Is Tom Gentile’s Fast Fortune Club a Scam?

Overview

• Name: Fast Fortune Club
• Type: Investment advisory service
• Creator: Tom Gentile
• Publisher: Money Map Press
• Address: 1125 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21201, USA

If the address is familiar to you, it’s because you’ve probably seen it mentioned on this site a few times. Money Map Press, the publisher of the Fast Fortune Club, is one of the many investment newsletters published under the Agora company.

Should this raise red flags? Not really, since Money Map Press does have a few legitimate programs under its belt. However, a quick search on the Better Business Bureau website shows that the company has several complaints about the non-issuance of refunds and false promises. If you wish to proceed, I would advise you to do it with caution and to never invest more than you can afford to lose.

Money Map Press belongs to the Agora group, and it seems like Agora churns out investment services like this by the plenty and each one is starting to look like the other. So the question now is, if there are so many investment services out there, does the Fast Fortune Club even stand out?

What is the Fast Fortune Club?

The Fast Fortune Club is a follow-along investment advisory service that provides subscribers with investment recommendations based on an algorithm developed by Tom Gentile. 

Like most follow-along services, the Fast Fortune Club is targeted towards beginners who have little to no experience and knowledge in investing. The service just gives you a list of viable investment options - you invest and cash out when they tell you to.

Who is Tom Gentile?

Earlier, I asked what makes the Fast Fortune club unique among the seemingly endless number of investment services that the Agora group of companies churns out. The answer to this question is Tom Gentile.

Anyone worth their mettle in the investment industry knows who Tom Gentile is. According to the bio on his website, he is supposedly the number one trader in America. A quick Google search will tell you that he isn’t, because traders and investors don’t have rankings set in stone. Also, there are a lot of prominent names out there in the investment space, such as Teeka Tiwari, who all claim to be the best in the field.

Although the title is pretty much an exaggeration, this self-proclaimed top gun in the investment industry does have a lot of evidence to back up his claim. He was one of the most trusted advisers when it came to stock options and futures, and even became a millionaire because of it.

Before Tom Gentile became a full-time investment advisor and trader, he created Optionetics, a company that users technology to create financial and investment solutions. The company provided educational services such as live coaching and investment seminars to those who want to learn more about the world of investing. Tom sold the company back in 2009 for $20 million.

Tom used his experiences with Optionetics and spent the next 30 years providing several investment products and services, one of which is the Fast Fortune Club. All his programs revolve around investment patterns, which are tiny and almost invisible movements in the market. According to Tom, all his years of experience in the investment field have helped him spot these patterns, so he knows which options to invest in, and when to sell them.

There is one possible red flag when it comes to Tom Gentile himself. For someone who is supposedly the number 1 trader in America, not a lot is known about him. Google search results for Tom Gentile yield a totally different individual. While he may be a private person apart from his trading persona, but you would assume that someone who wants to share his trading secrets with the world would be more visible on the Internet.

How it Works

The Fast Fortune Club is a monthly newsletter service that provides subscribers with trading options. The premise is simple: you get the newsletter every month. It will contain names of stocks that will supposedly take off in the next few days or weeks. If you’re lucky enough, you can invest in stocks on Monday, the stocks will shoot off in the following days, and you can then sell your shares on Friday and make a sizable profit that way.

According to the website, you can make as much as $2,000 every week for as little as 10 minutes’ worth of effort per day. You just need to read the newsletter, pick your stocks, invest in those stocks, and then cash out when the newsletter tells you to. It sounds easy enough that it attracts a lot of people, most of which would love to get rich quickly via trading without wanting to put some work into it.

It should be noted that the equation is not complete. It only tells you that you'll receive around $2,000 every week with just 10 minutes per day, but it never says how much money you start with. Do you get $2,000 per week from a starting investment of $1,000? That's a 200% profit after just one week, which is good. However, if your starting investment is $1 million and you get $2,000 per week, that's a different story altogether.

So what is the science behind this process? While all his products and services are based on investment patterns, the website hails Fast Fortune Club as Tom’s greatest work, where he reveals all his investment secrets to help people make money (although we’re pretty sure that’s what his previous program also promised).

As with many modern investment services, this one revolves around “microcurrencies”, which simply means cryptocurrency. This is where the first major red flag comes up. While cryptocurrency exchange is a real thing and a lot of people have made millions through it, cryptocurrency, in general, is more difficult to trade in compared to stocks or foreign currencies. Due to the less tangible nature of cryptos, the market is volatile and difficult to predict.

However, because of this volatility, it becomes entirely possible to buy low on a Monday and sell high on a Friday. Does this mean the Fast Fortune Club’s claims are true and you can get rich quickly by trading in cryptocurrencies?

Not really. In general, there is no such thing as a “get rich quick” scheme, and even Tom himself has spent around 30 years refining his trade and improving his pattern. Also, predicting cryptocurrency movement is more difficult, because the factors that affect stock value are often not visible in the media. With the stock exchange, you can predict how a company’s stocks will go by reading the news. A PR scandal or a change in leadership within the company usually means a huge movement in the company’s stocks.

This doesn’t apply to cryptocurrencies because the people behind these digital currencies usually enjoy more anonymity compared to traditional companies. Also, let’s not discount the effect investment newsletters have on the market itself.

What do I mean by this? As mentioned before, the Fast Fortune Club is one of the many investment newsletters published by Money Map Press. In turn, Money Map Press is one of the many companies under the Agora umbrella. Let’s say, for example, all the newsletters recommend investing in Dogecoin, and all the subscribers invest in Dogecoin because of this, it will create movement in stock prices for Dogecoin regardless of whether or not the cryptocurrency showed patterns of shooting off that week.

