There is a lot that is very sketchy about Kourtland Kardashian (as he calls himself; his real name appears to be Kourtland Wissler). He has over 5 times the followers of Tim Sykes on Twitter (438,000 versus 84,000) despite his website CenterlineTrades.com being registered only in 2015 while Tim has been blogging / selling his services for 7 years and has been on TV numerous times. This makes me think that Kourtland bought followers in order to appear more popular than he is. Kourtland has also been accused of plagiarizing someone else’s work and then selling that material on Udemy.
@KourtlandK Please remove my pricing course that you’re selling on Udemy without my permission. Thanks.
— Nick Kolenda (@NickKolenda) June 8, 2015
@NickKolenda Is this your course on http://t.co/pDIqh1F8IR? https://t.co/0vaUiSh8LS — Electric Automation (@eAutomation) June 6, 2015
Kourtland also makes some pretty implausible claims, such as turning $4000 into $25 million:
or being called “the best technical analyst in wall street [sic] history” by Forbes (this is from his Udemy page):
(Update 2016-6-16: I blocked the profile images in the two screenshots above (from Twitter and Udemy) — even though I believe they were clearly fair use — because I received a DMCA takedown request from Kourtland Wissler. So if you want to know what he looks like, you’ll have to see Kourtland Wissler’s mugshot.)
Kourtland has two other courses on Udemy besides the allegedly plagiarized course. His courses are generally positively reviewed but the tone of the positive reviews and the distribution of scores of the reviews (all the positive reviews are 5 stars and mention no negatives) makes me think that most if not all of the positive reviews are fake. Here are all the reviews of one course:
And here are the most recent reviews and the distribution of reviews on his other trading course (which appears to be identical to the first one):
While the large number of glowing 5-star reviews on his Udemy courses makes me think that they are fake, he also has some testimonials on his website. I have no proof that those testimonials are fake but the images for most of them are taken from random places on the internet — only one of the testimonial photos appears to come from an actual person that is said to have written the testimonial.
The first testimonial is from “Doug Smith” aka smiling black guy with nice teeth:
Take a look at the reverse image search results on Google below: it appears Doug Smith also goes by the name of Brian Smith and is a satisfied patient of many dentists.
In fact, Doug Smith is a stock photo:
Is there a real Doug Smith who wrote that testimonial? Maybe. But if he is real, why post a stock photo?
The second testimonial is from Rafe Jamison, aka hot guy with dog:
As with Doug Smith, it turns out that the photo is not of the testimonial writer but rather a photo of a model taken from The Daily Telegraph:
Again, this is not proof that the testimonial is fake but it doesn’t inspire confidence.
The third testimonial, from Perry R, actually appears to have a photo of Perry R, who exists on LinkedIn at least:
The fourth testimonial, from Sarah Kemp, appears to be another stock photo:
The fifth testimonial, from Scotty Arlie, SEO Guru at Bright Street, not only appears to show a photo that appears many other places on the internet but also purports to be written by an SEO (search engine optimization) expert that cannot be found via Google search. So if he is an actual SEO Guru he must be the most incompetent one in the world.
Below are the results of my Google searches for “Scotty Arlie” and ‘”Bright Street” SEO’:
From these searches, I conclude with high confidence that Scotty Arlie is not an SEO guru. And if the description of his job and company are false then I can conclude with moderately high confidence that he doesn’t exist and that the testimonial is therefore fake.
Disclaimer: I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above. Some of the information in this post was first mentioned online by a now-suspended Twitter user known as @IRSReporter; I will not link to his account because he posts lots of misleading things as well as occasionally interesting information. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.
Michael, why are you not crediting the guy on twitter who initially outed this fraud Kourtland Wissler? The name of the account who initially broke the story is [redacted]. Very poor taste to not credit the guy- you would certainly not be writing about Kourtland Wissler if it wasn’t for [redacted] and you know it! Just because you think he’s a troll doesn’t give you the right to steal from him. Haven’t you ever heard of something called journalistic integrity?
I do credit him, in the disclaimer. But I refuse to link to someone who posts such blatantly dumb and misleading things as he often posts.
