Before you invest.
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Someone is offering you a trading app, a crypto coin, a forex course, a “signals” group, a loan or a better pension. Check it here before any money moves.
The short answer. No checklist can show that an offer is safe. Paste an advert or a message and this page points out the tricks financial regulators warn about, such as guaranteed returns, fees to withdraw your own money and requests for a seed phrase. It links to your country's official register of firms. It is general information and not financial advice.
was reported lost to investment fraud in the United States in 2025. People aged 60 and over reported losing $7.7 billion to online fraud of all kinds.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 report. Read the report
What you type here stays on this phone or computer. There is no sign-up, and nothing is saved. Turn the internet off and this page still works. This page helps you spot warning signs. It is not financial advice, and no checker can tell you an investment is safe.
Check an offer.
Paste the advert, the website text, the WhatsApp or Telegram message, or what someone told you on a call. Take out passwords, codes and account numbers first.
One question to ask yourself: what happens if I wait a week? A real opportunity is still there after you have checked it. A scam depends on you not waiting.
Check who is behind it.
In most countries, anyone who offers investments, trading, crypto services or loans must be registered with the financial regulator. Look the firm up yourself, on the regulator’s own website.
When you find the firm on the register
- Make sure the name matches exactly. Scammers copy the name of a real registered firm and change one small thing, such as the phone number, the website or the email address.
- Contact the firm only using the phone number and website shown on the register, never the ones in the advert or message. If they say the register’s details are “out of date”, treat that as a warning.
- Check the registration covers what they are selling you. A firm registered for one service may not be allowed to offer another.
- Search the regulator’s warning list for the name and the website address too.
- Being registered does not mean an investment cannot lose money. It means there is a real firm you can complain about, and some protection if it breaks the rules.
What leverage really costs.
Leverage lets you trade with more money than you put in. Your profits grow, and your losses grow by exactly the same amount. Forex, CFDs and many crypto apps offer it.
This is simple arithmetic. Real losses can be larger, because of fees, overnight charges and prices that jump past your stop. In the European Union, the regulator found that 74% to 89% of ordinary people’s accounts lose money trading CFDs, and firms there must show their own figure on their website (European Securities and Markets Authority, 2018).
What fees really cost.
Ask for every cost in writing: the spread (the gap between the buying and selling price), commission, platform or management fees, overnight charges, currency conversion, and fees to withdraw or close the account. “No commission” does not mean no cost.
Keep your accounts safe.
Never give anyone
- Your seed phrase or recovery phrase (the 12 or 24 words for a crypto wallet) or your private key. Whoever has them owns the wallet. No real exchange, wallet company or support person will ever ask for them.
- A code sent to your phone. It is the key to your account.
- Control of your screen. Do not install AnyDesk, TeamViewer or any screen-sharing app for someone offering to help you invest. Your bank or broker will never need to see your screen.
- Your trading or banking password, even to a “manager” who says they will trade for you.
Before you connect or approve anything
- “Connect your wallet” to claim a free airdrop or giveaway can give a website permission to empty it. Only connect to sites you reached yourself, and remove permissions you do not recognise in your wallet’s settings.
- Check every character of a wallet address before sending. Scammers send tiny amounts from look-alike addresses so that you copy the wrong one from your history.
- If a trading bot or app asks for an application programming interface key (a password that lets software trade for you), create one that can trade but cannot withdraw money, and delete it when you stop using the app.
- Messages from “exchange support” on social media or WhatsApp are not real support. Use the help section inside the official app.
Use a different password for each money account, turn on two-step sign-in, type the address of your broker or bank yourself instead of tapping links, and switch on alerts for every payment and sign-in.
If money has already gone.
Do not send any more money. Not for “tax”, not for a “withdrawal fee”, not to “unlock” your account and not to a company that offers to get your money back. Every one of those requests is part of the scam.
- Today: phone your bank on the number on the back of your card or in its app. Tell them it was a scam, and ask them to stop and dispute the payments. If you paid by card or bank transfer, the sooner you call, the better the chance.
- Keep everything. Screenshots of the website, the app, the messages and the profits it showed you. Usernames, phone numbers, website addresses, wallet addresses and transaction identity documents. Do this before you delete anything.
- Change your passwords on your email, bank and any account you shared, and remove any screen-sharing app you were told to install.
- Report it to the police and to your financial regulator. The regulator links are on the “Check who is behind it” page.
- Tell someone you trust. Scammers often come back, pretending to be a lawyer, a regulator or a “recovery” company. A second person makes that much harder.
Recovery scams: a caller or advert says they can get your lost money back if you pay a fee first, often calling it tax or legal costs. Regulators warn that this is a second scam aimed at people who have already lost money. Real regulators never ask you to pay them.