A friend of mine once forwarded me a link with a single line: “Is this legit? They’re offering a Gold account.” The site looked expensive. Dark background, glowing candlesticks, a ladder of account tiers from Bronze to Diamond, a promise of a personal account manager and a “Legacy portfolio” available by invitation only. It took about ten minutes to work out that the company behind it didn’t exist anywhere outside its own website.
Fake brokers are not clumsy anymore. They buy polished templates, copy legal text from real firms and answer the phone faster than your bank does. The good news is that they still trip over the same handful of checks, and none of those checks requires any trading experience.
Start with the licence, not the website
Every legitimate broker that offers forex, CFDs or crypto derivatives to retail clients is supervised by a financial regulator somewhere. The website will usually mention a licence number in the footer. Don’t trust the number itself — trust the regulator’s own register.
- In the United States, check the firm on Investor.gov and, for forex and futures, the NFA’s BASIC database.
- In the UK, search the FCA Financial Services Register and its warning list of unauthorised firms.
- In the EU, look up the national regulator (BaFin, AMF, CySEC and so on) of the country the broker claims to be based in.
Two things to look for: the company name and the website address. Scammers love to borrow the licence of a real firm with a similar name. If the register lists a different domain, you are looking at a clone.
The pitch tells you more than the design
Real brokers make money from spreads, commissions and financing fees, so they want you to trade. Fake ones make money from your deposit, so they want you to send more. Once you notice that difference, the sales language gives itself away.
| What you hear | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| “Upgrade to Gold and your account manager will trade for you” | Tiers exist to push bigger deposits, not better service |
| “Guaranteed returns” or “insurance on every trade” | No regulated broker can promise either |
| “We need a withdrawal fee before releasing your profits” | The profits are numbers on a screen; the fee is real money |
| “Install this app so we can help you set up” | Remote-access software gives them control of your computer |
Pay attention to how leverage is described, too. A broker that offers 1:500 to a beginner without asking a single question about experience is not being generous. If you are unsure what those ratios do to an account, our explainer on leverage, margin calls and stop out levels walks through the arithmetic.
Test the withdrawal early
If you have already opened an account somewhere and feel uneasy, request a small withdrawal before you do anything else. A legitimate firm processes it to the original payment method within a few business days, maybe with an identity check. A fake one suddenly discovers taxes, verification fees or a “minimum trading volume” you never agreed to.
The moment a company asks you to pay money in order to receive money, stop sending anything.
Crypto adds its own twists
Crypto scams lean on the fact that blockchain transfers can’t be reversed. Be wary of any platform that only accepts deposits in crypto, sends you to a wallet address over chat, or shows balances that grow suspiciously smoothly. Keeping your own coins in a wallet you control removes a whole class of these risks — see hot wallets versus cold wallets for the options.
If it has already happened
Contact your bank or card issuer straight away; card payments can sometimes be disputed. Save every email, chat log and transaction ID. Report the firm to your national regulator and to the police, and be very careful with “recovery services” that contact you afterwards — they are often run by the same people.
None of this means trading is a trap. It means the first trade you should make is a ten-minute background check. If you are just starting out, the digital currencies section is a calmer place to learn the basics before any money moves.
