The answer is quite simple (or at least it should be for a trader )

There is a market, and a demand for such EA's, and if there's a demand, someone will satisfy that demand.

The perfect example of that is the Steintz thread. The guy publishes FULL details of his method. Anyone who took a couple of hours to watch the indicator could see it was a complete non starter. He provided all anyone would ever need to determine for themselves that the method wouldn't work, and yet people still purchased. There are a group of people who would rather believe the hype from a salesman, than their own objective analysis. If you look at this from a wider perspective, thats good, the salesman gets to make a living, rather than being a burden on society, and the market gets some cannon fodder.

You ask why should the buyer lose money. Well they hold the weakest hand, they contribute nothing to the process. At least the coder has a skill, which they used to create a product however poor in quality. If someone is stupid or naive enough to purchase a poor quality product, thats their problem isn't it.

Similarly weak hands entering the market can really only expect one outcome, stronger players will beat them. I cant see anything at all wrong with that, no ones trying to pretend its any other way. If I'm dumb enough to get into a boxing ring with Mike Tyson, chances are I'll get my ass kicked.

If you don't like being ripped off by coders, learn to code for yourself, or go to a decent company. In my experience its very rarely the coders who are to blame, clients simply cannot express their requirements clearly and completely. As a coder, you just cant afford to waste time on people who cant think clearly, you have to cut your losses quickly and move onto the next job.

Some profitable money managers have good EA's but they never sell them

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Zupcon

In you world a conman selling and making a living would be acceptable.You would rather have a village witchdoctor selling medicine which results in villagers dying from the medicine and villages getting extinct.The crooked witchdoctor should make a living by deceiving people.


Equally you would rather see scammers selling snake oil and making a living ,by deceitful marketing and thieving

Thats your world not mine

OILFXPRO

Well of course outright theft isn't acceptable. The problem comes down to marketing, anyone selling a product will always want to show the product in its best possible light, and there'll always be some discrepancy between whats promised, and whats delivered.

The line gets crossed when people deliberately set out to deceive, altering statements, over optimization of back tests etc, that clearly is not acceptable.

I've never sold an EA, and I probably never will, but I have been in the position where an EA performs well in back and forward tests (and at times simply due to good luck rather than sound design) only to fail in the longer term.

If I chose to sell that EA, on the basis of perfectly valid back and forward tests, in the real belief that the EA was a sound strategy, would that make me a con man ?

The programmer of this EA is being investigated for spamming and harassment by sending out multiple emails. He also sends out emails to check out his system on a demo through a MT4 program which one actually can't verify. Way too many complaints against this programmer. I highly recommend that everyone stay away from this scammer.

I think he already been banned here. I did notice he is quite active on other forums. Anyway thanks for the information.