Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Still no reply from Topstep on not paying out to someone due to a retrospective rule change, yet they have posted on this site today advertising new rules. So this demonstrates to me they are avoiding this issue, which doesn't look good.
Unfortunately, this incident happened over a year ago so I cannot speak accurately to it. We have made a lot of changes to our program since this issue occurred. Since then, we have not had any issues paying traders out and we have a real-time live stream of our payouts in our Discord for complete transparency. We have also added an article on "prohibited conduct" which you can view here: https://help.futures.topstep.com/hc/en-us/articles/8808125387923-Prohibited-Conduct
Upon a rule violation any profits accumulated in the account greater than the initial balance you would retain. There are some exceptions like the Express Funded Account where we want you to show that you can be profitable for at least 5 days before being able to take a payout.
So lets get this straight - someone asks about an incident and you ignore them for a year. Dozens of other members also ask about it, then you reply after a year stating that the incident was too long ago for you to remember. Handled like a politician, and that's not a compliment.
Sorry, but that's unacceptable for me. The accusation was extremely serious - the trader passed the evaluation, was in profit, and requested a payout. You didn't give them the payout, then changed the rules a good few months after they requested the payout, then decided not to pay them at all. That's a terrible way to do business, and to be honest your reply is almost as bad.
I have held my peace about this incident when it came up again, because it was old, as you had said, and it was before your time here, and the trader in question had decided to drop it and had moved on.
But, during the several weeks before that happened, the thread was often one of the most-read of the day. The situation that the user laid out was deeply troubling to many who read about it, and @Topstep kept absolutely silent about it, even though many members, myself included, invited them to address the situation and tagged the Topstep username with the "@" symbol, which sends an email to the account with a notification that Topstep had been mentioned, with a copy of the post. People were essentially pounding on the @Topstep door asking the company to come in and give their side of it... and there was nothing. The absence of a response was troubling.
I went back and counted three posts I made tagging Topstep about it, and many others did the same. Either no one was monitoring the company account at that time, or no one at the company cared enough about this issue to simply respond and give their side of it.
For example, here is a post I made early on responding to another member, whose post I am first quoting. There was no response to either post, nor to any other post in that thread:
This is still a big deal, because the incident still gets mentioned from time to time, and there's still nothing from the company explaining their side of it.
I hope that when you come back with whatever others at the company have told you about the situation, it's not just with some corporate fog, but with something of substance. I am sure that people on this forum are -- or should be -- perfectly willing to make allowances for the fact that people, and companies, make mistakes. It is also possible that there was no mistake, and that the company was correct. If the company feels they were justified, it would be only right to at least explain why. Or perhaps the only mistake was that they didn't tell their side of it. Or perhaps they felt they had to respect "individual privacy," as you mentioned.
But there needs to be an explanation of some sort. Ignoring it has not helped the company at all.
My view is that @Topstep has contributed positively in giving traders who are interested an avenue to learning their craft, and I have said so many times. I feel the company has simply made a mistake in letting this situation be ignored, and I do not think it should be taken out of proportion.
But this is a reputational issue, and someone at the company has screwed up in letting it grow unanswered. I hope you will provide enough information to permit readers to understand what happened and, most importantly, to understand what they may face if they decide to use Topstep in the future. Any doubts people may have need to be settled, going forward.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote