX class you need to take stock trading courses which is a waste of time and money.
3. Way OVER PRICED! You can put a down payment on a car or house for what they charge.
4. If you attend the “free” half day course your brain will spin for months. They treat you like Sh*t.

In one sentence. STAY AWAY!

as everyone is saying they have very good tactics for sale been in class bad they say they teach u but all they want is get in to ur pocket & get u spend like $20k to be trained .

The XLT is nothing new from the class, or even worse than the class, but you pay big bucks for it. Don’t pay it!

Most people from my class still losing money after years, I was there 2 times and had to give it up, but find better ways from website

This place is a joke. Don’t even bother going to half day sales pitch. That would be waste of your time. I attended free half day workshop for Online trading academy in Toronto. That half day ‘course’ is like others mention, just sales pitch. The instructor talk about the stuff that I already knew, how wall st. wants us to be on the other side and that they would make money off of us. And the academy will teach me how to become a “cleaner fish” who eats off of shark’s dead skin… And just like other mentioned, they use “door in the foot” technique- first say many times that 3 days course offered at $999 and drastically down to $299 + Tax.
The reason why I signed up for half day orientation was that it was “mandatory” before sign up for their course ($5000 + $2000 for part 2)- which I was going to take. They did not have to try so hard sell me the membership because I already made up my mind to take the course and learn.
The day after I got a phone call from the “education counsellor” asking me all these weird question, including if I had a magic wand and can change one thing, what would that be… is this a joke??
Well, unfortunately, our financial is pretty solid, and we are heavily invested on real estate. I just wanted to learn how to trade and understand those market better not to desperately make money! I told him I have in good place and I just wanted to learn.
They push you for coming into the school for one hour meeting to get to know me and understand my goals including your financial informations. I told him I just wanted to learn and financially I did not need help- just come in for classes . Seems like he was a newbie because he said his goal is to MAKE ME TAKE THE COURSES.LOL
And other guy (more experienced) called again that he was told how I did not want to come in for the “meeting” and did not want to fill out questionnaire ( why do i have to share my financial information with guys that I don’t trust? ). And was being very upset saying how he did not know me, and he needed to know me to help me, and how he did not care about the money and he was there to help people and I was not suit for the school and that he needed to cancel my seat. I am so thankful that he mentioned first that he needed to cancel my seat after reading how some people had hard time getting the refund. HAHA
I would have taken the courses and dropped the my money if it wasn’t for that pushy phone calls, foot in the door sales techniques, and intrusive questionnaires- that totally threw me off and made me had second thoughts. That was nothing but sales tactic that they used to make me spend money. The counsellor said it himself, that his goal was to make me take courses..

Okay…Here is a true review of OTA Toronto and overall in general. I hope it will be helpful for some. If you had some dealings with OTA, you will find that I am writing the truth. My intention is for people to make decisions based on correct information as I see many students who do not even know ABC of computers getting sucked in for 60-80K by OTA. It’s a business, not an academy. So, by definition of it, they are in to make profits by sucking in as many students as possible.
Their objective is to suck you into Mastermind eventually. (45K…If you paid more than that, you suck real good…don’t worry there are many like that)
1. All 5 star reviews that you see are from OTA students taking the class. They are offered prizes during the class. So, that explains the 5 stars. No institution gets 5 stars from everybody, c’mon be real.
2. Here is how the whole OTA business runs.
2.1) You get sucked into a FREE (don’t everybody want it 🙂 ) power trading workshop. When you come in the shop, it’s a motivational speech, carefully crafted to get you pumped up to make millions in a year. How do you make millions? Well, they will tell you in next session title “Market Timing”. You enrol right there, otherwise the discount they offer will not be available next day. Okay? well, that’s their first lie. You can always get the same price. Think about it. It’s a business to make money. Market Timing is about 250$. If you paid more than that, well you are a sucker.
2.2) Market Timing – Before you come in for the class, they ask you to fill-up a form to get to know your net worth. This determines how much they will sell the mastermind to you and if you get any discounts.
In the session, they give you snippets of their PATENTED Core strategy (Well, Fancy support/Resistance). It’s a 3 day course. They teach (lol! it’s a sales pitch instead) you briefly stock, forex, futures and options. Also, how buy and hold doesn’t work. In the end, you have sales guy (called Education Counsellor) coming in and share the retail price of the course if you take it same day otherwise price goes to wholesale tomorrow. Retail price is about 50% off. Well, their retail price is the actual price they would sell the courses to biggest sucker. If you are good in negotiations or low net worth, you could get a 25% off.
I observed whites are preferred and get better discounts. So, if you are white, use it your advantage and reap deeper discounts.
2.3) All courses stocks (7days), forex, futures, options have 5 day on-location classes and about 12 XLT online classes.
2.4) Unlimited Retakes – Not really, you only get in if there is no spot left in the classroom training. Generally, that happens for their new instructors, good instructors have their classes filled in pretty quickly. So, you cannot attend those.
2.5) ProPicks – Their winning percentage do not budge even if they have straight 10 losing trades. You only get 1-2 trades per asset class per week.
2.6) Mastermind Supply/Demand Grid – They only tell you levels which do not match their core strategy principles taught in class. Also, they do not share how they came up with levels.
2.7) Market Screener – It only shows symbols, not even levels. So, useless.

Conclusion: If you register for only couple courses, you will notice that your Education Counsellor is always trying to sell you Mastermind every chance they get.
You will also notice that you are missing some parts of core strategy that is only taught to mastermind students, only to realize after you get Mastermind that nah, not worth it.
So, Does their core strategy work? Sure it does. But, not more than any other trading strategies out there. You can learn those from other institues for about 5K. As any trader would know, there are many strategies that works, retracements, breakouts etc. So, core strategy (again fancy support/resistance…you will notice some instructors say that) isn’t worth 60K that many students pay for.
If you are still a fan, I would suggest take their pro trader courses (about 8K including XLT) that teaches core strategy and move on. You can learn basic mechanics of Futures, forex from any book and apply core strategy to it. That saves you 50K right there (50K profit, I should say as i am a trader)
Will you be a millionaire by the end of it? Lol..no..but you will start making decent money if you stick to this business for about 2 years.

Know this, it’s a business and their profit is based on how much they can sell their courses for. They will make you think about big dreams and that their courses will help you achieve it. But, I would say only about 2% of their students actually do well in about 2 years from start. Generally, you know if you will do well or not. So, if there is any hesitation, walk off, save your retirement money. Deals will always be there if you really crave OTA courses.

One more observation, generally their target is oldies as they have retirement money. But, these students are the ones who do not do well. Why? First off, they don’t know computers. Second, they have hard time learning the platform. Third, OTA doesn’t help set you up with trading accounts even with their business partners.

I hope this review would be helpful and gives some insight to prospective students that they don’t receive from OTA. Existing students, well you paid what you paid, can’t do much about it now. It was a business transaction.