Epic Trading Review: Forex signals & training platform
Epic Trading operates in the forex MLM niche. The company provides a corporate address in the US state of Nevada on its website.
Heading up Epic Trading is founder David McCovy.
McCovy appears to have first found success in 5Linx, having risen to the Senior Vice President rank circa 2014.
After 5Linx McCovy (right) joined the since-collapsed Paycation pyramid scheme.
McCovy’s stint at Paycation was brief. In 2015 he ditched the company and launched Evolution Travel.
BehindMLM reviewed Evolution Travel in 2018 and found it was a pyramid clone of Paycation.
Evolution Travel’s website is still up today, so it seems McCovy intends to continue running it alongside Epic Trading.
Epic Trading President Spencer Iverson has also appeared on BehindMLM, most recently in connection to Jewel Sanitary Napkins.
Read on for a full review of Epic Trading’s MLM opportunity.
Epic Trading’s Products
Epic Trading markets “Epic Scholar”, a forex training platform.
Epic Trading provides Epic Scholar subscribers with
- trade alerts
- trading sessions
- fundamental analysis and
- market forecasts
An Epic Scholar subscription is $99.99 a month.
Epic Trading’s Compensation Plan
Epic Trading affiliates are paid on Epic Scholar subscriptions sold to retail customers and recruited affiliates.
Commissions are tied to twelve affiliate ranks, qualification criteria for which is provided below.
Epic Trading Affiliate Ranks
- Affiliate – sign up as an Epic Trading affiliate and continue to pay monthly membership fees
- Founder – recruit 3 affiliates and generate 300 GV a month
- Founder 500 – maintain three personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 10 affiliates and generate and maintain 1000 GV a month
- Founder 1000 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 30 affiliates and generate and maintain 3000 GV a month
- Founder 2000 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 80 affiliates and generate and maintain 8000 GV a month
- Founder 5000 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 250 affiliates and generate and maintain 25,000 GV a month
- Ambassador 10 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 500 affiliates and generate and maintain 50,000 GV a month
- Ambassador 20 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 1000 affiliates and generate and maintain 100,000 GV a month
- Ambassador 50 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 2500 affiliates and generate and maintain 250,000 GV a month
- Icon 100 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 5000 affiliates and generate and maintain 500,000 GV a month
- Icon 200 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 15,000 affiliates and generate and maintain 1,500,000 GV a month
- Icon 500 – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 40,000 affiliates and generate and maintain 4,000,000 GV a month
- Epic – maintain 3 personally recruited affiliates, generate a downline of 75,000 affiliates and generate and maintain 7,500,000 GV a month
GV stands for “Group Volume” and is sales volume generated by the sale of Epic Scholar subscriptions.
I believe one subscription equates to 100 GV.
Note that in order to count towards affiliate recruitment requirements, I believe recruited affiliates must be up to date with membership payments and Epic Scholar subscription fees.
Epic Trading also imposes a 40%/40%/20% rule, meaning up to 40% of required recruited affiliates can be sourced from two downline legs. The remaining 20% covers the rest of the downline.
Founder is the only exception to this, with recruited affiliates spread 1/1/1.
Epic Trading Weekly Commissions
Corresponding rank-based Epic Trading monthly commission payments are as follows:
- qualify at Founder 500 and receive $500 a month
- qualify at Founder 1000 and receive $1000 a month
- qualify at Founder 2000 and receive $2000 a month
- qualify at Founder 5000 and receive $5000 a month
- qualify at Ambassador 10 and receive $10,000 a month
- qualify at Ambassador 20 and receive $20,000 a month
- qualify at Ambassador 50 and receive $50,000 a month
- qualify at Icon 100 and receive $100,000 a month
- qualify at Icon 200 and receive $200,000 a month
- qualify at Icon 500 and receive $500,000 a month
- qualify at Epic and receive $1,000,000 a month
Epic Rank Rewards
Epic Trading’s compensation material mentions “Epic Rank Rewards”.
At the time of publication however no specific details are provided.
Joining Epic Trading
Epic Trading affiliate membership is $24.99 a month. This does not include access to Epic Scholar, which costs an additional $99.99 a month.
Conclusion
Epic Training provides zero information on its website pertaining to the source of its forex related offerings.
Obviously David McCovy himself isn’t providing the information, so it’s being sourced from a third-party.
Failing to disclose this information to prospective customers and affiliates is a red flag.
It leaves consumers unable to make an educated decision regarding Epic Trading’s Epic Scholar subscription, which may be a violation of the FTC Act.
