theotrade.com

Devastating $156k Autotrade Service Loss At The Hands of Don Kaufman Himself

As a paying member of Theotrade for a year I was introduced to Don Kauffman’s Ultima Trading system involving the sale of way out of the money options through his daily live morning sessions and was intrigued with the statistical probability of success and it’s supposed stop loss criteria. As Don realized that there are many TheoTrade members with demanding schedules that aren't able to be in front of their trading accounts all day he decided to create an accessory autotrade service which implemented his Ultima criteria teachings under the name “Tradezaba.” I signed up for TradeZaba’s Ultima portfolio after Don promoted his “done for you” autotrade service at a cost of $3000 per year on a $250k account. This service entails the subscriber funding his own account and then linking it to Don’s whereby any trades made in a portfolio exclusively managed by him would be mirrored in your account. Their site touts a goal of 25% a year returns with two losing months a year and they state that the “consistent success of our strategies will more than make up for any losses that we incur.” With a demanding professional schedule this appealed to me as Don appeared to be a responsible trader whom I followed and who promotes “risk first, reward second.” This was far from the truth as Don who teaches students to exit positions at a -450% loss (approximately $4k-$5k) when executing the sale of short out of the money options under his ultima trading methodology did exactly the opposite. Well, instead of following his own teachings he allowed two short SPY call positions to result in a $156k loss on a $250k account, completely and utterly irresponsible in my eyes and all because he was too stubborn to take a small loss at the beginning. To put this in perspective, the profit goal on each of these short options is about $1000 each however it resulted in a $156k loss…not a good risk/reward at all. All of this was after a margin call that required members to top up their accounts or face liquidation of the positions. Feeling the stress of the account sitting at a huge loss I followed Don’s predictions of a market turnaround in our favor almost daily and came to realize that with all of his knowledge and experience that sadly he doesn’t have any edge on market direction more than my 9 year old son. Tradezaba promotes “life altering trade results” which is about the only thing these guys can accurately say except that they must be referring to devastating financial losses which indeed are “life altering.” At the end of the day the autotrade service by Don was a complete failure and once everything finally imploded with a second margin call, Don and his crew decided to send out a gutless email stating that the autotrade portfolio service was no longer able to continue. To add a cherry on top, they did not even offer a retroactive refund to the members for the remaining months of membership that had already been paid for. The sales people that work for TheoTrade repeatedly tout Don as being very careful and caring about his clients. When the carpet was suddenly pulled out from under paying members I realized it was all part of a huge sales swindle. Don loves the sound of his own voice and enjoys the spotlight but once things turned bad with the autotrade service he was gone like a thief in the night leaving behind any hopes of a explanatory email or video update accepting responsibility. I rarely write reviews but felt compelled to step up to speak on behalf of myself and other members of TheoTrade and TradeZaba who have been wronged. While probably pointless, I would encourage anyone who was part of the TradeZaba Ultima autotrade service to take a few minutes and file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on their “file a complaint” site. There have been similar instances whereby consumers have been awarded damages for misleading returns on trading systems. At this point, I’m sure this review will be replied to with a very mild mannered response from the company attempting to dilute, dismiss and apologize for what I’ve written here however rest assured my review is genuine and there is no way to excuse the devastating losses customers have had to endure at the hands of Don Kaufman himself. Thanks for reading this far and please remember to file a complaint if you have suffered financial damages as a result of this company. ***Side note, any rebuttal attempts from Theotrade stating that they are not affiliated with TradeZaba are a desperate attempt to distance themselves from the disaster that unfolded. The two entities are incestuously linked. The employees of both entities are the same people. The TradeZaba profile on this site was just created in response to my review in a sad attempt to have this one moved to another page for no one to see.

Date of experience: Feb 21, 2025