C2 members,
I am ending free trial periods on DogZebra FF. This is for several reasons which will be discussed at a later date.
-DZ
No doubt you ended free trials for the same reason most system developers do. Free trails are constantly exploited by newly created accounts that never stay after the free trial is over.
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In theory the free trial period is a great idea. It allows subscribers make sure their accounts are auto-trading the strategy properly and things work smooth before diving in.
However it is abused here by these “new accounts” daily, as well as affecting my strategy and paying subscribers with poor execution on these accounts. I will get more into it at a later date.
It is OK if the subscribers quit after the trial. Isn’t it the purpose of the trial?
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No.
Free trial is for those who intend to subscribe if they find the strategy is good.
Not for those who never intend to subscribe.
Most of my free trial sub simply register false credit card information ,so they will never subscribe.
Hmm! It is possible…
I think everyone has valid points about the free trials. With my over 9 years on C2, I’ve probably had over 1,000 people signing up for free trials and maybe only 10% actually subscribe.
So I don’t offer free trials anymore on my established trading strategies, but I will offer them on new strategies to get some recognition.
For example, I started Option Capital Builder in December and it already has over a 25% return, but no one is seeing it yet on the Leader Board because it’s too new. In that case, I have a 7 day free trial.
Jim
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What you’ll find with a free trial is once your system reaches a certain level of success, a constant stream of newly created accounts will subscribe for the free trial period and then quit when the trial is over. These accounts are usually subscribed to a half dozen other systems also offering free trials. It’s quite obvious what is happening. Those that actually pay for subscriptions have older accounts and are usually paying for another few systems they are subscribed to.
Perhaps one way to fix the current free trial issue is to only allow “qualified” accounts to subscribe for free trials. An account might become “qualified” once they have subscribed and paid actual fees on any system for at least a month.
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For established systems with 100 or more trades, seeing a few more trades with a free trial is meaningless. I prefer to offer a coupon for a reduced rate for the first month. This makes a subscriber have “some skin in the game.” Also, a subscriber is more likely to follow trades if they are paying for the service.
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A price reduction feature would eliminate most of free trial abusers.
For example, a strategy charging $200/month has a built in feature that can offer $10 for 7 days.
Most free trial abusers would not pay $10 for 7 days.
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or restrict the number of systems you can “test” for free at any given time, i.e. limit to one or two systems that have a free trial period. Or…a maximum number of systems you can ever try for free (perhaps five).
Here is the thing about all those new members who trial a group of systems , they in reality didnt really subscribe , what happens is when they sign up to C2 for the first time they are represented with a wizard to choose their favorite asset class and then they will get subscribed to 5 random systems - from the top systems - , you can try the process yourself , many of them dont really care about the systems nor they will check these systems again , they are just new C2 members who want to just try the site itself .
They are not new members.
Typically only one out of 10 free trial members finally subscribe. So are those 90% of free trial members new comers to C2?
Mostly yes , you can check their profiles .
They are old members with new names and new accounts.
When their free trial end they don’t unsubscribe.
They left their false credit card information to let C2 to charge their false credit card. So I got a lot of emails telling me their credit card got declined.
They just repeatedly do this.
It doesn’t make any sense new comers all give false credit card information.
your option system looks good but some of the intra-trade drawdowns are pretty big. Is this normal with options?
TT3, The drawdowns you are asking about for Option Capital Builder are really a function as to how C2 tracks option prices for option systems with no autotraders. What C2 uses is the Last Price, not the bid or the ask or the mid-point.
Unfortunately, when I started Option Capital Builder, I had no autotraders and I purchased some call options where the Last Price was radically different than the price I executed the trade at. This resulted in C2 showing an illusory profit on the position of about 10% of the total account value, which corrected itself when I actually made the same trade in my TD Ameritrade account.
The problem was that C2 now showed Option Capital Builder as having a significantly larger drawdown than what actually occurred. The actual drawdown was about 18%. Now that I have autotraders there has been no further problems in this regard.
Jim
You dont have evidence that they are all old members , i just signed up as a test as a new member and i chose stocks strategies , boom , i am automatically subscribed to 5 random stocks top strategies - that has free trial - , no credit card is needed .
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I am not sure if credit card is needed, I would let C2 to clarify. But you didn’t register with false credit card information, did you? That means you are not that kind of person as abusers.
I had a strategy , which offer 2 months free trial, there were about 50 free trial members, 85% of them registered with false credit cards information.
It is a simple logic that someone cheat one time, he is likely to cheat many times.
Someone who cheats on false credit card, who is also likely to cheat on creating new names and new accounts.
Now let’s do a math.
Suppose you are a new comer and just create an account, and join 5 free trials, for the purpose of testing this site. Tomorrow you may join another 5 free trials. Now if 7 days later, you still keep joining free trials, you are not considered a new comer, you will have become an old member.
Suppose there are 1000 C2 old members who consistently join free trials, there would be 9000 new members who also do the same thing.
One week later, these 9000 new members become old members, so there are 10000 old members, and 90000 new members, who also do this thing. In a month, there will be 9000000 new members . In a year, there will be 9000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 new members .
What does this math say? It says you can’t have 90% new members consistently coming to C2, even 10% new members is unlikely, because that will grow C2 members by 142 times every year, which seems not true.
1% is a reasonable number, as that will grow C2 memebers by 67% each year.
It is insane to ask people’s credit card to register. Why the register must give their credit card information. The C2’s revenue is mainly from the strategy seller in stead of the subscriber. This is the problem of C2. C2 doesn’t recognize what is the core and valuable asset.