Thankfully, at least if the company is to be believed, Epic Trading doesn’t get into securities territory;
Epic Trading International, LLC is NOT providing investment advice as all trade signals are delivered to all participants uniformly without regard to an individual’s trade objectives, financial condition or suitability.
Moreover, Epic Trading International, LLC does not exercise trading authority over your trades. You and you alone exercise discretionary trading authority.
Based on that information I believe there is no way to engage in automated trading of any kind through Epic Trading.
With respect to the MLM side of the business, the legitimacy of Epic Trading comes down to are there more Epic Scholar retail customers or affiliates?
Epic Trading does allow people to sign up for Epic Scholar without signing up as an affiliate, so there is an attempt at retail.
Whether it’s genuine or not is questionable.
For starters there are no retail customer requirements. Secondly if you look at the compensation plan, GV required (remembering that one Epic Scholar subscription = 100 GV), always syncs up to required downline.
Epic Trading’s compensation plan labels downline requirements as “team members”, which excludes retail customers.
It’s pretty obvious that Epic Trading’s compensation plan was written with affiliate recruitment in mind.
Another tell is Epic Trading’s recommendation to prospective affiliates;
We strongly recommend that all prospective members interested in our referral compensation program join as an Epic Scholar first to experience the platform and its services personally before deciding to participate as an IBO of the company.
There is of course David McCovy’s history with pyramid schemes, but we’re evaluating Epic Trading on its own merits here.
The good news is Epic Trading’s personal recruit requirements make it easy to ascertain, at least on an individual level, the retail viability of Epic Trading’s forex offering.
With three recruits required to qualify for commissions at any rank, every Epic Trading affiliate should have at least three corresponding Epic Scholar retail customers.
That’s all you need to ask your potential upline. If they can’t provide evidence of having three currently active Epic Scholar retail subscriptions, you have your answer.
Personally given the aforementioned lack of disclosure regarding Epic Trading’s forex services, I’d be surprised if anyone was paying $99.99 a month without the attached income opportunity.
As per FTC guidelines, that would make Epic Trading a pyramid scheme.
There is back story to this.
This program was made by Tradera rejects. The ones doing the coaching were the ones who got their accounts terminated by tradera.
Why?, I do not know the reason but maybe another reader does.
They used their Tradera termination story to get people into this new program. Lots of teams were divided.
This company looks to be some type of pay back against tradera’s actions against them.
30,000 new affiliates joined within a week but it will go down after their price goes back up to $100 per month.
Through the month of September, EPIC is charging $20 to lure people in.
Most affiliates are promoting this as a $20 program but wait til they get their next bill.
They are focusing on ranks just like they did in tradera. But Epic cost a lot more.
I was a part of tradera, they were a great company until the systems shut down and i got no response back from my emails and my daughters account was charded w=.
once the system came up brifely i ended my subcription but now i uess they have the system back up so no im getting tons of email from them about current promotions.
im too afraid to give them another shot because i went 2 weeks without being paid from Tradera, and they have a lot of promotions going on that looks as if they are trying to compete with this new company.
I am hearing that people left Tradera because they weren’t being paid. Now, whether that is true or not, I would not know.
This is a long reply, but hopefully gives an added perspective -everyone of course is welcome to their own opinions and judgement (that’s what keeps us interesting right?)
I joined Tradera one month before the split – because I was attracted to the education element, the opportunity to join ‘live training’ and exposure to more than one mentor.
Years ago we paid 1000s for a Forex education that amounted to what you could learn in a single poorly produced Youtube these days. We also never learnt to trade successfully, so burnt more thousands on that.
We almost didn’t bother looking at this but figured $99 for a month and not being committed to it long term was worth a look.
Not long after I joined Tradera, the split happened. I had been watching some live sessions prior to this point – offered by traders in the upline group, yet not officially promoted by Tradera. I learnt more from those traders in 2 weeks than I learn in 2 years form my ‘private mentor’ previously (yep, call me gullible).
When the split happened, I did not know who to believe, but wanted to continue the education, so I stayed with both ($24.95 for one in prelaunch and $99 for the existing Tradera) and thought I would just see which one provided the value I am looking for.
It has been about 6 weeks since it all happened. In that time, I have seen very few ‘live’ sessions from Tradera, yet dozens and dozens of recruiting promotions and promo calls to get our prospects to join.
At Epic, they had a big push on promo in the first month (4 calls a day from memory) but this has settled now to around 1 per day. Tradera still have 3 promo calls a day minimum. I did not join to build MLM but to learn to trade.
