This article may cost us clients. We are writing it anyway, because the people who run these checks and then choose us are far better clients than the people who do not run them at all. Every test below can be done in an afternoon, before you part with anything.
1. Where does the money actually sit?
This is the single most important question, and it separates most of the industry in one move.
Good answer: "In a trading account you open yourself, in your own name, with a broker. We receive permission to place trades and nothing else."
Bad answer: "Transfer to our account / our wallet / our pool and we will trade it for you."
The second structure means your money is gone the moment you send it, and you are relying entirely on their honesty and solvency. No track record compensates for that. If the answer is anything other than "your own account", the rest of the checks are academic.
2. Can they withdraw your money?
Even where the account is in your name, ask precisely which credentials they hold. A trading password lets them place trades. A master or withdrawal password lets them move your money. You should only ever hand over trading access, and you should be able to revoke it yourself by changing the password.
3. Can you verify performance, or only view it?
Screenshots are worthless. A PDF is worthless. A spreadsheet is worthless. All three can be produced in minutes by anyone with a laptop.
What is not worthless:
- A read-only (investor) login to a live account, so you can inspect every trade yourself inside MetaTrader.
- A third-party verified track record — Myfxbook or FX Blue connected directly to the account, updating automatically.
- Statements issued by the broker, not by the provider.
If somebody will not give you any of these three, ask yourself why. The answer is almost always that the numbers cannot survive inspection.
4. Do they guarantee returns?
Nobody can guarantee a trading return. Not a bank, not a hedge fund, not the best quantitative team on earth. Markets do not offer guarantees, so anyone who does is either misinformed or lying — and both are reasons to leave.
What an honest provider gives you instead is a range, drawn from actual results, alongside an explanation of what makes a month land at the top or the bottom of it. If you are shown a fixed monthly percentage presented as certain, treat the entire proposition as unsafe.
5. Will they show you their bad months?
Every strategy has losing periods. Every single one. A track record showing only gains is either very short, carefully cropped, or invented.
Ask directly: "What was your worst month, and what happened?" A real operator answers immediately and specifically, because they have lived through it and have a considered explanation. Hesitation here tells you everything.
6. What happens if you want out?
Look for lock-in periods, notice requirements and exit fees. There is no legitimate operational reason to trap a client's capital in a strategy that trades liquid instruments. Lock-ins exist to stop withdrawals during bad periods — which is precisely when you would most want the freedom to leave.
7. Is there a real risk disclosure?
Any serious financial operation publishes one, links it prominently, and writes it in language you can follow. If the risk disclosure is missing, buried, or copy-pasted boilerplate that does not describe the actual strategy, that tells you how much thought has gone into protecting you.
8. Who are you actually dealing with?
Can you find a name? An address? Can you call someone and get a person? Can you visit? Anonymity is common in this industry and it is a deliberate choice — it makes disappearing easy. You do not need a skyscraper, but you do need to know who is on the other side.
9. Does the strategy explanation survive a follow-up question?
Ask them to explain how the strategy makes money. Then ask one follow-up: "What market condition makes this stop working?"
Anyone who genuinely runs a strategy knows its weakness intimately and will tell you plainly. People reselling something they do not understand will deflect, talk about AI, or tell you it always works. "It always works" is not a strategy description. It is a red flag.
A note for readers in India
If you are an Indian resident, there is an additional layer to check that has nothing to do with the provider's honesty. The Reserve Bank of India maintains an Alert List of entities not authorised to deal in foreign exchange under FEMA, and there are restrictions on how residents may trade foreign exchange and on remitting funds abroad for margin trading. Check the current RBI guidance and, if you are investing meaningful money, take an hour of a qualified professional's time before you start. This applies whoever you are dealing with, including us.
Run these on us
We publish read-only logins to our own live accounts, our partner codes so you can verify them with the broker directly, our full risk disclosure, our worst months alongside the good ones, and a phone number that a person answers. We have no lock-in and we never touch your money.
If another provider answers these nine questions better than we do, go with them. We mean that.