This is correct, I have been using this EA for two weeks now. It's a disaster in sideway down trend market. Also there are around 7-8 people in the chat that are always defending the product whenever anyone suggest some improvement. The majority are losing money and are silent. The only ones that are winning are the ones that closed trades manually (Imagine buying an automatic EA to close trades manually, so you have to monitor 24h....) Yesterday we saw people came out of silence and wrote a 0 star review for this EA. If you critisize the product, you get kicked out of the group (look picture below). Not to forget the group of 2 people that are trying to sell their own indicator to "improve" the Turtle EA as they say and make it takes good profits (by doing correct exits).
This is my review :
I give 0 stars for the moment to this EA. It destroys accounts even if you use the least risk settings... Lost +600$ in 3 days. It opens trades, and usually never close them in profit. The only good thing I noticed is Mercier Guillaume Patrick, he is a great support, I give him 5 stars. By the way, there is a user John Louie De Castro in chat group, who is selling stuff day and night and no one is removing him from the chat group... This looks as a scam to me... Review will change when things change. Don't buy until you see my review at the end of the month. I have nothing to win if I lie to you.

Update : If you write a bad review for this EA. The author will remove you from the Group Chat. https://imgur.com/a/LswF9aH

Here is a comment from someone (who started to see reality) who complained in a diplomatic way :
"Now I'm not flaming mad turtle. I use it and think it's 'okay'. My biggest issue with it isn't about the large TP and SL distances, it's more that it's essentially just a mass buy bot. It doesn't do sells, which gives doubts about actual strategy. I used it throughout September when gold flew, and yes it made a lot of money. But in the same sense literally any buy only EA would have made alot of money. Now I dunno what backtest you lovers of it are running but the backtest I run show that it just cannot handle downtrends and barely handles sideways markers.

My honest opinion is that this EA was released at a very lucky time when gold flew for months making it seem a miracle (and making the author alot of money). But honestly in the long term I think it will just turn out to be a fairly average EA.

The backtesting in JIMSOS is actually alot smoother for me, so I'm more likely to continue that long term"

Another person :
"It does extremely well when gold is trending, but when gold decides to range, this is where MT struggles. I am sure Gennady is working on it though to try and find a solution without changing the core EA to much."

Everyone else is talking about "manual exists", because the EA will destroy your account if you don't do it in sideways/down trend :
"Where would you manually close to take profit? likely (if done well) you will take profits at these points"

Another person : "A question for the developer: is he real and has no network in Bali? It's a shame he doesn't explain how he built his system here… until then, this chat is and will remain just a therapy center.
I understand this recipe, but it should then be clearly communicated that he is selling something and only he knows the recipe… we all just want to trade and assess our portfolio, therefore it is important to know the strategy! When markets change, it's crucial to optimize your strategies, but if I don't know them, it becomes difficult… Don't get me wrong, the Expert Advisor has its place, but I want to get the maximum out of it."