The easiest fake brokers to catch invent everything. The hardest clone everything: real company name, real licence number, a website copied page-for-page from a regulated firm. Every fact checks out — because the facts belong to someone else.
How clone operations work
- Pick a genuinely licensed firm, ideally mid-sized with limited public profile.
- Register a lookalike domain: an added word (“-global”, “-markets”), a swapped TLD, a single-letter change.
- Mirror the real site. Quote the real licence number. Sometimes list the real office address.
- Advertise. When victims verify the licence, the regulator’s register confirms it — for the real firm the clone is wearing.
Our registry holds numerous such records — see the Clone Finalto Markets case file for a textbook example flagged by upstream investigators.
The one check clones cannot survive
Compare the domain, not the name. Regulator registers list each firm’s official website and contact details. If the register says examplebroker.com and you are on examplebroker-global.co, stop — whatever the site says, you are not dealing with the licensed entity. Regulators also publish explicit clone warnings; search the register’s alert list for the name.
Also worth suspicion
- Contact only via WhatsApp/Telegram while the “real” firm lists office phone lines.
- Payment to personal accounts, third-party companies, or crypto addresses — regulated firms take payment in their own name.
- Urgency. Licensed brokers do not chase deposits with countdown timers.
Check the exact name and domain against the registry, and if you have already paid a clone, report it and consult the SARFund case registry — clone victims often discover an investigation is already open.
before you go
Two free checks that take one minute
1 — Run the broker’s name through the Veribeacon registry (9,000+ reported operators on file). 2 — If you’ve already sent money, check whether the case is under investigation at the SARFund case registry — the escalation body for verified fraud reports. Veribeacon never asks you to pay.
keep reading
Verify & report — official resources
- FCA Financial Services Register and FCA warning list (UK)
- NFA BASIC and FBI IC3 / FTC ReportFraud (US)
- Action Fraud (UK) · Scamwatch (AU) · CySEC register (EU)
- SARFund case registry — the escalation body for verified fraud reports · check any broker free