Lesson 6 / 7
Staying safe
The trading world has more predators than most beginners expect. Learn to verify a license in two minutes and to smell the classic scams before they cost you.
- ReadHow to verify a broker's licence (and spot clone scams)→
- ReadDeposits and withdrawals: funding your account and getting money out→
Quick check
1 / 2Two questions — get them right and the lesson is done.
A broker 'guarantees 20% monthly returns'. That's…
About this lesson
The trading industry attracts fraud because deposits are easy to take and hard to claw back. The scams are well documented and repetitive: brokers with no named regulator, deposit bonuses that lock withdrawals behind impossible trading volumes, account managers who offer to trade on your behalf, clone websites imitating established brands, and the classic demand for a tax or clearance fee before a withdrawal will be released.
Verification is the antidote and it is genuinely quick. Take the licence number from the broker's site and look it up on the regulator's own register — the FCA, ASIC, CySEC, FSCA and others all publish searchable public databases, and they also publish warning lists of clone firms and unauthorised operators. If the number does not appear, or the entity name does not match, that is the entire answer. No promised return justifies skipping the check.
Key takeaways
- Look up the licence number on the regulator's own register, not the broker's website.
- Bonuses that lock withdrawals behind volume requirements are traps.
- Nobody legitimate asks for a fee before releasing your withdrawal.
- Regulators publish clone-firm warning lists — check them if a brand looks familiar.