Check the domain, not the design
- Look up the registration date with a public WHOIS lookup. A platform claiming years of history on a domain registered last month is misrepresenting itself.
- Read the address character by character. Substituted letters, extra hyphens and unusual endings are used to imitate a known brand.
- Check whether the same page text appears on other domains — copied sites are usually deployed in batches.
Check the company behind it
A UK firm should name its registered company and number, and that record should be searchable on the Companies House register with a matching name and address. Check the FCA register and Warning List for anything presented as a regulated investment. A named company you cannot find anywhere official is a clear signal to stop.
Check how withdrawals are described
- Any requirement to pay a fee, tax or deposit before a withdrawal is released is not a legitimate arrangement.
- Minimum balances or trade volumes that must be reached before funds can be taken out are a common control mechanism.
- Rising displayed profits that cannot be withdrawn are simply numbers on a page.
Check how they contact you
Consider how the approach reached you. Unsolicited contact through a dating app, a group chat, or a message that opened as a wrong number is the most common route into this kind of fraud. A named account manager who moves the conversation to a private messaging app, and who applies time pressure, is following a script rather than serving you.
Check the claims
- Guaranteed or fixed daily returns do not exist in any legitimate market.
- Testimonials with stock photography and no verifiable source are generated, not collected.
- Certificates, licences and audit documents shown as images should be verified with the issuing body directly, never through a link the site provides.
If you have already deposited
Stop paying, preserve the record — transaction IDs, addresses, chat logs and screenshots — and report it. Our guide on the first steps after sending cryptocurrency to a fraudster sets out the order to work through.
If you are looking at your own case rather than reading generally, our cryptocurrency investigation service explains how a case is scoped and worked, the asset tracing hub covers the network-specific work, and our overview of cryptocurrency scam recovery in the UK sets out what is realistic. Asset pages: USDT tracing, Bitcoin tracing and Ethereum tracing. You can also contact the investigations team directly.
Common questions
- Does an HTTPS padlock mean a site is genuine?
- No. Certificates are free and automatic. The padlock confirms the connection is encrypted, nothing about who is running the site.
- Are app store listings a reliable signal?
- Not by themselves. Fraudulent apps do get published, and many of these platforms are web apps installed through a link rather than a store.
- The site let me withdraw a small amount. Is it genuine?
- Not necessarily. A small early withdrawal is frequently allowed to build confidence before a larger deposit is encouraged.
Have a case you want reviewed?
We scope at intake and tell you honestly whether the onchain data supports a traceable case.