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.