If you look at it this way, it has less to do with discovering hidden patterns, and more to do with deliberately controlling the movement of stock prices with the advice they give. Of course, this is just a possibility, and we don't really know how much this could or could not be happening.

Products

What do you get when you subscribe to the Fast Fortune Club? As a subscriber, you get regular reports that not only give you a list of good investment options, but you also get several of Tom’s educational materials that will help you learn more about investing in general.

Fast Fortune Club Monthly Newsletter

This is the bread and butter of the entire program. This monthly newsletter not only gives stock recommendations but also has articles about the latest trends in the cryptocurrency world and general investment advice.

Microcurrency Trading Crash Course

As the name suggests, this is Tom’s “how-to” video on the basics of microcurrency trading. The 30-minute video goes over the science behind spotting patterns in the cryptocurrency market. If cryptocurrency trading is new to you, this video explains everything you need to know.

Microcurrency Quick-Start Guide

If the crash course video condensed all basic information about microcurrency trading in 30-minutes, the quick-start guide is an e-book that delves further into the topic for people who want to advance their knowledge on the subject. 

Fast Fortune Club Alerts

To some, this is where the real money comes from. According to Tom, he used his experience with Optionetics to turn his pattern-seeking algorithm into a software that predicts great times to buy and sell stocks. Subscribers of the Fast Fortune Club will get email and text alerts whenever the software finds stocks that are about to see major movement. The alerts will tell you which stock you should immediately invest in or sell before it’s too late.

Money Rush Bonus Recommendations

Aside from the recommendations you see in the newsletter, Tom also gives out two bonus recommendations per month. According to Tom, these bonus recommendations are a great way to make money fast, as these can shoot up to 1000% in the next few days after the recommendation is made. Tom is bold enough to say that these recommendations can give you profits in a matter of hours.

Costs and Refunds

Currently, the Fast Fortune Club has two types of membership: you can go with a standard package that grants you a 1-year subscription, or you can upgrade to a 2-year subscription, which will also give you additional benefits.

The standard package costs $39 a year and you can get the following benefits:

• The Fast Fortune Club monthly newsletter
• Bonus monthly recommendations
• Tom’s weekly Money Hour Calls
• Text and Email Alerts
• Fast Fortune Network membership
• New market analysis videos every month

The 2-year membership costs $69, which means you can save $9 if you go for the upgraded package instead of the standard one. With this 2-year subscription, you get all the benefits of the standard package plus three extra e-book reports valued at $99 each (their valuation, of course):

• The Speculator's Dream: 3 Ultra Microcurrency Trades You Can Buy for Under 40 Cents
• The "Secret" Way to Profit on Bitcoin's Massive Success
• 10 Short Squeeze Stocks That Could Be the Next GameStop

60-Day Money-Back Guarantee

The Fast Fortune Club has a 60-Day Money-Back Guarantee that allows you to try the program risk-free for 2 months. For people who have no prior knowledge about trading in cryptocurrencies, this is a great way to test the waters and learning about the trade. Two months is enough time to go over the recommendations, take the crash courses and educate yourself about cryptocurrency trading.

Having a 60-Day Money-Back Guarantee is nice, and is a sign that the people behind it are confident in the legitimacy and success of their program. This guarantee is also great at convincing people to take a leap of faith since they can cancel and get their money back if it does not work out for them.

There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind. After scouring the Internet for reviews, we have found several cases of non-issuance of refunds against Money Map Press. Based on reviews, it looks like the company is slow when it comes to canceling subscriptions and issuing refunds. If you find that the Fast Fortune Club isn’t for you, don’t wait until the end of your 60-day period to cancel your subscription.

Also, remember that the money-back guarantee is only for your subscription to the program. To many, $39 and $69 is not a big deal. However, if the recommendations given by the program don’t work for you and you suffer a huge loss because of it, that is money that you can’t get back. Money-back guarantees can lull you into a false sense of security because you think you won’t be taking any risk. Don’t forget that the risk isn’t even in the money you give to the program, but the money you invest based on the program’s recommendations.

Pros vs. Cons

Pros

• Tom Gentile is legit. No matter what you say about the program, you can’t discount the fact that Tom really is an expert trader. 30 years is no joke, and he does have a plethora of trading knowledge that he shares with subscribers.
• Provides Cryptocurrency knowledge. Tom knows that follow-through investment advisory services often attract people with no trading experience and knowledge whatsoever. One of the best things about the program is that it does not only give you recommendations, it also includes crash courses, classes, and training calls on cryptocurrency trading.
• 60-day money-back guarantee. This gives subscribers plenty of time to debate the pros and cons of the program and to see if the recommendations will deliver as promised.

Cons

• Over-the-top marketing. As a rule, I do not like financial services that make outlandish promises with little to no effort. The biggest selling point of the Fast Fortune Club is that subscribers can get weekly payouts of over $2,000, and they only need to spend 10 minutes’ worth of effort on the program per day. They aren’t shy about this claim, and this isn't the first time they've done this. Money Map Press and Tom Gentile have made outlandish claims before, with his Daily Flash Cash program promising subscribers over $4,000 earning potential daily.
• Delayed refund process. Based on several reviews we’ve gathered around the Internet, Money Map Press doesn’t have a good reputation when it comes to issuing refunds, with some ex-subscribers going as far as to seek the help of agencies like the Better Business Bureau just to get their refunds.
• No proven track record. For a program that promises quick riches with little to no effort, we can’t find actual success stories with documented proof. Yes, the website itself has a lot of testimonials from people claiming that the newsletter’s recommendations worked for them, but we couldn’t find a single detailed testimonial, that goes into detail about what they invested in and how much they made because of it.