Getting Dirty With The Competition

With this post, we want to tell you a different story – A story involving Top-Step-Trader, Their tactics and approach when it comes to competition, how it affected The5ers and the ease with which anyone can twist laws and regulations to damage opponents.

The Truth About Competition In Trading

Let’s begin with some tough but honest truths – the business we are all in is a cutthroat one, it is one where every small edge you get will likely be erased in little time as the competition catches up to what you are doing.

And that is all fine, some might even say it’s healthy as it drives companies and individuals to think, create and keep the industry moving forward.

But there are some out there that seem to be armed with nothing but the desire to spoil, ruin and stamp out anything that even remotely resembles competition as they would probably much rather be the biggest fish in the smallest pond, and damn the consequences for all.

That is what we at The5ers had to deal with a while back and we want to share this little tale with all of you.

The5ers Core Beliefs

To begin you must first understand that we at The5ers pride ourselves on being open, outgoing and engaging from the moment you happen to stumble upon our website with some questions all the way to the day on which you decide you’ve outgrown our services and want to stake out a career on your own.

We strive to answer every single question from every single customer as quickly and accurately as possible and provide a plan that is easily understandable not to mention extremely fair.

And while we may not be the biggest prop trading company out there we are certainly proud of our success and the reputation we’ve fought so hard to win and maintain.

Which is precisely why the following tale came as a shock to us.

A Surprising Demand From Top Step Trader

This all starts a few months ago as a letter arrived at our doorstep and in it, a demand to cease & desist from using “funded account” across any & all sites, publications and posts.

The demand originated from Top-Step-Trader.

Once we were able to lift our jaws off the floor we learned that it would seem that a couple of years earlier the fine folks over there decided to try their luck and registered a patent on the term “funded account” as it pertains to trading in any sense.

Seeing as we are far from legal experts we turned to one specializing in such legal matters to sort out the situation and what we found was quite shocking.

It seems that due to the way regulations are structured – one could basically apply for a patent on just about anything under the sun.

So there could, theoretically speaking, be a patent out there for “Apple Pie” or “Bank Account” or even “Uncle Sam” (And yes, those patents all exist, we’ve looked).

(You can see for yourselves at the U.S Patent and Trademark Office)

That would mean that anyone would be forced to pay the owner of those supposed patents some sort of royalties when using one of those expressions in any sort of advertising.

As you probably understand by now – that’s quite ridiculous and entirely impossible to enforce.

But that doesn’t mean that some companies like Top-Step-Trader aren’t about to do their best and try!

At the advice of legal counsel, we decided to simply ignore their initial cease & desist letter as he informed us that TST would have to go through long and drawn-out legal procedures just to file a complaint against us for copyright infringement and they would likely end up losing that lawsuit as their patent attempts to cover something which is a figure of speech and therefor – quite impossible.

Stooping To A New Low

But we failed to judge just how low TST would stoop in their efforts to stamp out their competition.

A couple of months later we received another letter with far less kind language informing us that if we do not remove “funded account” from any & all publications (past, present & future) TST would seek damages via all legal avenues.

It was clear to us that these were nothing more than scare-tactics so once again, at the advice of counsel – we ignored the letter.

And just when we thought TST had stooped to their lowest we discovered they’d found another step below as they chose to take their campaign against us to the next level.

And what might that step be you might ask? Well, we went to be one night only to be woken by alarm bells (or repeated messages on our mobile phones anyway) informing us that the5ers.com was down.

As we started looking into the matter, we quickly discovered that TST had taken the liberty of approaching our ISP (internet service provider).

And had informed them that we were supposedly in violation of copyright laws and ignoring their queries.

Which (supposedly) gives them permission to turn to our ISP and ask for our removal from their service as part of the penalties against us.

But as is that were not dirty and underhanded enough, their request was processed at the dead of night.

On a weekend.

Meaning it would take us the greatest amount of time to learn that the site is down but also to contact our ISP, sort out the reason and get the site back up.

A Nasty Top Step Trader Pattern

It was roughly 5 hours before we got everything sorted out but.

we learned that most ISP’s man their weekend night shifts with one or two emergency personnel who are given very little discretion.

They act according to the request in front of them and leave the fallout for others to handle.

In the process of doing a “post mortem” to the event, we also learned that this was NOT the first time Top-Step-Trader had acted in such an underhanded way.

Directly going to ISP’s with various disputes, skipping over all other legal means.

A couple of years ago they did the exact same thing with another company – Oneuptrader.

And while one event may be a coincidence – two is a pattern.

Profit For Everyone

The5ers operates with a base assumption that not many traders are even aware of the field of prop trading and the ability to base themselves as traders without risking their own capital so the field itself is quite small when compared to the more traditional ways of trading.

Furthermore – we believe that if the entire field is more well known and widespread it will, by default, lead to competition and growth for any company within it, by the sheer law of averages.

In short – If more people know about prop trading – all prop trading companies win out.

But Top-Step-Trader does not seem to share this belief.

No, to them – any competition is bad.

And that got us thinking – why is that?

So Why Act That Way?

Could they be trying to prevent the truth from getting around?

The truth that any trader with an internet connection and a computer learn within a simple search?

The truth that there are companies out there that offer plans that are far superior, easier to understand, with better terms and growth plans? 

There is a word for what Top-Step-Trader did to us and to others in the field.

And to what they will likely attempt to do once again to someone else.

That word is sabotage.

This is the desperate act of a company that knows it is behind and is faced with seeing their traders going to places that offer a more advanced platform with fairer deal costs and a better horizon.

Here To Stay

The5ers are here to stay and so is our way of doing business – a fair program, with great benefits and people who stand behind their word just as they stand behind our traders and an outgoing and welcoming approach.

It is our hope that such events will not repeat themselves.

But should they happen  – we will be ready, we hope you are too!

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