This review of Scott Bauer’s Prosper Trading Academy is written by a tire-kicker. I’ve seen their ads on YouTube and I really like passive income and am alway actively searching for ways to have a secure retirement. So, my first touch with Prosper Trading Academy came about a year ago. I opted for some information which included a promise of weekly options picks. They promised a year ago (and just a week or so ago) that they would be sending me weekly options picks and I would be pleased with the outcomes and that would spur me to want more info. So right off the bat, let’s be clear, they got my cell phone number an email, but I never once saw weekly picks. But I did get appointments with their sales staff… which they then missed. But let’s look past all of that and review some other aspects of this opportunity within the options trading space.

My Cup of Tea is High Yield *AUTOMATED* Trading

There is a saying that there is something for everyone, but nothing is for everyone. And Prosper Trading academy is not for me for one simple reason: it is not automated. It’s all cool that the office is right above the Chicago Board of Trade. That means he has enough money to pay rent on a very well-decked out office. And if he is making money for that expensive option from options, then why cant I simply copy his trades automatically? Automated options trading is available via a number of platforms (eShares, eOptions, Global-Autotrading.com) and they each offer about 50 newsletters that allow you to simply deposit your funds and then have the funds trade automatically. My current automated trading programs are doing quite well.

But that’s not good enough for Scott

He wants to sit there in his blue jacket and have you sit in a webinar room watching him pore over charts all day and then when he mentions a trade, you have to be alert and jump in when he does… again: I watched about an hour or two of the material he sent me – him posing on a golf course with a student, etc. Nice, but I know one thing, because your trading is not 100% automatic, neither of you is making any money while you are posing for that photo or playing 18 holes.

But I do respect people who want full control and want to learn. But even so, I would opt for skyview trading with a reasonable monthly fee over this. And there are several YouTubers (invest with henry comes to mind) who offer training.

$3,000 or $7,500 to Start

Look, we all have to eat and you would not get the attention of any star in their field without paying this sort of price tag. But what the heck am I getting for that? And is there a trial period? And what is the money-back guarantee? And what sort of trading size will I need to recoup that fee? And where is your long-term track record?

They Are Not Trading a Live Account

You might be live in the webinar room with them but they are tracking trades in a spreadsheet, supposedly for the purpose of not distrurbing the market. OK, then when are you actually making money in the options market? And what happens when the throng of students who just heard you make the call all open trades? Wouldn’t that volume be similar?

Trust Pilot is Overall Quite Good

Kudos to Prosper for listing themselves on TrustPilot. And kudos to them for having a 4.6 star rating. They must be doing something right. But they will never do it for me, unless I like the terms of the money-back guarantee.

But the bad reviews are verified

The thing that gets me is when Prosper responds to someone who lost money they mention that they track their trades and want to see the discrepancy between the reviewer and their tracker. And speaking of the tracker I would like to see it before joining. But guess what? When speaking with them, they made it clear that they do not post their performance tracking publicly and you must pay first.

And again, let’s think, should a beginner be expected to place profitable trades? I don’t think so. I want to make money using someone else’s expertise. I dont want to make beginner mistakes and then eventually learn to make profits. I want to dial into someone who is already profitable. Thus my first point in this article – my cup of tea is automated trading.

Reddit feedback on Prosper Trading Academy

When I got interested in Prosper Academy about a year ago, I went to my second home, reddit, and posted a query about Prosper. This is where my research got interesting because a person named “Mark G” posted in my reddit thread and also posted a lengthy review at TrustPilot. What I take away from his review is:

1. “I was in his room every day from 8:00am – 3pm CST” – that sounds like a job. If time is money, then I better be earning 10k/month for that much time.
2. “in my 14 months in his room I never witnessed him once discuss or whiteboard a losing trade and what happened vs expectations prior to putting on the trade.” – For a training room to only discuss winners is not acceptable for me.
3. “Bauer does a great job of teaching a newbie to get up to Speed quickly.” – up to speed on what? You said his technical analysis is based simple moving averages and support/resistance. I could visit BabyPips and learn that for free. Again, skyview trading had a $7.00 for 7 days offer where they went into the greeks and you had 24/7 access to a Discord with a lot of independent traders who had been through their trading.
4. Newbie overload – it seems that the daily sessions have questions from people of differing experience levels, leading to a lot of repetition.

Conclusion

So there you have it. A review from a person who was curious but not impressed enough to fork over 3k or more with no clear understanding of the refund policy. And not interested enough in sitting in front of a computer screen waiting for someone to feed me trades … why would I do that when they can just as well copy-trade them right to my account automatically?!