I find it amusing the person who wrote this article and those responding believe published financial and investing techniques, and related information is unique. Investing and financial markets have been around since the 1500’s. How many different techniques are there? You buy low and sell high, it does not get much easier than that. The lucky part is guessing the lows and highs, that is all it is, a guess. Sure, some people get lucky, like I did when I first bought Cracker Barrel years ago. I was lucky and picked that one. No one can create financial education material and call it their own, like I mentioned, investing has been around since the 1500’s. It is impossible to not plagiarize financial and investing techniques. All you can do is add or remove a few words. There are thousands of material out there day, all saying the same thing. I challenge anyone to develop an “intermediate accounting” course and not have it read just like the hundreds of textbooks on the market today. All you would do is use the same material and change a few words and call it your own. This is not creating a novel or developing a new fictional story no one has never heard. Really, everyone thinks this material is “new” to the market?
Here is some real news. North Korea just launched a nuclear missile and it is going straight up your butt hole.
Here is some real news. North Korea just launched a nuclear missile and it is going straight up your butt hole.
I’ll keep this relatively anonymous but I met kourtland before he claimed to be a millionaire on his Twitter. We talked stocks but the way I met him he was boasting certain stocks on forums that were actually bad stocks. If you want my opinion, he manipulated people then he probably is now… And I promise the above information is true.
The truth about him is that he is actually facing criminal charges in Milwaukee County in Wisconsin for two counts of third degree sexual assault, bail jumping, intimidating a victim/dissuading a witness, and resisting or obstructing an officer. In these case files which you can freely access on WI CCAP you can see that he was listed as “indigent” and appointed an attorney.
It must be noted all charges were either found not guilty or dropped. The fraudulent charges became very apparent by a jury of his peers. Unfortunately in Wisconsin you cannot counter sue someone for bringing fraudulent charges against another. The jury and judges saw right thru these charges and seemed annoyed by having to sit thru the bull shit testimony. Needless to say the verdict came back very quick. There were pictures and videos that contradicted the alledged victim’s testimony. If you do not believe this help yourself to the actual court documents. This is another example of abuse by the legal and court system.
FYI, here are two court cases against a Kourtland Wissler in Wisconsin Circuit Court. I am not sure that this is the same person but I will try to verify that.
https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetails.do;jsessionid=ABA68B9B4355CAE09E749739D323CAD4.render6?caseNo=2015CF000980&countyNo=40&cacheId=16FCCBE3061E01261333E011906A6277&recordCount=2&offset=0&mode=details&submit=View+Case+Details
https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetails.do;jsessionid=ABA68B9B4355CAE09E749739D323CAD4.render6?caseNo=2014CF003898&countyNo=40&cacheId=16FCCBE3061E01261333E011906A6277&recordCount=2&offset=1&mode=details&submit=View+Case+Details
It must be noted all charges were either found not guilty or dropped. The fraudulent charges became very apparent by a jury of his peers. Unfortunately in Wisconsin you cannot counter sue someone for bringing fraudulent charges against another. The jury and judges saw right thru these charges and seemed annoyed by having to sit thru the bull shit testimony. Needless to say the verdict came back very quick. There were pictures and videos that contradicted the alledged victim’s testimony. If you do not believe this help yourself to the actual court documents. This is another example of abuse by the legal and court system.
He truly is the scum of the earth
They are the same person. He is still waiting trial, but he has been charged with two counts of sexual assault, aka rape, and intimidation of the victim as well as bail jumping.
Kourtland Wissler has been acquitted of the two counts of sexual assault: “Found Not Guilty at Jury Trial”
per https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetails.do;jsessionid=2F3E39654FC5F94861F569A28DC2B99C.render6?caseNo=2014CF003898&countyNo=40&cacheId=16FCCBE3061E01261333E011906A6277&recordCount=2&offset=1&mode=details&submit=View+Case+Details
Kourtland Wissler has been acquitted of the two charges of sexual assault.
“Found Not Guilty at Jury Trial”
per https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetails.do;jsessionid=2F3E39654FC5F94861F569A28DC2B99C.render6?caseNo=2014CF003898&countyNo=40&cacheId=16FCCBE3061E01261333E011906A6277&recordCount=2&offset=1&mode=details&submit=View+Case+Details
The charges of bail jumping and victim intimidation have been dropped: “Defendant has been acquited [sic] of charges in underlying case 14CF3898. On State’s motion, Court orders case DISMISSED without prejudice.”
