Account management fraud: “let me trade your account”

• “You keep control, the account stays in your name” sounds like safety. A password is control.
• “No profit, no fee” sounds like shared risk. It is the opposite: the manager shares in gains only.
• The record shown is a selection: one good account among many, or an image that has been edited.
• The first weeks may really be profitable. High risk produces spectacular gains about as often as spectacular losses.

• A stranger, or an online acquaintance, asking for the password to a trading account, or for remote access.
• A share of profits with no share of losses and no way to hold the manager to account.
• No authorisation: in most countries, managing other people’s money for pay requires a licence, and a licensed manager can be found on a register.
• A record that cannot be verified independently and in full.
• A request that the fee be paid separately, in crypto-assets or to a private account.

One sign alone proves nothing, and a fraud may show none of them at first. The Check this offer list puts fourteen such questions side by side.

• Change the account’s password at once and tell the firm that holds the account that someone else has had access to it. If the same password is used anywhere else, change it there too.

1. 01Stop paying. Send nothing more, whatever the reason given: a tax, a fee, a deposit to “unlock” the account, a charge to recover what was lost. A further payment is the usual next step of the fraud.
2. 02Stop the conversation. There is no need to explain, argue or warn. Do not delete it, either: it is a record.
3. 03Keep records. Messages, names and numbers used, the addresses of websites, payment receipts, account and wallet details, screenshots of anything that might disappear. Note the dates.
4. 04Tell your bank or payment provider at once. Use a number you find yourself, on a card or a statement, not one from a message. Say it is fraud. Time matters, and they will say what they can and cannot do.
5. 05Report it to the authority in your country. That is usually the police or a national fraud-reporting service, and the financial regulator. A report helps others even where it does not help you.
6. 06Secure what was shared. Change passwords that were given out or reused, remove any remote-access software that was installed, and tell the provider of any account or card whose details were passed on.
7. 07Expect a second approach. People who have lost money are contacted again, by “recovery agents”, “lawyers” and “officials” who ask for a fee first. See the page on recovery-room fraud.
8. 08Tell someone you trust. These frauds are built by people who do it for a living, and they work on careful, intelligent people. Silence helps only the fraudster.

Nobody can promise that money lost to fraud will come back. Sometimes some of it does; often it does not. Anyone who guarantees a recovery, or asks to be paid first, is describing another fraud.

Regulators publish free warning lists and registers of authorised firms; this site lists several under Nice & Need: stay safe. To check an address that claims to be this site, use Verify a GIO4X link.

Is it safe to let someone trade my account if it stays in my name?

The name on the account decides who bears the losses. The password decides who can act. Handing over the second while keeping the first leaves all of the risk with the account holder.

Is a profit-share arrangement fair if I pay nothing on a loss?

It gives the manager a share in every gain and no part in any loss, so the manager is better off the more risk is taken with your money. Regulated managers also charge performance fees, but under rules, with a contract, and with a regulator to complain to.

Are managed accounts and copy trading always scams?

No. Authorised firms offer both, under rules about who may manage money and what must be disclosed. The fraud is the unlicensed stranger, the handed-over password and the record that cannot be checked.