Editorial charter
Investigation Methodology
Every case file on this site is built from the same rules. This page documents them so readers — and regulators, journalists, or operators who disagree with a verdict — can see exactly what evidence was used and how the status was decided.
Zero Trust Vetting Protocol
No platform is assumed legitimate. Positive signals (polished branding, testimonials, influencer promotion, volume of Google ads) are explicitly excluded from the verdict calculation — the industry has proven all four are trivially purchased. Only the following disqualify or qualify a platform:
- Custody: does the user retain custody, or does capital sit in an operator-controlled wallet?
- Withdrawal rights: can the user withdraw without surprise fees, tax gates, or liquidity locks?
- Cryptographic / regulatory proof: is there an audit trail, read-only API, or regulated counterparty?
- Ownership disclosure: is the operator named, reachable, and regulator-clean?
Source Hierarchy
Evidence is weighted by tier. A Tier 1 source alone can move a case to Blacklisted. Tier 2 and Tier 3 sources corroborate each other but do not override a Tier 1 absence — they push a case to Under Review, not Blacklisted.
Tier 1 — Regulatory primary sources
- UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Warning List
- US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) RED List
- Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) Investor Warnings
- Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) MoneySmart list
- BaFin (Germany) unauthorised-firm notices
- Companies House filings (for UK entity / officer history)
Tier 2 — Public victim evidence
- Reddit threads in r/scams, r/CryptoCurrency, r/Forex where the named domain appears
- ScamAdviser + Trustpilot (used as signal, not proof — both are gameable)
- Archive.org snapshots of landing pages, fee pages, withdrawal T&Cs
- Public on-chain transactions tied to the withdrawal wallet (where known)
Tier 3 — First-party intake
- Scam reports submitted via /report-a-scam
- Project self-submissions via /submit-a-project (treated with Zero Trust — no free pass)
- Scam-alert list signups (used for dedup, not for verdict)
Verdict Rules
Three statuses exist. They are not marketing labels. They are conclusions tied to the source hierarchy above.
Blacklisted
Platform appears on a Tier 1 regulator's warning list, OR two or more Tier 2/3 sources document withdrawal obstruction, forged performance dashboards, or clone-firm behaviour.
Under Review
At least two distinct reporter emails flag the same domain via intake, but no Tier 1 warning exists yet. The case page publishes only the verifiable claims. The dedup threshold of two distinct emails exists to filter malicious competitor submissions and bot spam.
Verified
Operator has submitted, and public evidence confirms, all four: (1) non-custodial execution or read-only API access, (2) withdrawal rights not gated by surprise fees, (3) transparent fee and drawdown disclosure, (4) identifiable ownership with a clean regulator record. 'Verified' is a process label, not a guarantee.
Dedup & Intake Integrity
A single scam report does not produce a public case page. The system requires two distinct reporter emails flagging the same domain before the Under Review queue surfaces it publicly. This threshold exists for two reasons:
- Competitor sabotage — a single operator cannot frame a rival with one submission.
- Bot spam — automated form submissions collapse into a single email identity at the dedup layer.
Published cases are further cross-referenced against the Blacklisted and Verified directories to avoid double counting.
Update Cadence & Freshness
Case files are re-checked whenever a new Tier 1 warning lands on a matching domain, whenever a new intake report arrives, or at least monthly. The “Last updated” stamp on each hub and status directory derives from the most recent update of any member case.
Disagree with a verdict or have evidence that should change one? See the corrections policy. Every assertion on this site has a public source; if a source is wrong, the case is wrong, and the case gets corrected.