Per https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetails.do;jsessionid=ABA68B9B4355CAE09E749739D323CAD4.render6?caseNo=2015CF000980&countyNo=40&cacheId=16FCCBE3061E01261333E011906A6277&recordCount=2&offset=0&mode=details&submit=View+Case+Details
It must be noted all charges were either found not guilty or dropped. The fraudulent charges became very apparent by a jury of his peers. Unfortunately in Wisconsin you cannot counter sue someone for bringing fraudulent charges against another. The jury and judges saw right thru these charges and seemed annoyed by having to sit thru the bull shit testimony. Needless to say the verdict came back very quick. There were pictures and videos that contradicted the alledged victim’s testimony. If you do not believe this help yourself to the actual court documents. This is another example of abuse by the legal and court system.
This is Kourtland Wissler responding to this bogus article written by the creepy Michael Goode. I don’t even know this guy or ever talked to him prior to him spending hours writing this article on me. I don’t even know where to start. First of all this was a word press template I bought for my website and I was filling in a sample sales funnel for my website. That page was never an actual live sales page. The Udemy course I created had the same title as the other guy but all the material was different and my own. I can’t believe a supposed millionaire would spend time writing about a guy he barely knows. It seems like Michael Goode isn’t truly happy with his life so he has to bring others down to make himself feel better. I couldn’t imagine all the negative energy around this clown. I would sue this guy in federal court but it’s not worth my time or energy and apparently he has a lot of free time and would enjoy it.
You need paxil and a therapist enjoys a challenge….
The Udemy course you were selling online was not your own. It wasn’t a matter of a similar title; the materials were clearly plagiarized.
I find it amusing the person who wrote this article and those responding believe published financial and investing techniques, and related information is unique. Investing and financial markets have been around since the 1500’s. How many different techniques are there? You buy low and sell high, it does not get much easier than that. The lucky part is guessing the lows and highs, that is all it is, a guess. Sure, some people get lucky, like I did when I first bought Cracker Barrel years ago. I was lucky and picked that one. No one can create financial education material and call it their own, like I mentioned, investing has been around since the 1500’s. It is impossible to not plagiarize financial and investing techniques. All you can do is add or remove a few words. There are thousands of material out there day, all saying the same thing. I challenge anyone to develop an “intermediate accounting” course and not have it read just like the hundreds of textbooks on the market today. All you would do is use the same material and change a few words and call it your own. This is not creating a novel or developing a new fictional story no one has never heard. Really, everyone thinks this material is “new” to the market? Get a clue.
I find it amusing the person who wrote this article and those responding believe published financial and investing techniques, and related information is unique. Investing and financial markets have been around since the 1500’s. How many different techniques are there? You buy low and sell high, it does not get much easier than that. The lucky part is guessing the lows and highs, that is all it is, a guess. Sure, some people get lucky, like I did when I first bought Cracker Barrel years ago. I was lucky and picked that one. No one can create financial education material and call it their own, like I mentioned, investing has been around since the 1500’s. It is impossible to not plagiarize financial and investing techniques. All you can do is add or remove a few words. There are thousands of material out there day, all saying the same thing. I challenge anyone to develop an “intermediate accounting” course and not have it read just like the hundreds of textbooks on the market today. All you would do is use the same material and change a few words and call it your own. This is not creating a novel or developing a new fictional story no one has never heard. Really, everyone thinks this material is “new” to the market?
Based on the above I hope you keep this content out here. I am seeking defamation attorneys to review this content and decide if legal action is warranted. I am tired of internet trolls seeking attention and trying to find fault in others. Michael Goode, be on the lookout for a subpoena for your personal records. Others chiming in on this article will be next. My services are provided for a fee of the legal judgment. This one seems ripe and ready for the picking to me.
LOL
It appears the following addresses belong to you. These were located using public information.
Business
2285 S Michigan Rd
Eaton Rapids, MI 48827
Personal
7805 15 1/2 Mile Rd
Marshall, MI 49068-9243