The big differences:
-Tradera ‘might’ have one live session a day (often cancelled or time shifted), Epic had 3 live sessions a day so no matter where we live in the world, or our work schedule, we could join in. The sessions for Epic have all been recorded so we can rewatch. Tradera kept promising and telling us it was recorded, but in the 2 months I never saw them make these recordings available.
-Epic also run separately offered intro to trading and study hall sessions where we can jump on and learn and actually ask questions that get answered.
-Tradera send about 4-6 trading alerts a week, Epic send about 20. While I joined to learn, I judge the calibre of the traders by the results of their alerts.
-Epic are achieving more than 10x better results in their alerts (in terms of winning trades and % movement)
-The quality of the traders is absolutely phenomenal. I am learning institutional concepts that are way beyond anything I have learnt as a beginner trader…and they work.
In the background, they run Telegram chats where all members support each other with knowledge and the master traders also take time to answer questions.
-The education material in the back office is laid out well and structured to take people from bare basics through to being able to successfully trade (they also offer you to submit homework for review).
This material is being added to constantly and I am impressed with the content. This education includes things like mindset and risk management which are vital for us to succeed as a trader.
I am not a team builder. Like I said, I joined to learn and I am very very satisfied with EPIC learning. I have not renewed Tradera because of it’s heavy focus on building, poor contribution to making sure we get quality education and endless promises of something better coming but not delivering.
My upline is one of the master traders and he has constantly promoted the fact that team building is optional and his goal is to teach us all to trade because if we can trade for ourselves, we can fully support ourselves and our families forever.
Sorry this has been long. I have joined a few MLM companies in the past but gave up because, despite maybe the product being good, the only way you could afford the product was to recruit (which I suck at).
This is the opposite … it wont matter if I never recruit, I will make (and am making) way more by trading.
I hope this helps with better understanding. Thank you for having this site too – you have helped save me from a few ‘opportunties’ that some of my friends have (sadly) got caught up in.
Dear RLB,
Thanks for your very comprehensive and comparative outline. However, I’d like to see a balanced view, so where are the arguments countering the very strong allegations you have made here in favour of Epic. I’d love to hear Trader’s rebut.
Can one join Epic’s IBO plan and pay just $25 monthly, thus avoiding the Epic Scholar arm which requires an additional $100 per month?
Your piece was written in early October, are you still prepared to say that Epic has been consistently living up to those principles?
Can you provide and/or point to other reviews that support and at times equally criticise your allegations against Tradera?
Actually, I am challenging from the perspective that I am between minds as to which of these organisations I should join.
The fact that we are here in the UK where most US time zones do not synchronise, we would wish to be a part of a setup which is aware of these fundamental issues. My decision will have influenced others as well.
Thanks for your kind response.
Regards
Don
I love Epic this is my first MLM in a long while. accurate trade alerts and its phenomenal.
I joined one of the Epic Educators and Im now a Founder 500 but also know how to trade with our own strategy.
truly grateful for joining Epic. the Company has influenced my other students to join.
the back office is thorough with live trading, the 2 week syllabus is phenomenal for my students.
and I now have many who are now interested in joining why because the company provides proper education from A-Z.
Hi,
I have personally seen both sides of the fence when looking at both these companies. I have been a very proud member of the Epic Community since August 30 2020, and I have not looked back.
My excitement level has not dropped since joining either, and that speaks volumes to me being in the marketing world for 25 years +. There are always going to be bad reviews no matter what in any company both on and offline, that is just a fact.
What I can say about Epic is as a team leader is that the value that is added on a continual basis is phenomenal.
Also, would like to debunk the thinking that people actually pay the $99.99/mo for the education as I have many team members that do just that. They have no interest in building a team as they are in it to trade.
I saw mentioned above, asking why people can’t just join for the $24.99 IBO. First, we are an educational platform with an OPTIONAL marketing arm.
IBO stands for Independent Business Owner, and if you want to make a business out of what I like to call, the referral program, then you can. It’s not mandatory at all.
Our top priority at Epic is to teach people the skill set of Forex trading and at $99.99/mo it is money well spent.
IF Epic allowed people to come in at $24.99 a month just to stack a team with no value, then it would be the epitome of a pyramid scheme.
I love being Epic and proud to say I have planted my flag with this amazing company!
^^ The first tell in the above comment is no mention of the signals service.
The second tell is the mention of “optional” recruiting, which is irrelevant.
The third tell is the false “if there’s no product (value) then it can’t be a pyramid scheme” justification.
The fourth tell is the “yOu CaN fInD bAd ReViEwS aBoUt AnYtHiNg!” cliche.
This isn’t a comment left by someone in a thriving retail focused MLM opportunity. This is defending an MLM company likely operating as a pyramid scheme.