I have promoted Chris Johnston here and on Roubini’s blog for several months now. I still hold his trading ability in high esteem. However, I need to make others aware of potential problems with the way he sets up his billing with PayPal. He told me that our quarterly fee of $225 will *not* auto-renew, but it does. PayPal verified that my second quarterly payment was made to him, without my knowledge, because he sets up his system to auto-renew. According to the PayPal representative, I was about to have another quarterly payment withdrawn from my PayPal account on November 15. She said, “He’s got you set up to have another $225 taken from your account on November 15.” Chris says I am the only customer to have had this happen, and that he does not auto-renew. However, his website does state, “Note: Your subscription will automatically renew at the rates stated above unless you cancel prior to the end of the billing period.” PayPal’s manager said the biller has to set it up as one-time or auto-renew. PayPal does not on their own initiate a charge. So my quarterly auto-renew was set up this way by his company. I wanted so badly to believe Chris over PayPal, that I argued with the higher level manager over 5 minutes. He told me to read the biller’s website, and that’s when I went back to Chris’ site and found that he does state there that the payment will auot-renew. I had told him in August I didn’t want to renew, so the charge made to me was an unpleasant surprise. He said he would issue me a refund, and I believe he will.
The good news is that his trading account in his bond futures, the service for which I subscribed, is doing very well. I think you will have good returns with him if you sign up, but just beware of the way the billing works. If you ever want to cancel, you’ve got to call PayPal to stop the automatic withdrawal that occurs every 3 months.
